There’s been a discussion at World in Common on sport. (See latest.) It started with someone enthusing about football, hence the subject ‘Better than sex’. I caught up with this at some point, and here is the dialogue that developed between Rebecca and myself. And there's more between others.

17/11/05

Hi sports enthusiasts, ‘Better than sex’ – you’ve got to be kidding! (Hope I’m not too late to put in my ha’pence worth on this one; saw the postings but other priorities…) I’m suspicious of this ‘anthropological roots’ stuff. In my SPGB days, I remember one comrade who use to ask, plaintively, ‘Will there be sport under socialism?’ because the received wisdom in the Party – which I still agree with – is that sport in capitalist society is ideologically motivated: it’s to teach people from earliest youth that it’s good and healthy to be competitive, to look up to and cheer winners (regardless of the naffness of their ‘skill’), and despise and boo losers, rather than value everyone’s contributions and cooperate. So when we’ve moved on to a ‘to each… and from each…’ society, there will be no sport – and I, for one, can hardly wait. love, Chris

Rebecca replied:

Hey All,

Sports doesn’t have to be about aggressively competing against one and another in a winner/loser fashion. It can involve a win/win situation, with sports being about the sheer fun of playing the game-personal enjoyment, competing against oneself, from a desire for the physical exercise, etc.

I don’t see any reason why sports has to be carried on with the capitalist twist/spin put on it in a socialist society.

Maybe we could go back to our childhoods—back in the day when we were taught ‘it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.’ When we were taught that we played these games for the love of the game, to learn team-work, to develop our physical attributes, etc. rather than to get a scholarship, earn a large income, sell tee-shirts in the parking lots, get to be a company sponsor, and to gain social cheers and recognition if you’re on the winner’s side!

Cheers, Rebecca

To which I responded:

Hi Rebecca,

You misunderstand what I said & what goes on; it’s much more subtle and deep than ‘aggressively competing against one and another in a winner/loser fashion’, it’s the ‘sheer fun’, ‘how you play the game’ etc. stuff that’s so insidious and hard to see through. I remember at my 5yearold daughter’s birthday party many years ago organising games where the winners got small prizes & triumphed mightily while losers had sulks, weepies or tantrums, despite my efforts to make sure everyone got to win some time. I only realised afterwards that I’d been indoctrinating the little dears, and/or - perhaps worse still - reinforcing what they’d already learnt (or maybe it’s in the genes and needs careful discouragement). It’s not the sport as such, it’s the way the ‘obviously’ good fun and healthy sporty ‘thing’ excuses - ideologically: it really does! - so much else in the system. It makes it OK (at a subconscious, because learnt so early on, level) that poor people and countries are poor, that rich people are rich: ‘good for them, it’s fine as long as there’s equality of opportunity’. The discussions socialists engage in often home in on religious belief; it’s more important, I think, for us to question belief in sport, and all the excuses made for it, like: it must be fine because there are paralympics, how else can black boys escape Harlem etc. except via the boxing club? and hooray, Prince Whatsit is president of ‘football for all kids’, isn’t that great! I’d like to see them all gardening.

love, Chris

Rebecca sent back this:

Hey Chris;

You say it’s the sheer fun of playing a game and how you play the game that is so insidious and hard to see through...

Try this thought experiment:

Imagine a game where there were no prizes to be had, no real group goal to achieve, no winning, no scoring points against another or the other team in an effort to beat them, no winning. Imagine a game where the only object was to have fun or the only purpose for playing was to get in a some healthy exercise.

Imagine a game, much like basketball, where one played until one got tired, or just for the fun or physical exercise, or to improve upon and better develop one’s personal ability.

A game where the purpose is not to slam dunk, swoosh, score points, dribble and pass well or run fast in an effort to win by beating out another. No economic gain, or public fame.

A game where the aim and purpose of playing is to have fun and possibly to get in some healthy exercise or to develop one’s personal skills.

You know that there are people who are better than you at making the ball go swoosh through the net, that there are people much faster than you and can pass the ball much better than you. You know that there are people playing this game that are much better at slam dunking than you are, but you also know that these aren’t the purposes of the game, nor the reasons why you’re playing it. You, and everyone else, understand that the only purpose of playing this game is for the enjoyment, or for the physical exercise, or for the personal improvement of your own abilities. You know that there’s no set goal to beat and win out over another.

That’s how I believe sports would be played in a socialist society. And I don’t think we need to place a capitalist spin on it. I don’t think we need to add those, as you say, insidious, aspects to our playing sports. I know it is extremely hard to think outside of the box we live in. We are so ingrained with our present cultural thinking habits and behaviors that it is difficult to imagine a sport being played outside of a win/lose situation. A win/lose where there is a gain to be had by reaching certain different goals, rather than just for the purpose of personal aims and enjoyment. I was lucky enough to have a mother who truly understood what it meant to play the game for the sheer fun of it, and taught me that; ‘it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game’. I believe the proper understanding of ‘how’ and ‘why’ you play a game are the most important regards to consider when thinking of sports in a socialist society. And I don’t see any reason not to play sports, or to eliminate them then. All we have to do is change the purpose of, and reasons for, playing.

Cheers, Rebecca

To which I replied:

Hi Rebecca, I pondered your ‘thought experiment’ and I still long for the day socialism comes and there’s no more sport. This discussion reminds me of the answer the SPGB used to give (maybe still do) to one of the FAQs: the one about ‘you cannot have people helping themselves because they’d all want Porsches – or whatever was the drooled-over vehicle then.’ The response was: those sort of feelings will be temporary; once the materialistic, keeping-up-with, showing off, mindset of capitalism had lost its meaning and purpose, people won’t want those sort of possessions. I think the same thing applies to sport. Once we have socialism, what we now call ‘work’ will be fulfilling, and we won’t need separate games and fun and healthy exercise, but get complete satisfaction from doing a variety of productive tasks together. Whilst I welcome discussions about what socialism may be like, I do think the point of this discussion is to bring out the role of sport in capitalism. Socialists are upfront about condemning nationalism and religion, seeing them as part of divide and rule; sport does the same job, I believe, and many/most? socialists fail to challenge it, being indoctrinated ourselves. love, Chris

Torgun joined in too (not in sequence) 18/11/2005

Chris

I agree with a lot of what you say about how sport is used in capitalism.

And yet... If we get socialism, will there be no competition of any sort?

Quite a few men (and some women?) would quite clearly like to see such games as football, rugby and cricket carrying on in socialism. These games are ‘bad’ now because there is the jingoistic and racist elements mixed in with them, particularly football - witness the ugly racist attacks some footballers have had on the pitch, or the brawling football fans with the Cross of St. George painted across their faces. Footballers, like army people, also seem to live in an extremely sexist atmosphere. How many times have we seen accounts of rape by footballers, or wife beatings reported in the papers.

This is the kind of logic I think is being applied by some football fans to enhance their status:

Our team, England, won. The English are therefore are the best in the world. I am English, I am therefore one of the best in the world.

I am sure this is the sort of crazy, simplistic logic that is being used. As a football fan, you can be the most idiotic, illiterate, Sun-reading unfit coach potato there is, but you still think this mad logic works for you and increases your status several levels - at least for a while.

So then, in Socialism, will people be just able to enjoy the game and the skill (for skill there undoubtedly is) - with all this nastiness removed? It seems unlikely at the moment, but perhaps it is possible?

I think there will be competition in socialism. People will want to display what they are good at for approval by society - whether this is constructing beautiful, useful buildings; composing wonderful music; being good at physical pursuits... I think this is natural and nothing to worry about.

A more interesting question is whether males will still compete for females - I firmly believe humans do, like many other animals. I think men have to work harder than women to be sexually and reproductively successful.

Torgun

2/12/05
Hi All,

I have been bemused by how hard comrades are trying to justify sport, playing the game, competition (for mates), football etc., wanting and insisting that these must continue into socialism. For me this shows how deep the indoctrination goes, which is sad, disturbing and depressing, since it augers badly for any real progress towards socialism. People get drawn into this ideology as they learn to speak, as their brains develop, and certain words acquire positive connotations which become – it seems – impossible to shift. Take the words ‘game’ and ‘play’. They suggest diverting activity with no useful purpose, harmless and enjoyable, a ‘good’ thing, in contrast to ‘work’, which is only notionally productive, more a tiresome necessity, to get money, which is entitlement to survival and time off to play, so work is something one does because one has to but would rather not. The presumption that all those archetypal primitive tribes played and partied (and competed for mates) is dragged out by socialists to show that the split between work and play is inevitable (as is competition) – in our genes, or deeply ingrained or whatever. But never mind all that, look at what this language renders acceptable. A recent example appeared in yesterday’s Guardian: http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?search=%27toy+soldiers%27 . If ‘play’ and ‘game’ did not have deeply rooted positive connotations, they would not get away with this.

love, Chris