Dombrowski's Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals

I am currently working my way through Daniel Dombrowski's recent book, Contemporary Athletics and Ancient Greek Ideals (U Chicago Pr 2009).  I have finished his chapter on Weiss and am now reading the chapter on Huizinga.  His other major chapter discusses Feezell.  I would be interested in hearing what others have to say about the book, either here or off-blog.  thanks.
Jim

Should we watch football?

Article in yesterday's NY Times asking that question:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/weekinreview/24sokolove.html

An excerpt:

There are some who believe that taking physical risks in pursuit of a communal goal — and even watching people take risks — has its benefits. “We learn from dangerous activities,” said W. David Solomon, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame and director of its Center for Ethics and Culture. “In life, there are clearly focused goals, with real threats. The best games mirror that. We don’t need to feel bad about not turning away from a game in which serious injuries occur. There are worse things about me than that I enjoy a game that has violence in it. I don’t celebrate injuries or hope for them to happen. That would be a different issue. That’s moral perversion.”

Sean D. Kelly, the chairman of Harvard’s philosophy department, has a book coming out in January, co-authored with the philosopher Hubert Dreyfus of the University of California, Berkeley, that argues for the value of sports in a secular society. “You can experience a kind of spontaneous joy in watching someone perform an extraordinary athletic feat,” he said when we talked last week. “It’s life-affirming. It can expand our sense of what individuals are capable of.”

He believes that it is fine to watch football as long as the gravest injuries are a “side effect” of the game, rather than essential to whatever is good about the game and worth watching.

But what if that’s not the case? What if the brain injuries are so endemic — so resistant to changes in the rules and improvements in equipment — that the more we learn the more menacing the sport will seem? Where will football, and its fans, go from there?

CFP: Football (Soccer) in the Middle East

A call for proposals has gone out for contributions to a special journal issue, and a separate book, on Football (Soccer) in the Middle East. For details, see: http://h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=178323&keyword=middle&keyword=east

Is Cheerleading a Sport?

In an editorial called "Stuff your pompoms. This isn't sport." British columnist Victoria Coren weighs in on the "is cheer leading a sport?' debate. I like a lot what Coren has to say about feminism. When asked if she was a feminist Coren replied "My first, instinctive reply had taken the question to mean: "Do you believe in equal pay, equal rights and social freedom for all?", but, in 2010, that is surely just another way of asking: "Are you normal or a moron?" But I'm less takem by what she has to say about cheerleaders: "They aren't doing sport. They are waggling their arses near boys who are doing sport." I don't think Coren has watched much modern cheerleading. It looks pretty athletic to me.

Here's a clip from the Rick Mercer Report on the cheerleadering team from The University of Western Ontario. I'm not weighing in on complicated issues regarding funding and equal access for women's sports but the debate can't be solved simply by throwing up your hands and saying the equivalent of "I know sport when I see it and that isn't it." While I do wish that in Western's case the men's and women's uniforms were either equally skimpy or equally not, modern cheerleading is co-ed and VERY athletic.

Why Winning Matters

My very short paper on this topic is now available at Think: Philosophy for Everyone (http://bit.ly/ck7IX3).

Against Extending the NFL Season

Jeff Pearlman rightly criticizes the NFL's possible expansion of the regular season to 18 games. I, along with Pearlman, have a very difficult time seeing how this will benefit the players, all things considered.

Ben Cousins went too far, but...

Ben Cousins was a great athlete, and a great AFL footballer. He is also a drug addict. Michael Burke has offered insightful commentary on the AFL’s illicit (read recreational) drug policy, and the anomalies of Cousins’ case, but he stops short of asking questions relating to illicit drug use and its actual connection to the nature and image of a sport. Phrases such as ‘role model’ and ‘good of the game’ feature prominently in these types of discussions, but I cannot seem to get over the idea that at base, it’s nobody’s goddamn business what substances a person puts into his or her body. Obviously, if those substances are performance enhancing, or said person is acting like a jackass in public (and Cousins’ antics at the back end of a five day coke bender at the Crown casino certainly qualifies here) or is a danger to others, then we have a problem. But if an athlete’s private activities do not affect performance, team morale, little Johnnie’s love of footy or ticket sales at next week’s Grand Final, why the hell are we testing him? So that he doesn’t ‘destroy himself’? One should take that type of paternalism to their regional gymnastics competitions where young girls are missing their periods, popping shoulders and snapping Achilles tendons like they’re chewing gum. “Oh”, comes the mutter in between mouthfuls of prawn sandwich, “the game suffers.” What? A set of rules and conventions concerning an oval ball suffers because of what Ben Cousins puts up his nose? I think what that really means is that some sacred cow - some false idol – suffers. And it suffers because of what all us ‘fans’ invest in it. ‘The game’ means ‘My Game’. And not only do we sanctify the game, but our worship of it gives birth to monsters. Our obsessions breed unbalanced demigods, born without moral compasses, as deficient in common sense as they are blessed with athletic genius. Their ambrosia, it seems, is served in a poisoned chalice. For those of you with a sense of hmour keen for a look into the belly of the beast, I recommend the Real Tiger Woods Apology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpue5lHjEQ0 WARNING: Don’t watch if easily offended.