The Value of Sport

Abstract

I argue that, like art, one of sport’s most valuable features is its ability to put our human capabilities—in sport’s case, particularly our physical skills and talents—graphically on display, inspiring and energising us with demonstrations of what J.M. Coetzee has called “the human ideal made visible”. But I argue that sport’s value in this respect is curtailed in two ways. First, sport has a relatively narrow expressive range: only a fraction of our human qualities can be expressed through sport. Second, the transitory nature of sporting contests means that the pleasures of sporting action are largely limited to glimpsed moments of inspiration while the contest is actually in progress. Discussing ways in which sport can educate us, I argue that one way derives from its ability to create spheres of action in which the ordinary norms of moral behaviour are relaxed, and athletes—and spectators—can acknowledge and explore impulses normally held in check, but vented in relative safety under sport’s strictly controlled conditions. I consider a number of other ways in which we learn from sport. In particular, I develop the idea that sport is a powerful antidote to class and racial prejudice.