Repugnant Sports

 

In the past posts, there have been discussions on defining and classifying sports. There has been an attempt to quench the curiosity of what constitutes and what does not. Sports going through various definition autotelic and is an activity that warrants sufficient seriousness in its engagement at the professional level. There certainly exists an element of competition and of course physicality though there is a subset of what are called mind-sports. It is moot whether these mindsports constitute sports in itself or otherwise. There is of course a requirement by some scholars that sports need institutionalization and be stable over a considerable period of time. Given many sports are games, they are expected to demonstrate characteristics of gameness. There certainly would be constitutive rules and space which is autonomous of the real world. While there are some activities which fit into sports very easily, there are others which perhaps are borderline. There are some others which are disputed given the lack of physicality or gameness of competition etc. In this context, trying to fulfil all criteria for a particular sport might prove to be onerous task. It’s natural there would be cases that would be at the fringe and disputed.

 

In the context, it begs to be discussed on the role of what are called blood sports. Hemmingway once called bull fighting as one of the three sports, the others being mountaineering and motor racing. Hunting too has been regarded as a sport even up to recent times. The Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) among its criteria for deciding on the classification of sport or otherwise, has one rule which states, the sport must not be harmful to living beings. Incidentally, for long the sport of practical shooting was denied membership of GAISF ostensibly due to it promoting violent streaks. It used to use humanoid targets for its competitors. While practical shooting has discontinued such practices long back, the perception still remains strong. One of the reasons that goes against e-sports being adopted in the Olympic family rests on its alleged promotion of violence. While sports like practical shooting may use symbolic elements, e-sports might be performatives of war games etc. Yet, there is a kind of a clamor against these sports. Another example that can be cited is rodeo. Despite the use of trained horses, there is a belief that the game is cruel to the animals. This is one reason over its lack of acceptance in the mainstream. There are on the other hand, sports which are explicitly violent.

 

Hunting has been regarded as a sport by the elite for centuries. Even to the present day, there are hunting clubs that do organize hunting events across Britain for instance. There is widespread demand for ban on events like fox hunting yet there is a deep political divide that exists over these issues. Hunting continues to be legal in some African countries. Similarly, in many countries there are events for baiting. Animals like badgers or bears are used for baiting. Dogs are the ones usually left to attack these animals. These might be gory yet have spectators who enjoy this. Countries in Central Asia still have these sports. These were once very popular in the US and even in Europe. There were activities like animal tossing. In this case, the people would jump on a see saw which would propel the animal placed on the other see-saw and there were bets on which animals achieved the highest height or so. In China and few South East Asian countries, there are events like cock-fighting or even cricket fighting. These might not be human sports but involve animals in fighting. There is a strong culture of bull fighting not just in Spain but in countries like Mexico or Chile which were Spanish colonies once upon a time. Similar human fights existed with alligators or other wild animals something seen in gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome.

 

Many of these activities are described these days as blood sports. There is of course a dispute whether they should be considered sports. When one examines the nature of the defining sports, many of these activities do fit in the definition. There is bull fighting which certainly has its own set of rules, exhibits gameness and has physicality and is autotelic with institutionalization of its own. Hunting too has its own characteristics and legacy. It does entail high degree of physicality while manifesting gameness. The other blood sports might have been banned but there does exist an event or two that happen illegally. When these events or activities demonstrate the characteristics of sports, it merits an answer to the possibility of eliminating or including these under the sports umbrella. Towards thus one needs to calibrate the current debate on the sport.

 

In this context, it would be worth to take refuge from the concepts of markets as envisaged in economics. Market is exchange of goods between the buyer and the seller. Some would question whether organ trading or prostitution would fall into this category. Towards resolving this question, economists came with the concept of repugnant markets. Repugnant markets are those where exchange of goods and services does happen but it is something morally abhorring. Markets are something to be viewed in its form rather than examining the ethical dimensions behind it. They are markets which of course fail the test of morals and ethics. Similarly, one needs to borrow this concept into sports. Therefore, one can arrive at the concept of repugnant sports to describe these activities. They are sports nevertheless. They fit into characterization of sports. They meet the criteria set by different scholars in defining sports. They are autotelic, they do warrant serious engagement, there is physicality, there exists a morally, temporally and spatial autonomy in very high degree. There are institutions that do govern or run these activities. Many are stable for centuries. In this context, from a pure perspective of sports definition, these would have to fit in. yet in the current times, the ethics or the morals would not permit the same. It is abhorring to see perhaps the bull being fought but killed in the end. Hunting is something that is morally repulsive. In this context, the idea of repugnant sports would fit in much better into the scheme of things. Therefore, repugnant sports are those activities that meet the criteria for sports as elucidated by various scholars but fail the test of societal moral and ethics.