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Introduction: Sports in the Contemporary World
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14904 |
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INTRODUCTION
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10 / 1988 |
758 Words |
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The quadrennial renewal of the Olympic Games--this time in Seoul, Korea--is a reminder that the bond between sports and society is hardly a modern phenomenon. The athletes of ancient Greece were celebrated in sculpture and song along with the gods and heroes. They were extended great honors by the aristocracy as well as by the common people. As such, the ancient Olympic Games were at once religious festivals and political events of the greatest importance.
Recent anthropological studies of tribal people and small-scale societies have shown that ancient Greece was not alone in its reverence and enthusiasm for play and games. Physical anthropologists have shown that the impulse to play is biologically inherited and that play is a characteristic behavior of the entire class of mammals. Cultural anthropologists have demonstrated the close connections between forms of play and such serious cultural activities as child rearing and religious ritual. Taking both approaches together, these studies of human play offer surprising insights into the biological and historical origins of personal and social existence.
These anthropological studies of human play have been extended and refined, and have been applied to contemporary life by scholars in a number of other academic disciplines. Literary and philosophical studies of word play show how the human world is shaped and reshaped by the diversity of language games that constitute human discourse. Science and history, no less than wit and humor, are verbal ways of viewing and changing the world. Psychological and sociological studies of formalized games reveal the pedagogical and socializing value of play among children and adults. Law and custom, no less than hopscotch and football, are institutionalized channels for the expression of communal life and for the resolution of societal conflict. Historical and philosophical studies of symbolic forms unmask the creative and destructive powers of the human imagination. Morality and religion, no less than drama and art, are imaginative ways of expressing and inspiring pervasive values and attitudes. Indeed, these wide-ranging studies suggest that the forms of play specific to each society serve as a key to the character of the society.
If the forms of play in our society reveal the character of our society, then we are in for a few surprises. Certainly the dominant form of play in North America, if not in every other modernized nation of the world, is sports. Sports stars are national heroes. There is something about sports, whether organized or recreational, whether professional or amateur, that transcends the
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