Sport as the religion of capitalism: An Interview With Ljubodrag Simonovic - Part 2
Part 2:
DK: One of the reasons why you walked out of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich was related to the use of doping by the Puerto Rican basketball team. 38 years later, doping incidents seem to be the norm rather than the exception despite rigorous testing and official condemnation of doping by the International Olympic Committee and various other sporting authorities. Why is doping so prevalent in sport?
LS: Body doping is but one of the means used to make the organism of a sportsmen achieve results which exceed his biological capacities. Anabolic steroids, “bathing&rdquo in oxygen, blood doping, doping-pregnancy, virilisation, “therapy&rdquo with the hormone of growth, erythropoietin, computer “processing&rdquo of muscles and shock treatments (as in the “training&rdquo of horses), genetic engineering – without all these means the “progress&rdquo in sport cannot be imagined. What the sports industry is doing to sportsmen resembles the experiments on human beings performed in Nazi laboratories of death. Body doping is carried out by sportsmen being fanaticized, which (only conditionally) can be called mental doping and which blocks the power of reasoning and generates a will for self-destruction. A need to escape from poor slums and anonymity, dreams of making “big money&rdquo, the dominant evaluative model, the achieved level of results, the imposed pattern of sports conduct which involves the production of increasingly bloody and destructive spectacles – all this creates the background for a fatalistic acceptance of one’s sports “destiny&rdquo and for the development of a self-destructive conscious. The maxim mens sana in corpore sano, and particularly Coubertin’s maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso, clearly indicates that sport does not count on the development of mind, but on the development of a belligerent (murderous-destructive) character and an instrumentalized body.
DK: You take Marx’s concept of alienation further. Marx spoke of alienation of the worker related to his job. You say that sport alienates the individual from his body. How?
LS: In modern society, the relation to the body is mediated by the capitalist universe (industrial mimesis, the principle of rationality and efficiency, destructive instrumentalism…) which appears in the form of a technical sphere, alienated from and dominant over man, which is an immediate living environment and imposes the logic of living. It is by way of this sphere that the capital rules man and nature. Just as in antiquity man was the slave of the ruling order by way of the sphere of Olympic gods, so in capitalism he became the slave of the ruling order by way of science and technique. The instrumentalization of the body is based on the capitalistically-based division of labour, that is, on specialization and thus on man’s mutilation. Marx speaks of man being transformed into a freak in the industrial process of production, which is brilliantly demonstrated by Charlie Chaplin in his movie the “Modern Times&rdquo. The capitalistic form of alienated labour processes the body by turning it into a technical (working) tool, and reduces the mind to an operationalized intellect. A capitalistically degenerated body has degenerated senses and motoring. The dominant characteristics are the bodily mechanic, precision of movements, esthetics of the machine, deerotization, hypertrophy of some and atrophy of other functions, spiritless body and movements; instead of the ancient principle metron ariston, prevails an aggressive muscular body; the principle of optimum effort is replaced by the principle of “greater effort” the prevailing character is (self) destructive and the prevailing movement is adjusted to the capitalist rhythm of reproduction, etc. Thus, it is not about a humanization, but about a technicization of the body (nature). The capitalist way of industrial production transformed man into a robotized freak. It is best seen in sport, in the principle “Recorders are born in vials!&rdquo, in which a robotized body is the highest esthetic challenge. If the body is neither natural nor human, then not only can man not “be-in-the world&rdquo, he can no longer be at all – since he is no longer a man.
DK: There are countless examples of how an entire industry has been created out of playing on people’s dislike, hatred and even shame of their bodies. In the US, in particular, a wretched “dieting&rdquo industry has been created. We know that girls as young as 12 years old starve themselves just so that they can have the same type of body as the celebrity star. Within the past decade, men have been sucked into the image industry known as Metrosexuality. Why do you think this self destruction of the body has become so prevalent?
LS: As man is, by way of his body, “immediately in the world&rdquo, the most fatal and inevitable form of the impact of capitalism, as the order of destruction, on man is through the body: the crisis of the world is, at the same time, the crisis of the body. Hence the basic form of man’s self-alienation is the alienation from one’s own body. Man experiences himself as an otherness as against the existing world through the suffering which is the consequence not only of his unsatisfied primary needs, but also of their mutilation. He flees the world by fleeing from his body, or by fleeing to his body (narcissism). Most people in the West experience everyday frustration because they discard their own body as worthless, unfitted to the ruling (consumer-advertising) model of the body which becomes the basis of social evaluation. Man experiences his body as a punishment, as something alien, and tries to mask it (“fashion&rdquo), or change it with exhausting physical exercises, “treatments&rdquo, operations… A capitalistically degenerated man has an instrumental relation to his own body based on the principle of profit. Physical appearance and health are not the purpose, but a vehicle for achieving social prestige and existence. The desirable model of the body is that which is in line with the dominant value-related model dictated by the dominant fashion concerns. The frequently changing fashion forces people to ever more frequent changes, which means an increasingly merciless treatment of the body. An industry was born for the production of images. The image becomes a commodity similarly to garments. The entertainment industry offers increasingly diversified forms of physical degeneration. Plastic surgery, body-building, fitness-centres and diets – all these serve to make man conform to the dominant model of the “beautiful&rdquo according to the standards of advertising industry. “Barbie&rdquo doll becomes the “most beautiful&rdquo form of man’s devaluation. As far as “Rocky&rdquo, “Rambo&rdquo, “Terminator&rdquo and other Hollywood freaks are concerned, they are the picture of the contemporary capitalist “superman&rdquo, whose cultural conscience has been “erased&rdquo and who is guided in his behaviour by a destructive idiocy.
DK: Yes! This is all promoted through “consumer society&rdquo. Sporting events such as World Cup and Olympics are basically marketing campaigns to sell consumer products.
LS: In contrast to the former ruling classes, the bourgeoisie strives to include the working layers into its spiritual, as well as into its living sphere. The capitalist way of life (“consumer society&rdquo) becomes a totalizing principle of life which spares no one and from which there is no escape. The commercialization of life is the worst form of totalitarianism ever created in history, since it completely submits nature, society and man to the destructive mechanism of the capitalist reproduction. Its essence is expressed in the monstrous maxim “Money does not stink!&rdquo – which illustrates the very gist of the ecocide capitalist terrorism. According to the dictate of the absolutized principle of profit, the totalizing of the world by “technical civilization&rdquo is in place – and it destroys the possibility of creating a humanist civilization – as well as of nature, body and bodily movement, which directly conditions the “development&rdquo of senses and man’s mental capacities. The dominant form of bodily activism becomes a consumer activism. The commercialization of the body is the “highest&rdquo form of capitalist degeneration of the body (man). Man’s body is not only part of a capitalistically degenerated world; it becomes a means of destroying the natural and the human and as such the enemy of man. A direct product of the “consumer society&rdquo is a man-consumer corresponded by a consumer-body in which the surrogates of “consumer civilization&rdquo are to vanish. Capitalism destroys the body by turning it into a destructive mechanism – causing hypertrophy of those physical functions which offer a possibility for the development of consumer society, and the atrophy of those functions which are not of a profitable character. The dominant rhythm is that of the capitalist reproduction which destroys the biological rhythm of life – without which there is no healthy man. Man is not only guided by a consumer activism as a value-related challenge, but his body cannot survive without an ever bigger number of devices and aids, as well as artificial living conditions. The capitalist totalizing of the world involves the capitalist totalizing of the body, which means its distortion and the creation of a chronically ill man who can survive only with an ever bigger amount of medicaments and medical interventions. Man’s survival is increasingly mediated by artificial means which turn him into an invalid. The body has lost its natural needs: it can no longer process natural food; it lives on medicaments and through medicaments. Man’s whole life is under “treatments&rdquo which, ultimately, are to enable him to survive in a functional harmony with the ruling order. Material wealth does not provide him with a healthy life; it rather causes a specific mental and physical degeneration of plutocracy. The relation to the body shows that the development of the “consumer standard&rdquo involves the destruction of the living standard. Work, way of life, movements, rhythm of living, diet, sleeping, space which is a modern ghetto (towns), air, water, food, tobacco, drugs, beverages, the way of life which destroys man’s natural being, night life – all these forms of life become a way of man’s degeneration. Cholesterol, cellulite, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurasthenia, depression, AIDS, etc. – are not the “diseases of contemporary world&rdquo, but are capitalistic form of man’s physical and mental degeneration. It is about a capitalist mutation of man performed by depriving man of natural and human life-creating force and degenerating him into a plastic and technical “being&rdquo. At the same time, an increasing number of threatening diseases are not naturally conditioned and of a natural character; they are the products of laboratories and are of a genocidal and profitable character. We are dealing here with a capitalist production of diseases which are being “treated&rdquo by turning man into a profitable patient, which means a chronically ill person. “Physical needs&rdquo of today’s man are determined by propaganda machinery and his social position. Man, who constantly devours increasing amounts of increasingly low quality food, is the most important strategic goal of the food industry. It creates an increasingly ill man who is, naturally, “attended to&rdquo by medical and pharmaceutical industry. The consumption of an increasing amount of food is not the need of our bodies, but is a compensation for a frustrated humanity. Capitalism is turning the consequences of the destruction of nature and man into the sources of profits and is developing ever more horrible mechanisms of destruction. The human body becomes a universal destructive machine and a universal garbage collector which should devour the ever more poisonous surrogates of the capitalist civilization. At the same time, existential anxiety, everyday humiliations, loneliness, hopelessness generated by the destructive capitalist nothingness, mentally distort man, and this is a direct cause of the degeneration of the body.
DK: You say that sport is the highest form of Social Darwinism. You write that this was invented by the founder of the modern Olympic Games Pierre de Coubertin. How did Coubertin devise his philosophy?
LS: Sport is the cult of capitalism. In his Olympic writings Coubertin writes of Olympism as the “cult of the existing world&rdquo which appears under the ideological veil of the “cult of humanism&rdquo. The starting point for establishing sport as the cult of the existing world, however, is not humanism, but Social Darwinism and positivism. Sport is the reaction of the bourgeoisie to the guiding ideas of the French Revolution, the emancipatory legacy of the civil society and the ideal of future which becomes the landmark of a political movement striving to overcome capitalism. It is a form in which the bourgeoisie, which came to power on the wave of bourgeois revolutions, performed a spiritual counterrevolution. Instead of of “Freedom&rdquo, “Equality&rdquo and “Brotherhood&rdquo, the principle of “progress&rdquo, reduced to the “development&rdquo and “perfectioning&rdquo of capitalism, becomes the supreme political principle; instead of a struggle to realize basic human and civil rights, there exists a conflict between nations and races and colonial expansion ; instead of a respect for cultural tradition, sport is used for destruction of nations’ spiritual heritage and thus their libertarian dignity… Sport becomes the most important “mondialist&rdquo ideology and stadium the most important “cultural&rdquo venue of the capitalist world.
DK: Basically, you’re saying that Sport is the religion of capitalism. What are the symbols and rituals related to sports religion?
LS: Unlike the religious cults based on transcendental values, sport is a positivist cult reduced to the divination of the existing world. The prevailing symbolism in the stadiums expresses the prevailing spirit of the existing world and represents a means for integrating people into the ruling order. Not war, but life based on Social Darwinism and progressism is the source of sport. Instead of traditional religions, Olympism becomes the highest (positive) religion appropriate to the spirit of the modern world: the spirit of Olympism is the spirit of capitalism. Unlike traditional religions, sport is not an attempt to make life meaningful; it is a shock-therapy meant to alleviate the ever bigger sufferings caused by the everyday meaningless and ever bloodier life. It crushes the critical visionary mind, the idea of future and man as a living (biological) being. The “creation of future&rdquo in sport is based on the positivistic maxim “to know in order to predict, to predict in order to act&rdquo (savoir pour prevoir, prevoir pour agir). A fight between people is possible, according to the rules which are the embodiment of the ruling spirit, but not for the purpose of changing the established order. In it, there is no fight between the good and the evil, which means that the basic humanistic principle is excluded from sport, the principle without which there is no civilization. Sport is the most authentic anticipation of a capitalist “future&rdquo.
DK: Right. What is the function of sport within capitalist class society?
LS: Sport has become the most important political weapon of the class domination by which the bourgeoisie destroys the class consciousness of the working people, critical mind, libertarian dignity, depolitizes the oppressed, achieves “national integration&rdquo… In contrast to the earlier games, which expressed the spirit of the ruling order and had a class exclusivity, sport is a “supraclass&rdquo game which expresses the progressistic capitalist universalism by means of which the bourgeoisie draws into its spiritual orbit not only workers, but women and members of “lower races&rdquo as well. It serves to “overcome&rdquo class antagonism (“sport has nothing to do with politics&rdquo), achieves “class reconciliation&rdquo and thus “social peace&rdquo. For the ruling class, sport is an “ideological political cudgel&rdquo which destroys the critical mind and workers’ drive for changes. It is a vent releasing the discontent of the oppressed and preventing the creation of an organized political movement that can jeopardize the ruling order. The conflict between classes is transferred from the political (social) sphere to stadiums, the war waged in sport being the embodiment of the capitalist way of life. When a man gives vent to his discontent on a stadium, he does that in a way which does not question the existing order, but reproduces it. Sport is a capitalist ideology which “levels off&rdquo class differences based on the ruling principles of capitalism. To win! – that is the existential imperative both for those who are at the bottom and for those who sit in “blue loges&rdquo. Capitalism does not leave anybody alone. The existential uncertainty is Damocles’ sword hovering over everybody’s head. Trying to escape from the bottom and struggling not to come to the bottom – this is what makes the rich and the poor “get closer&rdquo. “Enjoying&rdquo wealth means letting off the fear of poverty. Sport repeatedly produces the awareness of an unavoidable world based on the Social Darwinist principle “The stronger win, the weaker are eliminated!&rdquo (Coubertin). It provokes a conflict between people (nations, races and genders) thus producing the existing world of injustice. Sport serves to provide the oppressed with “opponents&rdquo in the form of an “opponent team&rdquo and “opponent supporters&rdquo so that they can vent their anger at them because of their humiliating position. It absorbs the increasing discontent of the oppressed working people and their children – whose future is being destroyed. Capitalism produces an unhappy and mutilated man, and at the same time creates ever bloodier compensatory mechanisms and a need for them – which is attributed to the “evil&rdquo human nature. Sport clearly shows the truth that politics is an art of directing the discontent of the oppressed towards the realization of inhuman ends. That is why in sport everything is allowed: murder, serious physical injuries, verbal abuses… “Victory&rdquo on a sports field is the defeat of humanity.
DK: There, however, does appear to be continuity between the Roman Empire and today’s society. Ancient Rome used the coliseum to offer the masses bread and circuses. In Ancient Rome, this was used to keep the population from turning against their elites. Sport today serves the same purpose but also something much more sinister. The Romans were interested in distracting their citizens rather than destroying them. Today, sport serves to both distract and kill the citizens.
LS: Sports spectacles have become the chief and cheapest spiritual food for those deprived of their rights. To drive the oppressed into stadiums and sports centres has become the most important political task of the ruling regimes. Hence everything is being done to enable their regular occurrence. Those who adopt laws prescribing long-term imprisonment for children who run into the field during a game, are the main promoters of sport, which is an institutionalized violence with a spectacular dimension; those who struggle to “abolish&rdquo capital punishment as a “non-civilized&rdquo measure are the chief organizers of the ever bloodier sports spectacles in which premeditated and accidental murders as well as the infliction of serious physical injuries are legalized; the European legislation in no way tries to stop a monstrous abuse of increasingly younger children and their turning into sports slaves; the duration and intensity of trainings are not limited; the selling of players by clubs is legalized; segregation according to the gender has been institutionalized; the use of dope is elevated to the level of the state policy– hiding the interests of multinational concerns and ruling political clans; “physical culture&rdquo has been expelled from schools and “sports education&rdquo has been introduced in which, instead of cultural conscious and tolerance, prevail physical strength and the spirit of ruthless rivalry; young people deprived of their rights acquire the status of “hooligans&rdquo and thus of social outcasts; instead of pedagogical measures for preventing the violent behaviour of young people and creating the conditions for changing their ever harder social position, we are facing an increasingly brutal police oppression… All those things that express the existential spirit of capitalism – murder, physical injuries, destruction of humanity – acquire in sports fields a spectacular dimension. The principle “Victory at all costs!&rdquo, which corresponds to the principle “Profit at all costs!&rdquo – becomes a supreme and unquestionable sports principle.
DK: I’m originally from New York, which is not only the centre of the capitalist world but also where baseball is the most popular sport. The two most popular “newspapers&rdquo, which are really nothing but gossip tabloids devoid of any serious news, devote half their pages to sports. In fact, most New Yorkers buy these papers to read the sport results. The most popular writers are sports columnists. The stories are all about the personalities of the managers and players. When one or both of the baseball teams make the playoffs, the entire city is swept up into the drama of whether or not the Yankees or Mets will win the Pennant or the World Series. During the month of October, New York gets swept up in the drama of baseball. Indeed, the collective or mass psychology of most inhabitants is determined by how well or bad our teams do.
LS: The nature of sport as drama is conditioned by the role of sport in society. It is not an activist integration of the ruling class, like the ancient Olympic Games and medieval chivalrous tournaments, but is a “supraclass&rdquo phenomenon and as such means the integration of the oppressed into the spiritual orbit of the ruling class and their depolitization according to the principle panem et circences. Its purpose is to inseminate man with the ruling spirit, to pin him down to the existing world, destroy his mind, imagination, hope of a better world… A sports spectacle is a modern pagan festivity which gives a fatal dimension to the ruling relations and values. It does not enable man to treat the existing world in a reasonable way, but completely integrates him into it. Man becomes the toy of destiny, which means of the basic processes of capitalist reproduction. Sport abolishes the dualism of reality and ideals. In it, there is no opposition between play and life: it represents life in its existential and essential sense. Sport is the authentic form of the playing of life and thus is its glorification which is supposed to create a religious relation to the ruling values. Sport does not reflect the human; it is rather that man becomes a means for deification of the ruling relations and values. Sport is not an innocent children’s play; it is a ritual manifestation of the submission to the ruling spirit and thus is the highest religious ceremony with a liturgical character. It is pervaded with a sacred serenity. Hence the importance of the “Olympic oath&rdquo (serment olympique): sport is the cult of the existing world, while man appears in the sports ritual as the symbolic incarnation of the spirit that rules the world. A sports spectacle is not an enactment of life; it is its reproduction: in it, the essence of the capitalist world appears in a condensed form. Rugby, boxing and other bloody sports are immediate expression of the “American way of life&rdquo, which is based on a ruthless Social Darwinism and a destructive progressism – and which becomes a planetary way of life (“globalism&rdquo). The sports drama is the authentic way of the playing of life – in which life itself is the stake. Sport is a drama without masks, without petty bourgeois lies, without invented plots which are to glorify criminals and obtain meaning for the capitalist nothingness. Life itself continues without a “humanistic&rdquo and “artistic&rdquo veil. It is legal in sport to inflict serious physical injuries and kill, to mutilate children, apply medical “treatments&rdquo which reduce sportsmen to laboratory rats, to turn the young into fascist hordes… The theatre represents the scenery of the world of lies and crime; sport represents its foundation. At the stadium, there is no human distance, there is no comical: gladiators are not entitled to laughter. The increasingly bloody life requires increasingly bloody sports spectacles, which are the compensation to the oppressed for the increasing everyday misery. “The spectators love the smell of blood!&rdquo – this is the “golden rule&rdquo of sports show-business in the USA and other countries of the “free world&rdquo. Sports stadiums were not built for well-to-do (petty) bourgeois, as is the case with the theatre which has an elitist status, but for the working “masses&rdquo deprived of their rights and for their children reduced to “hooligans&rdquo. The modern stadium appeared along with the modern industrial proletariat, at the time when workers managed to obtain the eight-hour working day – when the bourgeoisie endeavoured to “colonize the leisure time&rdquo of workers and thus prevent their political organization and integrate them into the ruling order. Stadiums are not designed for “cultural education&rdquo of the oppressed, but for their “pacification&rdquo (depolitization) and idiocy. “Sport is the cheapest spiritual food for the (working) masses that keeps them under control.&rdquo – this is the most accurate sociological (political) definition of sport reached, after the First World War and the then revolutionary movements in Europe, by the “father&rdquo of modern Olympism Pierre de Coubertin. Sport is becoming a way of destroying the class consciousness and shifting the fight from the political to the sports arena. Stadiums are not the temples of culture but bonfires for burning out the discontent of the oppressed. This is what determines their appearance: stadiums are modern concentration camps for people deprived of their civil and human rights. Everywhere in the capitalist world, where people are becoming increasingly poor, and fewer and fewer people are becoming rich, we have the same picture: wire fences, special police forces, trained dogs… A match is an occasion for giving vent for a man increasingly deprived of his rights, and it does not reflect human “evil&rdquo but suffering and despair. Sports spectacles are a way of turning the critical and change-oriented potentials of the people deprived of their rights into aggression directed towards the so called “opponents&rdquo, who belong to the same class of the oppressed, and a way of provoking a war between them. This is the basis on which supporting groups are formed: instead of turning their discontent towards the ruling order, young people turn it towards other supporting groups, who are also the victims of an inhuman order. “Supporting masses&rdquo are a form of degeneration of the working youth, while fanaticism of supporters is a form of degenerating its critical and change-oriented conscious. Symbols and slogans under which the youth gather do not speak of freedom, brotherhood, peace, cooperation, love: they are of a fascist character. “Patriotism&rdquo without culture is barbarism. As far as sports “idols&rdquo are concerned, they are not fighting for freedom; they are the tool of capitalism for combating the libertarian mind and integrating the youth, reduced to the supporting “mass&rdquo, into the existing world. The increasingly bloody conflicts between different supporters are an inevitable consequence of the increasingly difficult position of young people in a world based on the principle “Money does not stink!&rdquo, and on the increasingly ruthless manipulation of the young, which springs from the fear that their discontent might turn against the ruling order and be used for building a new (just) world. On sports stadiums, fresh mountain water, which can overflow the increasingly rotten capitalist dam, turns into a swamp. Firecrackers and other supporting equipment do not express joy of life: they are symbols of destruction. Torches are not the source of light: they are a symbolic form of burning the world without a future.
DK: You’re right! For residents of New York our two most sacred buildings are Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden. Shifting gears, you write of “Sportivization&rdquo, which you say is the key component of capitalism totalitarianism. Can you elaborate what you mean?
LS: Officially, “sport has nothing to do with politics&rdquo but, in fact, it is a universal political instrument of the world rulers in their attempt to preserve capitalism. “Sportivization&rdquo has become the most important ideological form of the capitalist totalizing of the world, while stadium has become the most important cult venue of the contemporary world – where to the ruling spirit a critical and change-oriented mind is sacrificed. Sport, as the chief “mondialist&rdquo religion, becomes a means for destroying traditional religions, cultural heritage of peoples and political ideas and movements which oppose the “new world order&rdquo, which means a destructive (ecocide) capitalist totalitarism. Coubertin does not hide that the chief task of IOC is to create, through sport, a global positive one-mindedness. The establishment of a total and unquestionable unique (capitalist) worldview has become the leading political principle. In the world, there are thousands and thousands of sports manifestations every day; the sports commentaries from the sports fields are given the prime time in the news and cover most of the space in public media; “sports&rdquo TV channels broadcast sports programme non-stop; sport is becoming the chief advertising billboard in an increasingly ruthless economic war and the most important political platform; sports paganism becomes a means of Christian churches (and other leading religious communities) for courting the “masses” the ruling “esthetic model&rdquo becomes the sports body; everyday language takes over sports terminology, especially the political language and that of business; politicians and capitalists place primary importance to their sports biographies, the photos of them are taken while engaged in a sports activity, they strive to attain a “sporting image&rdquo which is meant to demonstrate their “victorious spirit” sport becomes the chief means for “money laundering&rdquo, meaning a mafia business of utmost importance; coaches acquire the status of supreme managers of capitalism; sportsmen become moving billboards, while stadiums, sports and betting places become the temples of capitalism.
DK: It’s interesting how our conversation has led to two central themes: stadiums and arenas as the temple of capitalism and how in New York, the sports columnist is read by more people than political columnists. It isn’t an accident that the New York Post, owned by the far right wing propagandist Rupert Murdoch boasts that is has the “Best Sports Section in New York&rdquo. How do you see the correlation between the lack of serious journalism, i.e.; serious reporting and investigation of the most pressing issues that the masses face, with the saturation of sports and gossip presented as “news&rdquo?
LS: The role of a journalist is to give a “spectacular&rdquo dimension to the increasingly cruel sports reality. There is not a critical detachment from the aspect of morality, social interest or any other norms apart from sport. Sports commentators glorify violence and destruction and in a perfidious way encourage conflicts between the oppressed, which appear in the form of supporters, between nations, genders and races. They seek to establish a direct contact between sports spectacles and subconscious: a sports spectacle is meant to “draw&rdquo discontent from the oppressed and direct it towards the “opponent&rdquo. Sports articles are of an increasingly primitive character: they correspond to the sport which destroys the power of reasoning and creates a massive idiocy. The ever more aggressive sensationalism is a commercial form of ever more meaningless texts which give a “fatal&rdquo dimension to marginal phenomena and a marginal dimension to the crucial issues for humanity. Writing on the nature of modern capitalism Marcuse concludes: “The non-functioning of television and the allied media might thus begin to achieve what the inherent contradictions of capitalism did not achieve – the disintegration of the system. The creation of repressive needs has long since become part of socially necessary labour – necessary in the sense that without it, the established mode of production could not be sustained. Neither problems of psychology nor of aesthetics are at stake, but the material base of domination.&rdquo
DK: Combined, sport and propaganda which are only meant to entertain rather than to enlighten, serve to degenerate society. What are the more serious effects by which capitalism creates total destruction?
LS: Capitalism creates not only repressive, but also (self) destructive needs. Suicidal “feats&rdquo become the biggest “test of courage&rdquo and are thus a form of dragging people away from the field of (political) fight for the realization of their human rights and the survival of the world. The same applies to boxing and other bloody spectacles. Instead of directing their dissatisfaction to the abolishment of the world of misery, people direct it to bloody clashes with other people. Sport is the most important instrument of capitalism for degenerating man. It destroys not only the body, but also the critical change-oriented (visionary) conscious and produces (self-destructive) fanaticism. By way of sport man is held outside historical space where the governing values are conserved – which is the essence of the view that sport is a phenomenon sui generis and “has nothing to do with politics&rdquo. Instead of changing the ruling order which increasingly generates evil, the order changes man by destroying in him everything that makes him human and can become the basis for the development of a critical mind and changing practice. The emancipatory legacy of civil society has been discarded and “new&rdquo fascism is being established which is the incarnation of the ecocide spirit of contemporary capitalism. By becoming the order of destruction in a pure sense (“consumer society&rdquo), capitalism cast away its “humanistic&rdquo and “progressive&rdquo mask. Sport is no longer used for preserving the faith in the “eternal values of capitalism&rdquo, the critical change-oriented mind is being destroyed which, above all, means the confidence that a free and righteous world is possible. Manipulation shifts from the ideological sphere to the psychological one: stadium becomes a psychotherapeutic institution. Instead of the cult of victory and records, the dominant cult is that of a spectacle which is the main spiritual drug by means of which the ruling oligarchy holds “masses&rdquo under control; instead of becoming “contestants&rdquo and “recorders&rdquo, sportsmen become circus players, gladiators and stuntmen.
DK: What hasn’t been reported in the mainstream media is the police state which has been created in South Africa for the World Cup. Tens of thousands of residents of the slums have been relocated hundreds of miles out of the towns where the matches are being played. South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Rather than addressing the needs of its poor, the government has made them literary disappear so that visitors and the international media don’t see the social reality of South Africa. Moreover, South Africa is not receiving a single penny from FIFA from TV broadcasting rights, ticket sales and the sales from official FIFA merchandise. Stadium stewards went on strike to demand their pay and higher wages. They were met with police repression and sacked en-masse. None of this has been covered by the international media. One can only conclude that the World Cup in South Africa has been to the benefit of foreign multinational corporations while increasing the misery for the majority of impoverished South Africans.
This interview was performed by Der Kosmonaut (2010) and published on the blog: Adventures of Der Kosmonaut.
DK: One of the reasons why you walked out of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich was related to the use of doping by the Puerto Rican basketball team. 38 years later, doping incidents seem to be the norm rather than the exception despite rigorous testing and official condemnation of doping by the International Olympic Committee and various other sporting authorities. Why is doping so prevalent in sport?
LS: Body doping is but one of the means used to make the organism of a sportsmen achieve results which exceed his biological capacities. Anabolic steroids, “bathing&rdquo in oxygen, blood doping, doping-pregnancy, virilisation, “therapy&rdquo with the hormone of growth, erythropoietin, computer “processing&rdquo of muscles and shock treatments (as in the “training&rdquo of horses), genetic engineering – without all these means the “progress&rdquo in sport cannot be imagined. What the sports industry is doing to sportsmen resembles the experiments on human beings performed in Nazi laboratories of death. Body doping is carried out by sportsmen being fanaticized, which (only conditionally) can be called mental doping and which blocks the power of reasoning and generates a will for self-destruction. A need to escape from poor slums and anonymity, dreams of making “big money&rdquo, the dominant evaluative model, the achieved level of results, the imposed pattern of sports conduct which involves the production of increasingly bloody and destructive spectacles – all this creates the background for a fatalistic acceptance of one’s sports “destiny&rdquo and for the development of a self-destructive conscious. The maxim mens sana in corpore sano, and particularly Coubertin’s maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso, clearly indicates that sport does not count on the development of mind, but on the development of a belligerent (murderous-destructive) character and an instrumentalized body.
DK: You take Marx’s concept of alienation further. Marx spoke of alienation of the worker related to his job. You say that sport alienates the individual from his body. How?
LS: In modern society, the relation to the body is mediated by the capitalist universe (industrial mimesis, the principle of rationality and efficiency, destructive instrumentalism…) which appears in the form of a technical sphere, alienated from and dominant over man, which is an immediate living environment and imposes the logic of living. It is by way of this sphere that the capital rules man and nature. Just as in antiquity man was the slave of the ruling order by way of the sphere of Olympic gods, so in capitalism he became the slave of the ruling order by way of science and technique. The instrumentalization of the body is based on the capitalistically-based division of labour, that is, on specialization and thus on man’s mutilation. Marx speaks of man being transformed into a freak in the industrial process of production, which is brilliantly demonstrated by Charlie Chaplin in his movie the “Modern Times&rdquo. The capitalistic form of alienated labour processes the body by turning it into a technical (working) tool, and reduces the mind to an operationalized intellect. A capitalistically degenerated body has degenerated senses and motoring. The dominant characteristics are the bodily mechanic, precision of movements, esthetics of the machine, deerotization, hypertrophy of some and atrophy of other functions, spiritless body and movements; instead of the ancient principle metron ariston, prevails an aggressive muscular body; the principle of optimum effort is replaced by the principle of “greater effort” the prevailing character is (self) destructive and the prevailing movement is adjusted to the capitalist rhythm of reproduction, etc. Thus, it is not about a humanization, but about a technicization of the body (nature). The capitalist way of industrial production transformed man into a robotized freak. It is best seen in sport, in the principle “Recorders are born in vials!&rdquo, in which a robotized body is the highest esthetic challenge. If the body is neither natural nor human, then not only can man not “be-in-the world&rdquo, he can no longer be at all – since he is no longer a man.
DK: There are countless examples of how an entire industry has been created out of playing on people’s dislike, hatred and even shame of their bodies. In the US, in particular, a wretched “dieting&rdquo industry has been created. We know that girls as young as 12 years old starve themselves just so that they can have the same type of body as the celebrity star. Within the past decade, men have been sucked into the image industry known as Metrosexuality. Why do you think this self destruction of the body has become so prevalent?
LS: As man is, by way of his body, “immediately in the world&rdquo, the most fatal and inevitable form of the impact of capitalism, as the order of destruction, on man is through the body: the crisis of the world is, at the same time, the crisis of the body. Hence the basic form of man’s self-alienation is the alienation from one’s own body. Man experiences himself as an otherness as against the existing world through the suffering which is the consequence not only of his unsatisfied primary needs, but also of their mutilation. He flees the world by fleeing from his body, or by fleeing to his body (narcissism). Most people in the West experience everyday frustration because they discard their own body as worthless, unfitted to the ruling (consumer-advertising) model of the body which becomes the basis of social evaluation. Man experiences his body as a punishment, as something alien, and tries to mask it (“fashion&rdquo), or change it with exhausting physical exercises, “treatments&rdquo, operations… A capitalistically degenerated man has an instrumental relation to his own body based on the principle of profit. Physical appearance and health are not the purpose, but a vehicle for achieving social prestige and existence. The desirable model of the body is that which is in line with the dominant value-related model dictated by the dominant fashion concerns. The frequently changing fashion forces people to ever more frequent changes, which means an increasingly merciless treatment of the body. An industry was born for the production of images. The image becomes a commodity similarly to garments. The entertainment industry offers increasingly diversified forms of physical degeneration. Plastic surgery, body-building, fitness-centres and diets – all these serve to make man conform to the dominant model of the “beautiful&rdquo according to the standards of advertising industry. “Barbie&rdquo doll becomes the “most beautiful&rdquo form of man’s devaluation. As far as “Rocky&rdquo, “Rambo&rdquo, “Terminator&rdquo and other Hollywood freaks are concerned, they are the picture of the contemporary capitalist “superman&rdquo, whose cultural conscience has been “erased&rdquo and who is guided in his behaviour by a destructive idiocy.
DK: Yes! This is all promoted through “consumer society&rdquo. Sporting events such as World Cup and Olympics are basically marketing campaigns to sell consumer products.
LS: In contrast to the former ruling classes, the bourgeoisie strives to include the working layers into its spiritual, as well as into its living sphere. The capitalist way of life (“consumer society&rdquo) becomes a totalizing principle of life which spares no one and from which there is no escape. The commercialization of life is the worst form of totalitarianism ever created in history, since it completely submits nature, society and man to the destructive mechanism of the capitalist reproduction. Its essence is expressed in the monstrous maxim “Money does not stink!&rdquo – which illustrates the very gist of the ecocide capitalist terrorism. According to the dictate of the absolutized principle of profit, the totalizing of the world by “technical civilization&rdquo is in place – and it destroys the possibility of creating a humanist civilization – as well as of nature, body and bodily movement, which directly conditions the “development&rdquo of senses and man’s mental capacities. The dominant form of bodily activism becomes a consumer activism. The commercialization of the body is the “highest&rdquo form of capitalist degeneration of the body (man). Man’s body is not only part of a capitalistically degenerated world; it becomes a means of destroying the natural and the human and as such the enemy of man. A direct product of the “consumer society&rdquo is a man-consumer corresponded by a consumer-body in which the surrogates of “consumer civilization&rdquo are to vanish. Capitalism destroys the body by turning it into a destructive mechanism – causing hypertrophy of those physical functions which offer a possibility for the development of consumer society, and the atrophy of those functions which are not of a profitable character. The dominant rhythm is that of the capitalist reproduction which destroys the biological rhythm of life – without which there is no healthy man. Man is not only guided by a consumer activism as a value-related challenge, but his body cannot survive without an ever bigger number of devices and aids, as well as artificial living conditions. The capitalist totalizing of the world involves the capitalist totalizing of the body, which means its distortion and the creation of a chronically ill man who can survive only with an ever bigger amount of medicaments and medical interventions. Man’s survival is increasingly mediated by artificial means which turn him into an invalid. The body has lost its natural needs: it can no longer process natural food; it lives on medicaments and through medicaments. Man’s whole life is under “treatments&rdquo which, ultimately, are to enable him to survive in a functional harmony with the ruling order. Material wealth does not provide him with a healthy life; it rather causes a specific mental and physical degeneration of plutocracy. The relation to the body shows that the development of the “consumer standard&rdquo involves the destruction of the living standard. Work, way of life, movements, rhythm of living, diet, sleeping, space which is a modern ghetto (towns), air, water, food, tobacco, drugs, beverages, the way of life which destroys man’s natural being, night life – all these forms of life become a way of man’s degeneration. Cholesterol, cellulite, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurasthenia, depression, AIDS, etc. – are not the “diseases of contemporary world&rdquo, but are capitalistic form of man’s physical and mental degeneration. It is about a capitalist mutation of man performed by depriving man of natural and human life-creating force and degenerating him into a plastic and technical “being&rdquo. At the same time, an increasing number of threatening diseases are not naturally conditioned and of a natural character; they are the products of laboratories and are of a genocidal and profitable character. We are dealing here with a capitalist production of diseases which are being “treated&rdquo by turning man into a profitable patient, which means a chronically ill person. “Physical needs&rdquo of today’s man are determined by propaganda machinery and his social position. Man, who constantly devours increasing amounts of increasingly low quality food, is the most important strategic goal of the food industry. It creates an increasingly ill man who is, naturally, “attended to&rdquo by medical and pharmaceutical industry. The consumption of an increasing amount of food is not the need of our bodies, but is a compensation for a frustrated humanity. Capitalism is turning the consequences of the destruction of nature and man into the sources of profits and is developing ever more horrible mechanisms of destruction. The human body becomes a universal destructive machine and a universal garbage collector which should devour the ever more poisonous surrogates of the capitalist civilization. At the same time, existential anxiety, everyday humiliations, loneliness, hopelessness generated by the destructive capitalist nothingness, mentally distort man, and this is a direct cause of the degeneration of the body.
DK: You say that sport is the highest form of Social Darwinism. You write that this was invented by the founder of the modern Olympic Games Pierre de Coubertin. How did Coubertin devise his philosophy?
LS: Sport is the cult of capitalism. In his Olympic writings Coubertin writes of Olympism as the “cult of the existing world&rdquo which appears under the ideological veil of the “cult of humanism&rdquo. The starting point for establishing sport as the cult of the existing world, however, is not humanism, but Social Darwinism and positivism. Sport is the reaction of the bourgeoisie to the guiding ideas of the French Revolution, the emancipatory legacy of the civil society and the ideal of future which becomes the landmark of a political movement striving to overcome capitalism. It is a form in which the bourgeoisie, which came to power on the wave of bourgeois revolutions, performed a spiritual counterrevolution. Instead of of “Freedom&rdquo, “Equality&rdquo and “Brotherhood&rdquo, the principle of “progress&rdquo, reduced to the “development&rdquo and “perfectioning&rdquo of capitalism, becomes the supreme political principle; instead of a struggle to realize basic human and civil rights, there exists a conflict between nations and races and colonial expansion ; instead of a respect for cultural tradition, sport is used for destruction of nations’ spiritual heritage and thus their libertarian dignity… Sport becomes the most important “mondialist&rdquo ideology and stadium the most important “cultural&rdquo venue of the capitalist world.
DK: Basically, you’re saying that Sport is the religion of capitalism. What are the symbols and rituals related to sports religion?
LS: Unlike the religious cults based on transcendental values, sport is a positivist cult reduced to the divination of the existing world. The prevailing symbolism in the stadiums expresses the prevailing spirit of the existing world and represents a means for integrating people into the ruling order. Not war, but life based on Social Darwinism and progressism is the source of sport. Instead of traditional religions, Olympism becomes the highest (positive) religion appropriate to the spirit of the modern world: the spirit of Olympism is the spirit of capitalism. Unlike traditional religions, sport is not an attempt to make life meaningful; it is a shock-therapy meant to alleviate the ever bigger sufferings caused by the everyday meaningless and ever bloodier life. It crushes the critical visionary mind, the idea of future and man as a living (biological) being. The “creation of future&rdquo in sport is based on the positivistic maxim “to know in order to predict, to predict in order to act&rdquo (savoir pour prevoir, prevoir pour agir). A fight between people is possible, according to the rules which are the embodiment of the ruling spirit, but not for the purpose of changing the established order. In it, there is no fight between the good and the evil, which means that the basic humanistic principle is excluded from sport, the principle without which there is no civilization. Sport is the most authentic anticipation of a capitalist “future&rdquo.
DK: Right. What is the function of sport within capitalist class society?
LS: Sport has become the most important political weapon of the class domination by which the bourgeoisie destroys the class consciousness of the working people, critical mind, libertarian dignity, depolitizes the oppressed, achieves “national integration&rdquo… In contrast to the earlier games, which expressed the spirit of the ruling order and had a class exclusivity, sport is a “supraclass&rdquo game which expresses the progressistic capitalist universalism by means of which the bourgeoisie draws into its spiritual orbit not only workers, but women and members of “lower races&rdquo as well. It serves to “overcome&rdquo class antagonism (“sport has nothing to do with politics&rdquo), achieves “class reconciliation&rdquo and thus “social peace&rdquo. For the ruling class, sport is an “ideological political cudgel&rdquo which destroys the critical mind and workers’ drive for changes. It is a vent releasing the discontent of the oppressed and preventing the creation of an organized political movement that can jeopardize the ruling order. The conflict between classes is transferred from the political (social) sphere to stadiums, the war waged in sport being the embodiment of the capitalist way of life. When a man gives vent to his discontent on a stadium, he does that in a way which does not question the existing order, but reproduces it. Sport is a capitalist ideology which “levels off&rdquo class differences based on the ruling principles of capitalism. To win! – that is the existential imperative both for those who are at the bottom and for those who sit in “blue loges&rdquo. Capitalism does not leave anybody alone. The existential uncertainty is Damocles’ sword hovering over everybody’s head. Trying to escape from the bottom and struggling not to come to the bottom – this is what makes the rich and the poor “get closer&rdquo. “Enjoying&rdquo wealth means letting off the fear of poverty. Sport repeatedly produces the awareness of an unavoidable world based on the Social Darwinist principle “The stronger win, the weaker are eliminated!&rdquo (Coubertin). It provokes a conflict between people (nations, races and genders) thus producing the existing world of injustice. Sport serves to provide the oppressed with “opponents&rdquo in the form of an “opponent team&rdquo and “opponent supporters&rdquo so that they can vent their anger at them because of their humiliating position. It absorbs the increasing discontent of the oppressed working people and their children – whose future is being destroyed. Capitalism produces an unhappy and mutilated man, and at the same time creates ever bloodier compensatory mechanisms and a need for them – which is attributed to the “evil&rdquo human nature. Sport clearly shows the truth that politics is an art of directing the discontent of the oppressed towards the realization of inhuman ends. That is why in sport everything is allowed: murder, serious physical injuries, verbal abuses… “Victory&rdquo on a sports field is the defeat of humanity.
DK: There, however, does appear to be continuity between the Roman Empire and today’s society. Ancient Rome used the coliseum to offer the masses bread and circuses. In Ancient Rome, this was used to keep the population from turning against their elites. Sport today serves the same purpose but also something much more sinister. The Romans were interested in distracting their citizens rather than destroying them. Today, sport serves to both distract and kill the citizens.
LS: Sports spectacles have become the chief and cheapest spiritual food for those deprived of their rights. To drive the oppressed into stadiums and sports centres has become the most important political task of the ruling regimes. Hence everything is being done to enable their regular occurrence. Those who adopt laws prescribing long-term imprisonment for children who run into the field during a game, are the main promoters of sport, which is an institutionalized violence with a spectacular dimension; those who struggle to “abolish&rdquo capital punishment as a “non-civilized&rdquo measure are the chief organizers of the ever bloodier sports spectacles in which premeditated and accidental murders as well as the infliction of serious physical injuries are legalized; the European legislation in no way tries to stop a monstrous abuse of increasingly younger children and their turning into sports slaves; the duration and intensity of trainings are not limited; the selling of players by clubs is legalized; segregation according to the gender has been institutionalized; the use of dope is elevated to the level of the state policy– hiding the interests of multinational concerns and ruling political clans; “physical culture&rdquo has been expelled from schools and “sports education&rdquo has been introduced in which, instead of cultural conscious and tolerance, prevail physical strength and the spirit of ruthless rivalry; young people deprived of their rights acquire the status of “hooligans&rdquo and thus of social outcasts; instead of pedagogical measures for preventing the violent behaviour of young people and creating the conditions for changing their ever harder social position, we are facing an increasingly brutal police oppression… All those things that express the existential spirit of capitalism – murder, physical injuries, destruction of humanity – acquire in sports fields a spectacular dimension. The principle “Victory at all costs!&rdquo, which corresponds to the principle “Profit at all costs!&rdquo – becomes a supreme and unquestionable sports principle.
DK: I’m originally from New York, which is not only the centre of the capitalist world but also where baseball is the most popular sport. The two most popular “newspapers&rdquo, which are really nothing but gossip tabloids devoid of any serious news, devote half their pages to sports. In fact, most New Yorkers buy these papers to read the sport results. The most popular writers are sports columnists. The stories are all about the personalities of the managers and players. When one or both of the baseball teams make the playoffs, the entire city is swept up into the drama of whether or not the Yankees or Mets will win the Pennant or the World Series. During the month of October, New York gets swept up in the drama of baseball. Indeed, the collective or mass psychology of most inhabitants is determined by how well or bad our teams do.
LS: The nature of sport as drama is conditioned by the role of sport in society. It is not an activist integration of the ruling class, like the ancient Olympic Games and medieval chivalrous tournaments, but is a “supraclass&rdquo phenomenon and as such means the integration of the oppressed into the spiritual orbit of the ruling class and their depolitization according to the principle panem et circences. Its purpose is to inseminate man with the ruling spirit, to pin him down to the existing world, destroy his mind, imagination, hope of a better world… A sports spectacle is a modern pagan festivity which gives a fatal dimension to the ruling relations and values. It does not enable man to treat the existing world in a reasonable way, but completely integrates him into it. Man becomes the toy of destiny, which means of the basic processes of capitalist reproduction. Sport abolishes the dualism of reality and ideals. In it, there is no opposition between play and life: it represents life in its existential and essential sense. Sport is the authentic form of the playing of life and thus is its glorification which is supposed to create a religious relation to the ruling values. Sport does not reflect the human; it is rather that man becomes a means for deification of the ruling relations and values. Sport is not an innocent children’s play; it is a ritual manifestation of the submission to the ruling spirit and thus is the highest religious ceremony with a liturgical character. It is pervaded with a sacred serenity. Hence the importance of the “Olympic oath&rdquo (serment olympique): sport is the cult of the existing world, while man appears in the sports ritual as the symbolic incarnation of the spirit that rules the world. A sports spectacle is not an enactment of life; it is its reproduction: in it, the essence of the capitalist world appears in a condensed form. Rugby, boxing and other bloody sports are immediate expression of the “American way of life&rdquo, which is based on a ruthless Social Darwinism and a destructive progressism – and which becomes a planetary way of life (“globalism&rdquo). The sports drama is the authentic way of the playing of life – in which life itself is the stake. Sport is a drama without masks, without petty bourgeois lies, without invented plots which are to glorify criminals and obtain meaning for the capitalist nothingness. Life itself continues without a “humanistic&rdquo and “artistic&rdquo veil. It is legal in sport to inflict serious physical injuries and kill, to mutilate children, apply medical “treatments&rdquo which reduce sportsmen to laboratory rats, to turn the young into fascist hordes… The theatre represents the scenery of the world of lies and crime; sport represents its foundation. At the stadium, there is no human distance, there is no comical: gladiators are not entitled to laughter. The increasingly bloody life requires increasingly bloody sports spectacles, which are the compensation to the oppressed for the increasing everyday misery. “The spectators love the smell of blood!&rdquo – this is the “golden rule&rdquo of sports show-business in the USA and other countries of the “free world&rdquo. Sports stadiums were not built for well-to-do (petty) bourgeois, as is the case with the theatre which has an elitist status, but for the working “masses&rdquo deprived of their rights and for their children reduced to “hooligans&rdquo. The modern stadium appeared along with the modern industrial proletariat, at the time when workers managed to obtain the eight-hour working day – when the bourgeoisie endeavoured to “colonize the leisure time&rdquo of workers and thus prevent their political organization and integrate them into the ruling order. Stadiums are not designed for “cultural education&rdquo of the oppressed, but for their “pacification&rdquo (depolitization) and idiocy. “Sport is the cheapest spiritual food for the (working) masses that keeps them under control.&rdquo – this is the most accurate sociological (political) definition of sport reached, after the First World War and the then revolutionary movements in Europe, by the “father&rdquo of modern Olympism Pierre de Coubertin. Sport is becoming a way of destroying the class consciousness and shifting the fight from the political to the sports arena. Stadiums are not the temples of culture but bonfires for burning out the discontent of the oppressed. This is what determines their appearance: stadiums are modern concentration camps for people deprived of their civil and human rights. Everywhere in the capitalist world, where people are becoming increasingly poor, and fewer and fewer people are becoming rich, we have the same picture: wire fences, special police forces, trained dogs… A match is an occasion for giving vent for a man increasingly deprived of his rights, and it does not reflect human “evil&rdquo but suffering and despair. Sports spectacles are a way of turning the critical and change-oriented potentials of the people deprived of their rights into aggression directed towards the so called “opponents&rdquo, who belong to the same class of the oppressed, and a way of provoking a war between them. This is the basis on which supporting groups are formed: instead of turning their discontent towards the ruling order, young people turn it towards other supporting groups, who are also the victims of an inhuman order. “Supporting masses&rdquo are a form of degeneration of the working youth, while fanaticism of supporters is a form of degenerating its critical and change-oriented conscious. Symbols and slogans under which the youth gather do not speak of freedom, brotherhood, peace, cooperation, love: they are of a fascist character. “Patriotism&rdquo without culture is barbarism. As far as sports “idols&rdquo are concerned, they are not fighting for freedom; they are the tool of capitalism for combating the libertarian mind and integrating the youth, reduced to the supporting “mass&rdquo, into the existing world. The increasingly bloody conflicts between different supporters are an inevitable consequence of the increasingly difficult position of young people in a world based on the principle “Money does not stink!&rdquo, and on the increasingly ruthless manipulation of the young, which springs from the fear that their discontent might turn against the ruling order and be used for building a new (just) world. On sports stadiums, fresh mountain water, which can overflow the increasingly rotten capitalist dam, turns into a swamp. Firecrackers and other supporting equipment do not express joy of life: they are symbols of destruction. Torches are not the source of light: they are a symbolic form of burning the world without a future.
DK: You’re right! For residents of New York our two most sacred buildings are Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden. Shifting gears, you write of “Sportivization&rdquo, which you say is the key component of capitalism totalitarianism. Can you elaborate what you mean?
LS: Officially, “sport has nothing to do with politics&rdquo but, in fact, it is a universal political instrument of the world rulers in their attempt to preserve capitalism. “Sportivization&rdquo has become the most important ideological form of the capitalist totalizing of the world, while stadium has become the most important cult venue of the contemporary world – where to the ruling spirit a critical and change-oriented mind is sacrificed. Sport, as the chief “mondialist&rdquo religion, becomes a means for destroying traditional religions, cultural heritage of peoples and political ideas and movements which oppose the “new world order&rdquo, which means a destructive (ecocide) capitalist totalitarism. Coubertin does not hide that the chief task of IOC is to create, through sport, a global positive one-mindedness. The establishment of a total and unquestionable unique (capitalist) worldview has become the leading political principle. In the world, there are thousands and thousands of sports manifestations every day; the sports commentaries from the sports fields are given the prime time in the news and cover most of the space in public media; “sports&rdquo TV channels broadcast sports programme non-stop; sport is becoming the chief advertising billboard in an increasingly ruthless economic war and the most important political platform; sports paganism becomes a means of Christian churches (and other leading religious communities) for courting the “masses” the ruling “esthetic model&rdquo becomes the sports body; everyday language takes over sports terminology, especially the political language and that of business; politicians and capitalists place primary importance to their sports biographies, the photos of them are taken while engaged in a sports activity, they strive to attain a “sporting image&rdquo which is meant to demonstrate their “victorious spirit” sport becomes the chief means for “money laundering&rdquo, meaning a mafia business of utmost importance; coaches acquire the status of supreme managers of capitalism; sportsmen become moving billboards, while stadiums, sports and betting places become the temples of capitalism.
DK: It’s interesting how our conversation has led to two central themes: stadiums and arenas as the temple of capitalism and how in New York, the sports columnist is read by more people than political columnists. It isn’t an accident that the New York Post, owned by the far right wing propagandist Rupert Murdoch boasts that is has the “Best Sports Section in New York&rdquo. How do you see the correlation between the lack of serious journalism, i.e.; serious reporting and investigation of the most pressing issues that the masses face, with the saturation of sports and gossip presented as “news&rdquo?
LS: The role of a journalist is to give a “spectacular&rdquo dimension to the increasingly cruel sports reality. There is not a critical detachment from the aspect of morality, social interest or any other norms apart from sport. Sports commentators glorify violence and destruction and in a perfidious way encourage conflicts between the oppressed, which appear in the form of supporters, between nations, genders and races. They seek to establish a direct contact between sports spectacles and subconscious: a sports spectacle is meant to “draw&rdquo discontent from the oppressed and direct it towards the “opponent&rdquo. Sports articles are of an increasingly primitive character: they correspond to the sport which destroys the power of reasoning and creates a massive idiocy. The ever more aggressive sensationalism is a commercial form of ever more meaningless texts which give a “fatal&rdquo dimension to marginal phenomena and a marginal dimension to the crucial issues for humanity. Writing on the nature of modern capitalism Marcuse concludes: “The non-functioning of television and the allied media might thus begin to achieve what the inherent contradictions of capitalism did not achieve – the disintegration of the system. The creation of repressive needs has long since become part of socially necessary labour – necessary in the sense that without it, the established mode of production could not be sustained. Neither problems of psychology nor of aesthetics are at stake, but the material base of domination.&rdquo
DK: Combined, sport and propaganda which are only meant to entertain rather than to enlighten, serve to degenerate society. What are the more serious effects by which capitalism creates total destruction?
LS: Capitalism creates not only repressive, but also (self) destructive needs. Suicidal “feats&rdquo become the biggest “test of courage&rdquo and are thus a form of dragging people away from the field of (political) fight for the realization of their human rights and the survival of the world. The same applies to boxing and other bloody spectacles. Instead of directing their dissatisfaction to the abolishment of the world of misery, people direct it to bloody clashes with other people. Sport is the most important instrument of capitalism for degenerating man. It destroys not only the body, but also the critical change-oriented (visionary) conscious and produces (self-destructive) fanaticism. By way of sport man is held outside historical space where the governing values are conserved – which is the essence of the view that sport is a phenomenon sui generis and “has nothing to do with politics&rdquo. Instead of changing the ruling order which increasingly generates evil, the order changes man by destroying in him everything that makes him human and can become the basis for the development of a critical mind and changing practice. The emancipatory legacy of civil society has been discarded and “new&rdquo fascism is being established which is the incarnation of the ecocide spirit of contemporary capitalism. By becoming the order of destruction in a pure sense (“consumer society&rdquo), capitalism cast away its “humanistic&rdquo and “progressive&rdquo mask. Sport is no longer used for preserving the faith in the “eternal values of capitalism&rdquo, the critical change-oriented mind is being destroyed which, above all, means the confidence that a free and righteous world is possible. Manipulation shifts from the ideological sphere to the psychological one: stadium becomes a psychotherapeutic institution. Instead of the cult of victory and records, the dominant cult is that of a spectacle which is the main spiritual drug by means of which the ruling oligarchy holds “masses&rdquo under control; instead of becoming “contestants&rdquo and “recorders&rdquo, sportsmen become circus players, gladiators and stuntmen.
DK: What hasn’t been reported in the mainstream media is the police state which has been created in South Africa for the World Cup. Tens of thousands of residents of the slums have been relocated hundreds of miles out of the towns where the matches are being played. South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Rather than addressing the needs of its poor, the government has made them literary disappear so that visitors and the international media don’t see the social reality of South Africa. Moreover, South Africa is not receiving a single penny from FIFA from TV broadcasting rights, ticket sales and the sales from official FIFA merchandise. Stadium stewards went on strike to demand their pay and higher wages. They were met with police repression and sacked en-masse. None of this has been covered by the international media. One can only conclude that the World Cup in South Africa has been to the benefit of foreign multinational corporations while increasing the misery for the majority of impoverished South Africans.
This interview was performed by Der Kosmonaut (2010) and published on the blog: Adventures of Der Kosmonaut.
