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Introduction
In Understanding Power, Noam Chomsky argues sports “occupy the population and keep people from trying to get involved with things that really matter” (99-100). He claims spectator sports allow people to exercise their intelligence in ways they are not always allowed in political and social life. This territory is usually the domain of the ruling elite and wealthy. Also, Chomsky believes sports promote chauvinism. People develop irrational loyalties to sports figures and teams. According to Chomsky, “This sense of irrational loyalty to some sort of meaningless community is training for subordination to power, and for chauvinism. And of course, you’re looking at gladiators, you’re looking at guys who can do things you couldn’t possibly do…” (100). People support athletes because they feel athletes are fighting for their causes. This builds antisocial behavior in the human mind, setting up oppositional relationships that promote scenarios of the good guys versus the bad guys. Sports emphasize and exaggerate this form of thinking. Chomsky argues that this irrational competition and loyalty to power systems promote a value system that is awful. He writes, “In fact, it’s hard to imagine anything that contributes more fundamentally to an authoritarian attitude than this does, in addition to the fact that it just engages a lot of intelligence and keeps people away from other things” (100).
The essay will answer the following research questions:
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How does Chomsky’s argument apply to the modern-day sports?
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How do modern-day sports coincide with the religious practices and values?
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How does sport culture develop authoritarian attitude in sport fans?
Even though nowadays sport has lost its religious connotation, modern-day sports developed their own culture that promotes deep admiration of athletes and sport teams.
Literature Review
According to R. Brasch in How Did Sports Begin? A Look into the Origins of Man at Play, he claims sports started as “a religious cult and a preparation for life” (1). Sports are rooted in man’s need for victory and control over his foes, the unseen and unknown, and nature. The word itself is actually an abbreviation of the word “disport,” meaning a diversion and an amusement. It is derived from the Latin word “des-porto,” which means to carry away. Brasch says, “in our time, millions of people, whether spectators or participants, amateurs or professionals, are carried away by the sport they love from the cares of their daily toil, their anxieties and frustrations, to a world of relaxation and emulation, excitement, and thrill” (11).
Sports are also the result of man’s need to play and create community. Sports help to relieve man’s aggressiveness and frustrations, so he is less inclined to take them out on his peers. Brasch says, “After all, to hit an object was so much better than to hit a friend” (1). Learning to run, jump, and throw are also ways one could protect himself from enemies or dangerous situations. Brasch says, “Sports taught man endurance and courage, essential qualities in a fighter, and man was a fighter from the very beginning” (2).
Brasch explains why the Olympics were created in Ancient Greece. The games were considered a peaceful way of preparing for war and winning the favor of the Gods.
According to one legend, Zeus is the creator of the games. He fought with Cronus, another powerful God, for possession of the Earth. Zeus won. To commemorate and celebrate his victory, Zeus created the Olympic Games. Olympia was chosen as a site of the first recorded games (776 B.C.) because of the “theological, political, and practical reasons” (408). It was a sacred region for the Gods. It was a neutral territory and would not make those from other lands angry. The terrain of the area made it an easy place for large crowds to gather (409).
After almost twelve centuries in existence, the games disappeared with the decline of the Greek Empire by the Romans. Brasch writes, “But it was the new Christian teaching of the sinfulness of the body, and abhorrence of heathen practice, that dealt the death blow to the Games, which were finally banned in A.D. 393 by the Christian emperor, Theodosius I, as “pagan idolatry.” Brasch goes on to note one irony. He says, “Certainly paradoxical is the fact that while one religion gave birth to the Olympic Games, in the name of another they were destroyed” (414). Baron Pierre de Coubertin, was encouraged to revive the games because he thought they promoted goodwill and peace among men.
In Craig A. Forney’s The Holy Trinity of American Sports: Civil Religion in Football, Baseball, and Basketball, he writes, “Historically, sporting games have an intimate relationship with religion” (2). Forney suggests that these sports form a trinity that has a power similar to what we find in religion and it also offers us an illustration and reaffirmation of American beliefs. The rituals associated with sports in America rival those of the holidays. Not only are people enticed to behave in a certain way, but they elevate sports figures and teams to the status of gods. Entire communities support and defend sports teams with a kind of vigilance often associated with religion. In making a comparison between sports and religion, Forney describes the six dimensions of religion. He also asks an important question: Why are other sports not as popular or able to express “elements of the civil religion” like the hold three. Baseball, basketball, and football reaffirm the American belief in way other sports cannot. Forney claims that these three sports express “pivotal elements of ritual, myth, doctrine, ethics, social life and experience” (24).
In the anthology, Leisure: Emergence and Expansion, Hilmi Ibrahim claims that Aristotle was one of our first philosophers of leisure. For Aristotle, the free man’s task is to find out how to use leisure effectively. Leisure is not recreation or something to be done after work to relax. Leisure was for music and contemplation. Ron Mendell and Thomas Kidd in “Sports in America” in Leisure define sports as “competitive participation in games and activities requiring physical skills” (233). They go on to say that Western civilization owes a great deal of its sports heritage to the Greeks. The Romans also participated in spectator sports. Large Roman audiences gathered to watch chariot races, gladiatorial battles, and fights between man and wild beasts. Mendell and Kidd refer to the work of Hilmi Ibrahim to describe the role Roman sports played in society. Ibrahim writes in “Leisure in the Ancient World” that beast-baiting and gladiatorial combats were ways of “controlling the hordes of underemployed and unemployed among the masses of Romans” (74).
Mendell and Kidd claim that England inherited a number of Rome’s sporting activities like beast-baiting. The English went on to create new sports like hunting, horse racing, jousting, and archery…which basically grew out of skills people needed for work and survival. Competition is what likely turned them into sporting activities. Mendell and Kidd write, “The added component of pleasure and competition satisfied human ego and detracted from the tedium and monotony of everyday life (234). When the colonists came to the New World (America), they brought their English sports traditions with them. According to Mendell and Kidd, sports dominated the southern colonies, probably due to the longer periods of agreeable weather. However, there were some who resisted sports and games, claiming that it interfered with the work ethic. Sports were thought to be a waste of leisure time by many religious people.
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Analysis
Since ancient times the role of sports has transformed, growing out of the religious and military historical context and only taking the roles of entertainment for the audience and professional career for the participants. However, as Mendell and Kidd put it, the entertainment quality was always present because it distracted people from the “monotony of everyday life” (234). Modern Olympics have become significantly individualized, developing its own branch of the celebrity culture that exploits sports’ entertaining ability. By expanding Forney’s arguments, people who play sports on a professionals level have to demonstrate their performance not only “on the field” while actively doing sports but also participate in the press conferences and social events, thereby taking the role of an idol. In other words, their job is analyzed and assessed from two perspectives: professional and cultural, making their success depend on their popularity among the audiences. Such an approach is primarily stimulated by the whole sports industry, making enormous profits from the fan base. The sports teams are usually perceived as a group of remarkable individuals who, despite working together, are advertised to the audience separately. For example, before the information age, the player cards used to be popular among sports fans, each card denoting a famous athlete. Therefore, to some extent, celebrity culture in sports coincides with religion because athletes’ personalities are elevated to the status of divine figures.
Modern-day sports reach a new level of chauvinism by creating a whole sports culture around it. According to Brasch, by actively participating in this culture, sports fans escape from the hardships of real life (11). As Chomsky describes it, sports provoke people to develop an attachment to athletes and teams while antagonizing their opponents (100). For example, the recent scandal that happened during the final match on Soccer European Championship between Italian and English demonstrated unacceptable racist behavior from English fans. Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, and Jadon Sancho, three black players from the England team, have missed penalty kicks and were subjected to the targeted racist abuse online (Associated Press). English fans who abused the players were so attached to the victory of England in the championship that they were ready to violently attack anyone who acted against the interests of their team, even their own players. Therefore, Chomsky’s theory about chauvinism in sports has remained true and developed even more. The authoritarian attitude highlights the religious importance of sports in fans’ lives around the world. People become so obsessed with the teams and athletes they support that they put them on a pedestal and act aggressively towards others who do not support their views.
Conclusion
In conclusion, modern-day sports remain one of the most important economic industries globally because it successfully created a culture around them. Sports fans obsess over their favorite athletes and teams, building anti-social behavior through antagonizing the enemy teams. If in ancient times, the players were worshipping gods by participating in the games, now they became “gods” themselves. The celebrity culture has proved itself to be a useful asset in gaining monetary gain, which made sports one of the most profitable fields in the history of humanity.
Works Cited
Associated Press. “Racist Abuse Targets Three English Players In Soccer’s European Championship Finals.” Time, 2021. Web.
Brasch, R. How did Sports Begin? Longman, 1972.
Chomsky, Noam. Understanding Power. Edited by Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel, The New Press, 2002.
Forney, Craig A. The Holy Trinity of American Sports: Civil Religion in Football, Baseball, And Basketball. Mercer UP, 2007.
Kidd, Thomas, and Ron Mendell. Leisure: Emergency and Expansion. Edited by. Hilmi Ibrahim and Jay Shivers. Huang, 1979.
Zacks, John. Happy Life.
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