That’s Not Cricket!

   

                                          (credit: Peter Woodward, via Wikimedia Commons) 

The French Existentialist philosopher, Albert Camus, said that everything he knew about morality, he learned from soccer. From sports, in other words.

Now, for those cerebral people who simply don’t “get” sports, or find the very thought of sweat distasteful, this quote may be an excuse for them to write off Camus and his whole philosophy. Which would be overly hasty in any case. The fact that a person likes beer and not wine, for a parallel example, should have nothing to do with our estimation of that person as a thinker and writer.

                     

                                            (credit: UPI, via Wikimedia Commons) 

On the other hand, I like Camus. I have since I first went to university, which is a long time ago. Over 50 years. I became familiar with a few of his books even back then because friends were raving about him. I think he's onto something here . 

So what about his view of sports and what they teach us? Can that view be defended adequately? I think it can.

The big thing that has come to me in the last few weeks about sport is that the bottom line, most of the time, in most sports, is very simple: you must act under the rules that you promised to act under, while the game is on and you’re playing. In short, live up to your promises.

In soccer, you do not pick up an opposing player bodily and slam him onto the turf. But in rugby, that’s exactly what you do. That is part of the game, a main part, and everyone who plays the game knows it.

   

                          (credit: Rugby Ontario 1959, via Wikimedia Commons) 

A very American saying, sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, is that figures don’t lie, but liars can sure figure. What the saying means is that manipulators of the truth can be very skillful in deceiving others, especially others who are in positions of authority, even when those manipulators don’t technically tell a lie. And this is not right in any universe. It is judged to be wrong in sport.

Sport also has immoral situations that are generally recognized as immoral. In most forms of Martial Arts, which are especially violent sports, where all kinds of blows and grappling techniques are intended to injure an opponent or render him/her unconscious, it is illegal to strike to the groin area, eye gouge, or bite. But in rare forms of this sport, like Lethwei, head-butting is allowed. The key feature that keeps at least the idea of the sport moral is that everyone who competes in it knows this. And Lethwei competitors also know that if they choose to cross over to the MMA circuit, then the rules will not allow them to use head butts.

                         

                                           (Lethweimaster; credit: Wikimedia Commons) 

Bottom line: you read the rules and promise to obey them before you get into a competition. Then, you do your best to compete within those rules.

And even then, it can get complicated. Humans are subtle. For example, nearly all soccer fans dislike players who fake injury with the intention of getting an opposing player penalized. And so we come to the heart of the matter.

In the real action of a real contest, what officials are most tested by are those situations in which they must decide whether a player did an action willfully. Intention becomes crucial (as it is for Kant, by the way).

How does one judge, if one is refereeing a boxing match, whether a head to head contact was intentional on one fighter’s part or accidental? How does an umpire decide whether a runner sliding into second base intended to aim his cleats to injure the second baseman? When is hand to ball contact in soccer acceptable and when is it not? Is bodyline bowling in cricket easy to judge and call?

The element of intentionality is the key. And the player in question is unreliable as a source of information on this matter. He or she is at least as likely to say that the foul was an accident as to say it was done on purpose. Still, sometimes, the ref has to make the call.  

It really helps a referee or umpire to have played the game him or herself. Former players of the game know the kinds of moves a human body naturally makes in the game, those made by intention and those not. Which brings us to the bottom line for moral play in sports: play by the rules you agreed to play by, and among those rules is the one that says you will accept the decisions of officials of the game without confrontation or complaint.

   

                                          (credit: Basil d Soufi, via Creative Commons) 

What does this post have to do with real life? I’ll leave it to the reader to make the connections in between, but I will say this: The United Nations is imperfect, as all things made by humans are. But it’s all we have to bring fairness to relations between nations. Like democracy, it can only be as effective as the people who live under it make it. My secret prayer is that it will one day, before 100 nations are putting nuclear weapons into space, become generally accepted as the final authority – the authority – in our world. That will not happen until we get past Postmodernism. But that is another post.

In the shadow of the mushroom cloud, have a fine, sporting-spirited day, folks.