What do elite athletes contribute to society?

I would say that war is an example of destructive civilization. I highly doubt that any war in the history of man kind has ever been fought out of necessity. It is true, wars start over resources, but there has always been an excess of resources in this world. I would say that wars are instead, a product of the development of civilization. On the other hand... the olympics... athletics, I would say is an example of constructive civilization. Athletics enhances human relationships, wars impede human relationships and create hostility. Both acts may be completely pointless in terms of necessity, but I would deem one destructive and the other constructive. I'm sure you could do the same for every other aspect of civilization, split it into its constructive and destructive counterparts. Some aspects of society bring people closer and build relationships between people... others create hostility and distance people from one another. Elite athletes are an important part of society.

Some posters imply that elite athletes are ALL self-serving individuals who perform ONLY at the service of big money corporations, whose real contribution to human happiness is TOTALLY delusional, and who should feel NOTHING BUT guilt for their chosen lives. That can hardly be the case.

I am not an apologist for pro sports or the the people who play them, but I think we can more easily quantify their contributions than we have done so far.

To let the discussion flounder on the semantics of "inspire" is a meager way to account for the huge role top-tier sports heroes play in our individual and collective imaginative and emotional lives. Just because we can't account for the exact mechanics or processes of inspiration or claim that it works universally in all cases is not a reason to discount the fact that elite athletes do in fact inspire many of us.

More than that, elite athletes provide us models of superior human performance. They are also objects of fascination who give us a common ground of subjects to discuss and speculate about. Watching elite athletes perform is entertaining; in other words, they bring us pleasure and happiness, which is certainly a contribution. Further, a small cohort of adult elite athletic performers seems a natural or logical extension of our emphasis on the role of sports in our child-rearing practices; the contribution here is to reinforce at every level our cultural emphasis on aggressive but fair competition, in which we play, but not aimlessly. We play to succeed.

sunday football games inspire me to get a 24 pack and sit on the couch

My Take wrote:

in other words, they bring us pleasure and happiness, which is certainly a contribution.

It's not a contribution because it's not intentional.

Just kidding. Well written.

you're an inspiration to all of us.

Thank you. I'm glad you brought this up from a sociological/psychological perspective cause that's a good way of looking at this. We are no longer 'physically active' out of need/survival in the Western world-- society/environment and own motivators (intrinsic and/or extrinsic) influence our decision (or own will) to be physically active. Therefore, it comes across to others that 'exercising' is merely a self-fulfilling endeavor, when actually all of us should be physically active to some degree (which isn't happening!). It's part of our biological design.

I find it hard to believe that our ancestors weren't at least somewhat competitive, on top of hunting/gathering out of necessity. Being competitive is part of human nature! 'Survival of the fittest'. This may come back to sociological/psychological factors (~would we 'push' ourselves, physically, if we lived on a deserted island by ourself? Maybe if it was the difference between surviving or not... Hmmm... remember Tom Hanks trying to spear the fish in Cast Away?).

'Who' is competitive may also come down to biology-- possessing the right anatomy for a sport... possibly greater testosterone levels? If one has the 'right' make-up to be a good athlete, should they deny fulfilling that potential simply because they don't contribute to society?! Are we purely here on earth to 'contribute to society'?! Heck no!

So overall, one may be quick to criticize elite athletes for not contributing to society, as it is hard to define the niche of athletes in society. However, we shouldn't neglect the sociological/psychological/biological factors influencing just how physically active and competitive one is.

yeah, they inspire, but they don't get press that is teh difference between them and Lance arnmstrong

It is funny though how some people look down on entertainers and that they don't contribute to society, but they themselves sit in cubes and reboot computers and think they do contribute somehow.

nopers wrote:

Political Theory wrote:

This is why people are prediciting the fall of America, which is symbolic of democracy. To most people freedom means that they are able to do whatever they want. Democracies are unique in that it has true citizen who participate in the building anfd governing of their society. JFK's old addage to ask not what your country can do you for you but what you can do for your country was meant to save us from our self-destructive greed, blah blah blah.

And JFK was also a cheating womanizer. Was he enlightening us when he slept with Marilyn Monroe?

And so I say to you my fellow Americans: "Ask not what I can do for Marilyn, but what Marilyn can do for me?"

"Johnny, we hardly knew ye!!" Gotta admit though, his sad exploits probably beat the heck out of dealing w/ Nikita and Fidel?!

How narrow or wide is the frame of our discussion? The question seems to me not to be about individual athletes, who being particular people have diverse ways of life, some contributing more than others. Instead, the question is about the value of the elite athlete as such to society at large.

The answer, then, depends upon the relation between two concepts. And the answer should contribute three things: 1) a definition of the concept of the elite athlete, 2) a definition of the concept of society, and 3) an analysis of the relation between these two concepts.

So here's my two cents:

1) The elite athlete is the embodiment of physical virtue.

2) Society is the collection of communal values and norms that guide individual experience.

3) Society, being filled with individuals endowed with physical bodies, needs the elite athlete to provide a communal standard of physical virtue.

Individuals who strive to be elite athletes model this virtue for the rest of society. While modeling physical virtue is one of their responsibilities, the excellence with which they do this does not relieve them of other social responsibilities. On the other hand, it wouldn't be fair to say that they contribute nothing at all.

Part of it is, we live our lives through others. The elites enhance this. Think if there were no professional athletes. I admit it'd leave a void in my life, and probably most of yours'.

What did Bob Dylan say (or sing);

You never understood that it ain't no good

You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you...

wow. fascinating discussion. go easy on me, i'm a virgin poster:

not only is the elite athlete an embodiment of physical virtue (as the "framer of the discussion" posits), he or she is also a living, breathing, walking, running, jumping paragon of those virtues athletic excellence presupposes: discipline, tenacity, courage, and an overarching if not unending desire for self-improvement. i would argue that what the elite athlete does for society is to hold up a mirror to show us a version of our very best selves, the ones we want to be when we pass our new year's resolutions and the ones we lose track of when we bag a workout in favor of the pub.

but the function elites perform isn't a simple fleeting and amorphous act of inspiration; it's much more direct. by modeling what plato called "arete," now loosely defined as "excellence" (broadly speaking in mind, spirit and body), elite athletes provide a roadmap for the rest of us to explore the possibility of being "better," in whatever way that's important to you.

if a guy sitting on his sofa two summers ago watched lance win his final TdeF and concluded that if lance can beat cancer and rebound to win the world’s toughest endurance race seven times, he can get up off the couch and pedal his bike to work tomorrow and the next day and the next; and if a woman sitting in the stands of a WNBA game has marveled at the enthusiasm and athleticism of the players and decided to set a personal goal of completing a 20-mile Walk for Hunger; and if a child has watched a heavily-muscled NFL player reach down and give a hand-up to an opponent buried beneath a human pile and resolved to do the same in his peer playground games, then aren’t sport and its "players" making good on the rent for the space they occupy in our nation’s heart and mind?

inthearena, nice thoughts. I meant to invoke the Greek concept of virtue (but Aristotle's your man here, not Plato)--I agree with you up to the point when you say the elite athlete shows us a version of our very best self. This is not always true.

Elite athletes are often obsessive, neurotic, perfectionists who have driven themselves to an extreme in human character. That's why the elite athlete has to be thought from the perspective of physical accomplishment instead of more expansively--for every NFL guy who gives an opponent a hand up, there is a roid-raging beast who would eat his kids to advance his playing career.

Elite athletes model excellence in physical performance--to say that they model excellence in life itself is give too much credit to athletic pursuits. It suggests that the sportsmanship of the elite athlete comes from his pursuit of athletic perfection. There are too many counter-examples to justify such a suggestion. We have to be able to draw a distinction between the type of inspiration that, say, a figure like Martin Luther King provides, and that elite athletes, qua athletes, do not...

Elites, but not the majority of them, provide a microcosm of society that is totally driven and dedicated to excellence at their field. It is a reassuring thought that there are people in the world who believe so strongly in what they do. Take Ryan Hall for instance. Everything he does revolves around running as fast as he possibly can. And that ultimately comes from his religious beliefs. The fact that he is able to show that kind of absolute devotion to "the Task" is good for society.

However, the Ron Artests, steroid/EPO users, etc discount everything i just said unfortunately.

Have you ever heard of "cause and effect". Without the elite runner(cause) where would the inspiration come from(effect).

Inspiration comes from somewhere; thus the term. Do you think people just inherently imagine elite runners and become inspired?

Thus, elite runners do contribute to the inspiration of some people. Whether you want to accept it or not, some people's brains WILL correlate the performance or look of an elite runner with inspiration.

I think that ITA is more nearly correct than FoftD on the important question of whether elite athletes can and do model excellence ("arete" -- great word!) in life broadly defined. To be sure, gifted non-athletes such as MLK Jr. have inspired millions to pursue choiceworthy ends and will surely continue doing so. But to acknowledge this isn't inconsistent in the slightest degree with acknowledging and indeed celebrating certain elite athletes' proven capacity to inspire diverse millions to do good if not great things -- and to refrain from doing bad or ignoble ones. P.S. ITA's right about the origins of "arete", which is a concept traceable all the way back to Plato, on whose broad shoulders Aristotle and other post-Platonic Greek thinkers unavoidably stood.

I am very tall.