The relationship between sport and competition

‘Competition’ and ‘sport’ are not coextensive terms. On the one

hand, competition can be understood as the wider category,which
suggests that competitive sport represents merely one instantiation of
a basic type of human engagement. In adversarial law,for example,two
advocates are pitted against one another and successful litigation is
measured directly by victories as much as by the achievement of
justice or the determination of truth. Producers compete with one
another for market shares, and there is even something of a contest
between producers and consumers over the terms of their
transactions.
Competitive sport seems to share some features with these
examples, which we might call ‘institutional varieties’ of competition. In
each arena, there is an objective measure of success, a rival to
confront, and an ineluctable logic to the confrontation: the success of
one is, generally speaking, inversely related to the success of
others. One might feel an initial discomfort with this broad
generalization because it appears to blur distinctions that are both
obvious and important. For instance, whereas the institutional varieties
provide structures to resolve some of life’s inevitable and
consequential struggles, competitive sports are generally contrived
affairs that challenge their participants to overcome what Bernard Suits
famously called ‘unnecessary obstacles’ . Indeed, following
Thompson, it is not difficult to conceptualize much of modern life as a
series of oppositional engagements within which we pursue certain
scarce goods, such as power, money,favorable decisions, and
glory.The stakes of the engagements differ, of course, but the logic
and the psychology compare insofar as these structures create spaces
wherein the combatants simply fight it out.

We can employ two strategies to understand the relationship among

the varieties of compe-tition. Competition of any sort, on this view,is
simply regulated warfare.Viewed in this light, there is nothing
particularly glorious or beautiful about what athletes do, even if we
attribute some value to their efforts, nor is there a fundamental
difference between an athlete’s pursuit of glory,an entrepreneur’s
pursuit of money,or a warrior’s pursuit of power.In modern professional
sport we have, of course, ample evidence that argues for this reductive
account. George Orwell gave forceful expression to this
understanding, partly because he feared the political manipulations of
international sport, and partly because he distrusted the root of the
competitive drive animating sporting contests. Sport, he famously
said, is ‘war minus the shooting’ .
Of course, participants in competitive sport strive earnestly for
victory,but the character of the contest and even the diffi-culty of the
struggle are embraced as intrinsic values. In this sense, as I will explain
below,competitive sport enjoys a kind of purity compared with the
institutional varieties, because it need not make reference to, nor justify
itself in terms of, the achievement of anything beyond its own
activity. The institu-tional competitions, by contrast, involve a
competitive element only as a structural mechanism, and their exercise
does not guarantee achievement of the institutional ideals.
Given these two understandings of the relationship among the
varieties – which we might call respectively the ‘war paradigm’ and the
‘sport paradigm’ of competition – this chapter defends the latter.

On the other hand, as we consider the relationship between

competition and sport, we can understand sport to be the wider
term, given that much of what appears to qualify as sport is not
competitive. Even those who intend ultimately to compete will spend a
lot of time in non-competitive exercises. There are countless other
examples, and all would seem to be sporting activities in some
important sense of the word.

It is significant – not to mention troubling – that we often describe

these non-competitive sporting exercises as something we do ‘just for
fun’. This suggests that competition somehow darkens an activity that
was formerly playful, and thereby constricts or perhaps even corrupts
its essential character. There is etymological and historical support for
this understanding. ‘Sport’ derives originally from ‘disport’ , which
means to carry away from or to divert, and therefore connotes a sense
of liberation from the burdens of work and responsibil-ity. Thus
emerges the familiar hybrid we know as competitive sport. The
elements of this new form of life are still distinguishable, but it certainly
seems that competitiveness is the dominant gene. That is, we would
recognize the form even if there were there little or no evidence of the
playful aspect, but we would exclude from this genre any activity that
was not earnestly competitive. Scott Kretchmar distinguishes between
tests and contests, both of which present ‘counterpoint’
challenges, although in logically different ways. A test stands before an
adven-turer as both ‘impregnable’ and ‘vulnerable’; that is, it presents
something difficult but not impossible to do .
This description contains some interesting elements. First, the
contestants share something, which indicates that contesting is at
some level a cooperative venture; and, second, the commitment to
‘better the other’s performance’ trades on a rather fortunate ambiguity
of the phrase insofar as a contestant attempts not only to outdo the
other’s performance but also, in the same effort, quite possibly to
improve the other’s performance. This is a theme that I develop below.
It is evident that the first category is non-compet-itive sport and the
third category is competitive sport; the second category shares some
features with both . As I suggest later in this
chapter, however, competition requires genuine otherness.
Clearly something changes when we decide to keep
score. Typically, we say that the game now ‘counts’ – a remark that
implies both seriousness and quantification – and we are given to
understand that the results will be a matter of public record, now and
forever.

Competition as relationship: Hobbesian and Hegelian understandings

I suggested above that we could understand competitive sport either
as a domestication of warfare, or as the paradigmatic instance that
makes sense of all the other varieties of competi-tion. In philosophical
terms, the first approach derives from Thomas Hobbes, the second
from Georg Hegel. In Leviathan Hobbes lists
competition, diffidence, and glory as the ‘three causes of quarrel’ and
tells us that humans take no pleasure in each other’s company without
a ‘common power to overawe them all’ . Although Hobbes’ thought
exper-iment has proven its value as a foundational political study, this
last point indicates why it serves poorly as a model for competitive
sport, since in sport we do not wish to eliminate our oppo-nent.
As the above suggests, in competitive sport the antagonists are
neither friends nor enemies, although they exhibit characteristics
appropriate to both these interactions. A competitor needs a worthy
opponent; no one else in her circle – not her coach, not her trainer, not
her fans, not the people who love her – can provide her with the
satisfaction that she craves, precisely because they all want her to
win. It is precisely because competitors do not want their opponents to
enjoy the satisfaction of victory that victory,once achieved, is satisfying.
We can approach an understanding of this paradox through the
‘Master and Slave’ section of Hegel’s Phenomenology of
Spirit . According to Hegel, the basic struggle of humankind is not for
physical survival , but rather for acknowledgement or
recognition , which transforms a ‘subjective self-certainty’ into an
objective truth. That is to say,in the dialectical construction of
spirit, self-consciousness requires recog-nition to assure itself of its
own being. Acknowledgement must come from an adequate
other, namely, another self-consciousness engaged in precisely the
same pursuit to assure itself of its own objective truth.
Of course, the next stage in this dialectic will simply reverse the
positions of the two antagonists, as the former slave will domi-nate his
former master but find recognition from the ‘new’ slave to be
inadequate and unsatisfying for precisely the same reasons the first
recognition was inadequate.
The applicability of this paradigm to sport should be
apparent. Hegel’s theory of dialectic provides a structure according to
which we can understand the reciprocally constructive engagement of
competition. Some games, such as soccer or basketball, are structured
in such a way as to permit a series of ‘runs’ of energy and
execution, with one side and then the other gaining an upper
hand. This is a bittersweet moment, even for the victor, because it
signals the end of the contest and might come sooner than satisfaction
requires.
The ascendancy of the dialectic helps explain the fortunate
ambiguity of the word ‘better’ in Kretchmar’s account of contest. The
opponents try to out-perform their adversaries to gain victory,but
because each successive stage of the dialectic presents a new
standard for the infe-rior position to match, the responses must
improve upon what went before. Each side pushes the other to reach
new heights, although the manner in which they push varies according
to the structure of the particular sport, as I explain below.In an
important sense, it is my oppo-nent who improves my competitive
excellence, confidence, and resiliency – all of which are positive or
‘friendly’ effects of the relationship – all while aiming to block and
frustrate my efforts in this regard.
The emphasis on competitive psychology suggests two
considerations. First, one could claim that in competitive sport one
competes ultimately against oneself, that the opponent merely
objectifies the challenge of playing up to one’s full potential. The ‘self-
competition’ approach seems vulnerable to the same criticisms that
Ludwig Wittgenstein identified in his consideration of the possibility of
private language, namely, that one cannot have epistemic certitude
about the comparability of discrete experiences .
Ultimately,the suggestion that all competition is against oneself is a claim about the
ontology of selfhood; it denies the constitutive role that another might play in the
development of the self. By contrast, the present view argues for a relational ontology of
selfhood, well-exemplified by sport: my opponent forces me to find a level of performance
and even a dimension of myself that I did not know was there. Seen in this light, the
competitive relationship reveals itself to be a positive and irreducible good
 Categories of competition and their respective psychologies
Steven Skultety has argued that philosophers of sport typically
emphasize a fairly narrow conception of competitive intention-ality and
then identify events that employ this psychology,which prejudices
what qualifies as competitive sport. Developing a distinction between
perform-ances and games originally introduced by Suits , Skultety
standardized, encumbered competitions, such as bocce ball and
billiards. These are all competitions, argues Skultety, but because they
set different challenges for the participants and comprise different
relationships it only makes sense that they would inspire different
competitive psychologies.
Similarly, the distinction between encumbered and unencumbered
competitions might permit of some discussion. Skultety claims that in
encumbered competitions the oppo-nents ‘affect one another’s
behavior’ and in an unencumbered competition the opponents
‘participate in the event without directly interfering with one
another’ . This example shows how both distinctions – between
standardized and vis-à-vis, and between encumbered and
unencumbered competitions – might be tweaked slightly to explain
specific situations, although this does not detract from their general
explanatory power.

The virtues and vices of competitive sport

It is no secret that many consider competition in all its varieties to be
fundamentally problem-atic, and for a number of reasons: it operates
according to zero-sum logic, in which the success of one participant is
inversely related to the success of others; it seems, for this reason, to
encourage selfishness and aggression, which may spill over into
violence, and it tends to put too much strain on rules, as competitors
look for all possible advantages in the contest, sometimes at the
expense of the regulations. Perhaps there is no solution to this
tendency. In this section I address some concerns about the value of
competition in sport.
An overemphasis on competitive results has a tendency to obscure
other important facets of the event that a more sensitive observer
would appreciate. The epistemological mistake particularly
characterizes partisan watchers of sport, those who are so intensely
invested in the outcome of the event that they fail to acknowledge – or
possibly even notice – the grace and beauty of the action, the various
displays of virtue, the teamwork involved in organized plays, and
countless other details, especially when they issue from the opposing
side. Stephen Mumford draws a contrast between the ‘purist’ and the
‘parti-san’ at a sporting event, and shows how they quite literally ‘see’
different events because they bring different sensitivities to the
contest .

Second, we can consider the problematic character of competitive

sport as a moral issue. Indeed, a plausible argument could be made
that most of the bad effects of sport are caused by an overemphasis on
winning and losing. The rules will then appear to be mere obstacles to
a desired objective, rather than conditions that essentially create a
desirable form of life, and the opponents will likewise seem to be
enemies that need to be vanquished and silenced. These attitudes will
manifest themselves in cheating and a total disregard for the principles
of sportsmanship. Even worse, arguably,is the regard the opponents
develop for one another: any expression of joy by one’s
opponent, particularly at the moment of victory, will offend, and any
opportunity to unnerve or even injure the opponent is taken.

In addition to ugliness within the contest – as if that were not enough –

we can also mention two spillover effects. We often hear defenders of
competitive sport celebrate the edifying effects of the
activity, particularly on youth, but, if sport were driven by misplaced
values, it would hardly surprise us that its effect would be
deleterious. They very often mimic the emotions and attitudes of the
contestants: fans sometimes shout out personal and derisive
comments at members of the other team, cheer injuries to opposing
players, and even engage in violent displays following their teams’
victories and defeats.

I want to suggest that, at least in principle, the problems outlined

above – however paradoxical it might sound – evidence too little
competitiveness rather than too much. Genuine competition is
animated by what Suits calls a ‘lusory attitude’, which is a willingness to
abide by constitutive rules that make the achievement of an ordinary
task unnecessarily difficult. For example, in golf the ‘pre-lusory’ goal is
to place the ball in the hole, but the game specifies the means through
which one can legitimately accomplish this goal and thereby succeed
in golf, which is the ‘lusory’ goal .

Just as one cannot be too courageous, one cannot be too competitive

– although we know,of course, what those descriptions intend to
criticize. Similarly, when people describe someone as ‘too competitive’
they typically describe various personal vices that become manifest in
a competitive context.

The final featured Hungarian Istvan Gulyas and Czech Jan

Kukal. Gulyas could have claimed victory at this point, but instead he
petitioned the umpire to allow his opponent more time. There are a
number of ways of interpreting Gulyas’s gesture. One could debate
precisely how Gulyas’s character was revealed in this incident, but I
would suggest that the primary virtue is competitiveness, which
manifests itself simultaneously as magnanimity and as self-
interest, because that reflects the spirit of the lusory attitude and the
meaning of the competitive relationship.

He defines competition as ‘a mutual quest for excellence’ , which

nicely summarizes the moral appeal of the foregoing:

The key concept in this definition is mutuality,which implies not only

simultaneity but also interactivity and reciprocity.If we employ
Skultety’s categories, we might say that sometimes I pursue
excellence with you , but sometimes I pursue excellence through you .
This still does not completely resolve the issue of zero-sum logic, but it
does mean that our successes are functionally inseparable, even if the
results imperfectly express that.‘Although not all competitors can
win, there is a sense … in which all the competitors in a well-played
contest can meet the challenge and achieve excellence’ . The
outcome of a contest provides one measure of what transpires
between contestants, but other values matter as well, as
Dixon, Delattre, Simon, and others have pointed out. Furthermore, we
must always remem-ber that competitive sport is, for virtually all of its
practitioners, a form of life rather than a single episode. Kretchmar
makes the point well:‘For sportsper-sons, no game is the final
game. No victory or defeat offers a conclusive verdict

Conclusion
Competition is a familiar form of human sociality,and sport is the paradigmatic instantiation. In
competitive sport we deliberately set up encounters that are at once cooperative and antag-
onistic, and that test the human spirit as much as the body. Precisely because the structure is
contrived, the engagement acquires meaning and moral significance; because the opposition is
sincere, the relationship promotes respect and edification. Competitive sport is about nothing
other than competitive sport; in principle, the antagonists seek out the struggle for its own

inherent value and not as a means to any extrinsic reward. As Delattre

says:
But, rightly understood, the competitive dynamic in sport presents an
opportunity for constructive human engagement, for moral aspiration
and moral achievement, and for irreplaceable satisfac-tions.