The Philosophy of Popular Culture

Heather L. Reid, Michael W. Austin, Heather L. Reid, Michael W. Austin

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780813140711
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

It is said the champions of the ancient Olympic Games received a crown of olive leaves, symbolizing a divine blessing from Nike, the winged goddess of victory. While the mythology of the ancient games has come to exemplify the highest political, religious, community, and individual ideals of the time, the modern Olympic Games, by comparison, are widely known as an international, bi-annual sporting event where champions have the potential to earn not only glory for their country, but lucrative endorsement deals and the perks of worldwide fame. The Olympics and Philosophy examines the Olympic Movement from a variety of theoretical perspectives to uncover the connection between athleticism and philosophy for a deeper appreciation of the Olympic Pillars of Sport, Environment, and Culture.

While today's Olympic champions are neither blessed by the gods nor rewarded with wreaths of olive, the original spirit and ancient ideals of the Olympic Movement endure in its modern embodiment. Editors Heather L. Reid and Michael W. Austin have assembled a team of international scholars to explore topics such as the concept of excellence, ethics, doping, gender, and race. Interweaving ancient and modern Olympic traditions, The Olympics and Philosophy considers the philosophical implications of the Games' intersection with historical events and modern controversy in a unique analysis of tradition and the future of the Olympiad.

Part 1

THE IDEAL OLYMPIAN

Michael W. Austin

A GREATNESS OF OLYMPIC PROPORTIONS

What does it mean to be great? For the Olympic athlete, winning a gold medal seems like the most obvious answer. Or perhaps winning numerous gold medals, setting world records, and putting together a long and consistently excellent athletic career are what constitute true greatness. There is no doubt a form of greatness in such achievements, but I believe that a greatness of truly Olympic proportions includes more than mere athletic excellence. The truly great Olympians also display moral excellence. In this chapter I briefly consider Aristotle’s views about moral excellence and then take a look at some examples of Olympic heroes who have done more than win medals—they’ve exhibited moral virtues, changed the world for the better, and inspired others to do the same.

What Is Moral Excellence?

Like most questions in philosophy, there are a variety of answers that have been given to the question “What is moral excellence?” Some philosophers are skeptical about the notion of moral excellence; they argue that human beings should act in ways that serve their self-interest, which they define as the attainment of power, pleasure, and wealth. Many athletes, including Olympic athletes, appear to value these things more than they should. Other philosophers hold the view that moral excellence consists in obeying the moral law. Still others focus on the consequences of our actions.

Aristotle believed that character is the most fundamental thing in ethics, rather than the actions we perform or the consequences of those actions. He argued that we should make neither pleasure nor honor our ultimate aim in life. A life of pleasure is suitable for grazing animals, but not for human beings, who are rational animals. Honor is also not suitable as an ultimate aim in life, in part because we are rightly honored for virtue. Given this, honor is not the highest good in life. Having excellent character is conducive to the highest good in life, namely happiness, which Aristotle defines as human flourishing, fulfillment, and deep well-being, rather than merely getting what one wants or having pleasant mental states. For Aristotle, intellectual and moral virtues are conducive to human fulfillment, whereas intellectual and moral vices tend to prevent such fulfillment from being realized in our lives.

In his writings, Aristotle discusses several individual virtues, including prudence, courage, temperance, generosity, and friendliness. He also describes a different trait that is connected with these virtues—magnanimity.¹ Translators have interpreted this term in many ways. It literally means “great-souledness,” but has also been translated as “pride,” “superiority,” “high-mindedness,” and “dignity.”² Aristotle describes the magnanimous person as someone who thinks that he is worthy of great things, and is in fact worthy of them.³ Those who are magnanimous value themselves properly, according to their actual worth, rather than too much or too little. Magnanimity lies at the midpoint between the vices of pusillanimity (being weak or timid) and vanity. According to Aristotle, “Greatness of soul, then, seems to be a sort of adornment, as it were, of the excellences; for it augments them, and does not occur without them.”⁴ Magnanimity, this greatness of soul, not only requires the presence of all of the other virtues, but also enhances and strengthens those virtues. The magnanimous person excels at all of the virtues. As such, the magnanimous person is the morally excellent person.

Many Olympic athletes aspire to athletic excellence, but the athlete who achieves a greatness of Olympic proportions will also aspire to and exemplify moral excellence. She will be magnanimous, in the best sense of the term. In the remainder of this chapter, though Aristotle might not agree with everything I say about the lives and characters of the Olympians I discuss, I am inspired by his account of virtue and moral excellence.

Many Olympians have given us a glimpse of not only athletic excellence, but moral excellence as well. In this regard, many of my fellow Americans might think of Jesse Owens and his success in the 1936 Berlin Games, or Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists on the medal podium for the sake of justice in the 1968 Mexico City Games, or of the impact of Joan Benoit Samuelson’s Olympic marathon victory in the Los Angeles Games of 1984 on women’s running and women’s sports in general. And of course people from other nations have their own Olympic heroes, such as Great Britain’s Steve Redgrave, Finland’s Paavo Nurmi, Hungary’s Takács Károly, and many others from many other nations. From this group of athletes who have exhibited moral as well as athletic excellence, let’s consider three Olympians who help us see what it is to be an excellent human being. While they have their flaws—which is to be expected of human beings, after all—they nevertheless display marks of moral excellence, of a greatness of character that is worth examining and emulating.

The Flying Redhead

Italian downhill skier Eugenio Monti earned his nickname after winning the Italian slalom and giant slalom races as well as finishing third in the downhill in 1950. What seemed like a very promising future for Monti on the slopes ended with a serious knee injury that ended his skiing career. But Monti’s athletic career was not over. The Flying Redhead would earn six medals over three different Olympic Games, including two golds in his final Olympic competition, not on a pair of skis, but at the helm of a bobsled.

Monti was born in 1928 in Dobbiaco, Italy, and would win silver medals in the two- and four-man bobsled thirty-two years later at the Cortina Games. He proceeded to win the bronze in both events at the Innsbruck Games of 1964, but his crowning achievement came in the 1968 Winter Games held in Grenoble, France. On a mountain made famous by the exploits of Fausto Coppi, Marco Pantini, and Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France—the Alpe d’Huez—Monti flew down the track to win gold in both the two-man and four-man events. It took patience, but at the age of forty, in what he knew would be his last chance to win Olympic gold, Eugenio Monti achieved his goal.⁵

But there is more to the story of this great athlete. Monti was the first recipient of the Pierre de Coubertin medal, which is given by the IOC to the athlete who demonstrates sportsmanship in the Olympic Games. Monti won this medal due to his actions during the 1964 Games, where he won two bronze medals. A British bobsled pair in the 1964 Innsbruck Winter Games benefited from Monti’s sportsmanship when he loaned them an axle for their sled to replace one that was broken. After Nash and Dixon went on to defeat him and win the gold, Monti told the press, “Nash didn’t win because I gave him the bolt. He won because he had the fastest run.”⁶ Because of this unselfish and sportsmanlike act, Eugenio Monti is rightfully recognized on the official website of the Olympic movement not as “The Flying Redhead,” but rather as “The Golden Sportsman.” Not only did he win the gold; he also exemplified the virtue of sportsmanship and the rejection of a win-at-all-costs mentality befitting an Olympic athlete. Monti, like all genuine athletes—those who contend for the prize of victory that signifies their excellence—valued fair play and did not want to achieve victory because of his opponent’s bad luck. Moreover, his actions also exemplify a commitment to truth. If the function of an athletic contest is in part to signify who is the best, then Monti also showed a commitment to truth by not allowing bad luck to play a deciding role in who won. Rather, he allowed the contest to fulfill its function of determining who was in fact the best, at least on that day.

The Golden Sportsman also displayed the virtue of perseverance, switching from skiing to bobsledding after his knee injury. He demonstrated the virtue of patience as he continued to pursue a gold medal, his patience being rewarded with success in his last try at the Olympics. Monti’s sharing of equipment with a competitor who went on to defeat him in the 1964 bobsled race exemplifies his moral excellence, as well as a commitment to the common good, insofar as Monti was upholding some of the central values of the Olympic movement by his sportsmanship. He rejected a win-at-all-costs attitude, demonstrating that some things matter more than winning. This is not only consistent with the principles of the Olympic movement, it is also the right attitude to take toward victory in sport.

While many might be familiar with the slogan “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,” widely attributed to American football coach Vince Lombardi (though not original to him), they might be less familiar with something Lombardi said at the end of his life.⁷ Near the time of his death, Lombardi told a journalist, “I wished I’d never said the thing . . . I meant the effort. I meant having a goal. I sure didn’t mean for people to crush human values and morality.” There is something morally praiseworthy in what Monti did in sharing a bobsled bolt with his competitor, a respect for that opponent and a desire to win based on performance, not equipment failure. Winning matters, but it is not all that matters. Truth, and victory based on excellence, are higher values. And they are values that the morally excellent, or magnanimous, athlete will hold dear. We would need a fuller picture of Monti’s life to determine whether or not he was truly magnanimous, but what we do know shows the kind of commitment to truth and morality that is characteristic of the morally excellent human being.

The Tennessee Tornado

Wilma Rudolph was born in St. Bethlehem, Tennessee, on June 23, 1940, one of her father’s twenty-two children from two marriages. Prematurely born, she weighed only 4.5 pounds, and she suffered from a variety of ailments as a child, including polio, pneumonia, and scarlet fever. Rudolph also had serious problems with her left leg, and at the age of six began using leg braces. Physicians prescribed massage therapy. Through her family administering this therapy, and through her own determination, after five years of treatment she shocked her doctors by removing her leg braces and walking. It wasn’t long before she was demonstrating her incredible natural athletic talent. She once told the Chicago Tribune, “By the time I was twelve, I was challenging every boy in our neighborhood at running, jumping, everything.”

Rudolph also played high school basketball and, of course, ran track. She successfully overcame her physical challenges and excelled at sports beyond the neighborhood and her school, qualifying for the 1956 Olympic team at the age of sixteen. We see in this part of her story a glimpse of the self-discipline, perseverance, and courage that are marks of moral excellence. She excelled at athletics as well, winning a bronze medal in the 4-by-100-meter relay event at the Melbourne Games. But this accomplishment was soon to be dwarfed by what she would do in the 1960 Games.

In Rome, Wilma Rudolph won three gold medals, more than any other American woman had ever won in a single Olympics. She triumphed in the 100-meter and the 200-meter races, and she anchored the 400-meter relay team by edging out her West German opponent at the finish line—all on a sprained ankle. Her achievements made her instantly famous worldwide. After the Olympics, fans in Greece, Holland, Germany, and England came to see her run. She then returned home to Clarksville, Tennessee, for a ceremony and parade held in her honor. It was there that Rudolph displayed further traits of the morally excellent person, a commitment to equality and the courage to take a stand against social injustice.

Growing up in the South in the 1950s, Wilma Rudolph was well acquainted with racism. Segregationist Tennessee governor Buford Ellington planned to be at the head of the celebration in honor of her return. However, Rudolph insisted that her homecoming parade and celebration be an integrated event. All such events in Clarksville were segregated, but the parade celebrating Wilma Rudolph’s Olympic victories was not. It was the town’s first racially integrated event. Subsequent to this, Rudolph was actively engaged in protests against the town’s segregation laws until they were abolished.

As a female African American, Rudolph was risking a lot by taking a strong and public stand against segregation, but she did it anyway because it was the right thing to do for her and her community. This is a vital trait of the morally excellent person: the courage to stand up for important moral values even when doing so is unpopular or potentially dangerous.

According to Rudolph, her greatest achievement was not her Olympic triumph. Rather, it was the formation of the Wilma Rudolph Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on community-based sports programs for young athletes. In reflecting on this program, Rudolph said, “I tell them [the young athletes] that the most important aspect is to be yourself and have confidence in yourself. I remind them t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1. The Ideal Olympian
• Part 2. Ancient Heritage
• Part 3. Modern Ideals
• Part 4. Ethical Issues
• Part 5. Race and Gender Issues
• Part 6. Political Power
• List of Contributors
• Index