"… as if to war", Angela Mitropoulos. Overland n.166. (2002)
In one sense—a conspicuous sense—the paradox of sports rhetoric is this: it is perfectly acceptable to applaud sportspeople in terms such as "elite athletes" while, at the same time, designating those who do not applaud as "elitists". Of course, there are slightly different (though not unrelated) meanings for "elite" here: the first indicates "the best at something"; the second suggests "aristocratic" or "exclusive". But what the association of the two makes possible are the self-denials which link sport to populism, where hierarchical outcomes, whether as sporting victories or as social power, are habitually accounted for as the result of something rather mystical called "merit". In both cases, the theory of "the level playing field"—that there is indeed such a thing—becomes the condition of applauding the ranking.
What therefore seems at first glance to be a paradox is instead the means to admit hierarchy while providing explanations for it that place it beyond reproach, or beyond the realm of social relationships and therefore beyond change. In sport, money is not classified as a performance-enhancing substance. It is as if the money which goes to financing coaches, training, proper nutrition, the Australian Institute of Sports, and so on is irrelevant to results, careers, the fate of particular sports, or even whether or not a particular activity is considered to be a proper sport by being included in the schedules of the Olympics. No matter how much obvious effort is put into obtaining money—as well as the disbursement of money by corporate sponsors—the denial of its role remains central to the presentation of sports and the character of the applause. Merit, in sports, is supposed to inhere in the body, 'drug-free' and au naturel. At times, there are references to inheritance, in the form of parental decisions and/or an imputed predestination. But such things are at best occasional remarks set to underscore narratives of lifelong commitment. In any case, populists, far from subscribing to an egalitarian vision of the world, any existent social hierarchy is merely the distilled essence—the crème de la crème—of "the people", which is in turn construed as a biological entity, a family. Having lost any meaningful basis as a critique of the aristocracy, populism becomes restated principally as a doctrine of identity and belonging, where the mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion which constitute "the people" are deemed to be natural, or rather bodily.
It is no coincidence, then, that when sport meets politics on "Australia Day", it is by way of re-asserting these relationships between hierarchy, biology and "the people". In a more emphatic sense, it is about reinserting actual bodies within fictional terrain of "the national body"—I will come back to this. Indeed, what could be more politically pressing than to re-assemble these connections as a benign, indeed sporty affair at a time when not only is there an increasing recognition of a simple but embarrassing historical fact (that this event celebrates the day the English Crown declared its ownership of this continent), but when there are hunger-strikes in the internment camps? No coincidence either that the journalistic clichés run to the familial and therefore biological: 'Pat Rafter is everyone's favourite son,' 'the quintessential Australian boy.' Debate around naming Patrick Rafter as 'Australian of the Year' turned, not at all surprisingly, around whether or not someone who did not live in Australia could be granted the award, whether or not he should be married to have a child, and whether or not he still called Australia home. What was put into question here was less the question of Rafter's tax arrangements, than of the extent and propriety of his national and familial (and distinctly biological) commitments.
What does this mean for not only how we conceive of our bodies, but also what we are prepared to do to them in respect of that fictional body of the nation? Sport has a very particular set of codes about proper and improper violence. Moreover, violence in sport, when it is deemed to be improper is dealt with by various tribunals rather than the courts—much like the military. But sport, unlike soldiering it might be objected, is done for enjoyment, or play.
Nevertheless, someone might play sport, but sport is rarely play. The increasing importance and extent of sport does not indicate any increase in play. On the contrary, it points to the increasing significance of leisure in the context of a shift in the sense and intensity of work. Leisure recalls play, to be sure; but leisure unlike play remains coupled to work. This relationship to work can be immediate, as it is for those who work in the sports industry. For professional athletes, the extent of managerial control over their lives outside of their actual work time is without parallel, bar one: soldiers. On the other hand, as it is for most of us, it is entertainment, leisure. For whatever else sport does for me when I watch tennis or soccer, it is principally as rest and relaxation. To put it more bluntly: it is, like all leisure, the consumption of a more or less packaged enjoyment as a trade-off to laborious or joyless work.
However, what interests me above all is the nature of this enjoyment, which still recalls the classical relationship of sport to war, and thereby of the complex relations between sport, leisure, work and war. One could easily point to the—sometimes anything but symbolic—exuberant warring between national fans. As for sport itself, the terms can be quite explicit. As Mckay notes, 'During the 1996 Australian Open journalists constantly referred to him [Mark Philippousis] in militaristic ways (e.g., "firepower", "major weapon", "sinking his target", "blown away").'
But, right along with an idiom that transforms sport into war and sportspeople into war machinery comes the warlike—and often distinctly passionate—injunction to perform one's national duty. What transforms 'the Scud' into 'the Poo' other than the implication that Philippousis is feigning injury so as to shirk working/warring for the nation in the Davis Cup? What transforms Kathy Freeman from an exceptional runner into an icon for 'reconciliation' other than the suggestion, made with pride rather than embarrassment by some commentators, that she proved to "us" that not all Aborigines are "lazy". For both Freeman and Philippousis, it is not simply that they are accused of being lazy or that anyone is surprised that they are not. Rather, it is that at the edge of belonging, the point at which proof is required, what becomes explicit is that the stereotypes in play are related not to sport per se, but to work. Here, work is no longer just work, however enjoyable or tedious. It is work as a national duty; work for the good of something called "the national economy". And so, the narrative that sport delivers to populism is that by "working hard" you might belong, you might even get rich. Merit can be rewarded. This is why it has become common for populists to defend actual social elites against criticism by accusing the critics of being "elitist". To be "elitist" in this sense is to refute the notion of merit as an explanation for social power and wealth, to disturb the fantasy that one just might, if one "works hard", become powerful and wealthy also. You won't necessarily, but you just might … In the meantime, do your national duty. Go to work as if to war.
