What do elite athletes contribute to society?

XCTC wrote:

There are also practical contributions. I have studied the training and techniques of elite athletes my whole life in order to improve my own running and to improve my coaching of others. That is a fairly direct contribtion that those athletes who have pursued their path (and shared their findings, whether it is through coaches, or writing or whatever) have made to my life and to the life of others, on however small a scale. In an affluent society with a high level of communication, the ripple effect is enhanced considerably. For instance, I only knew the outline of Mark Nenow's career and training back when he was competing, but thanks to a recent interview/podcast, I feel that I have a much more intimate understanding of his approach.

Oh geez whiz, you have successly used over 100 words and have said absolutely nothing. The question was "What do elite athletes contribute to society?". Your answer, to paraphrase, is "When I heard a Mark Nenow interview, I came aways with something". Now this is an interesting situation, because, of course, it was you that "took" something from Nenow's spoken words. Interestingly enough, Nenow is no longer considered an elite athlete, and the information you feel was his contribution to society wasn't contributed in the role of elite athlete. While Nenow was an elite athlete, he wasn't doing interviews outlining his training regiment.

I know I'm being a stick in the eye over semantics, but I am trying to find someone, anyone, who can answer this question honestly and come up with something besides "elite athletes contribute to nothing to society?", whereas the nothing can be more accurately described as "nothing tangible". Any "contributions to society" are incidental, accidental and non-intentional, and these contributions are not common to all elite athletes.

So let's say I ask "What has XCTC contributed to society?". You will reply "I have contributed a cure for cancer, 25 hours of community service, and I pick up dog poop in my neighborhood". As a specific person, you can more easily quantify exactly what you have done. However, if you change XCTC to a specific group acting in a specific role, i.e., elite athlete, you need to come up with contributions performed by the entire sub-group. Since not all elite athletes have a single contribution in common, then the answer must be nothing.

As the question was posed, probably as some other poster indicated, as some type of homework assignement, it looks like a question that was assinged for someone to debate. Having had those nifty debate classes in the past, I can easily recall coming up with pat answers such as "inspiration" and then having the teacher ask something like " and exactly how has OJ Simpson inspired you?". You then realize that a question like this is not easily answered without defining parameters, which in turn changes the question from its original form.

PALN: Here are less than 100 words:

You are trapped in a very deep well and we don't have a rope long enough to reach you.

Thankfully, I don't need to be reached. I'll have fun reading silly replies to a question that has no answer...

Re: elite athletes having a selfish lifestyle.

As long as they are self-sufficient I don't see why this is a problem, or even a selfish choice. Are you saying because they don't get out there and get a proper job which contributes to society, they are being selfish? I doubt most people get in the jobs they are in with a desire to contribute to society. It's a desire to support yourself and to buy things usually. Surely that is as selfish? Let's say, instead of being an athlete, they work in an office. Won't that position still be filled without them? Maybe by someone who is unemployed... I'm not sure the motives to being an elite athlete or for getting a certain job are any worse than each other.

Pamela Anderson's Left Nipple wrote:

I'll have fun reading silly replies to a question that has no answer...

But you answered it yourself in your first post ("entertainment").

Anyway, I agree that in your very narrow reading of the original question, there is pretty much no tangible answer. You can't contribute inspiration; but I do think you can contribute the seed for inspiration. Perhaps elite athletes contribute a paradigm of excellence: this is active and intentional as they aspire towards winning, fast times, etc., and it is FROM this that we take inspiration. Not necessarily tangible in the physical sense, but in running especially excellence takes a very measurable form.

But my problem with your reading is that it is still too narrow. If we rephrased the question to read "To what do elite athletes contribute?", then inspiration would be an entirely appropriate answer, and I think shutting the discussion down at "they contribute nothing tangible" is therefore misleading. They may not contribute inspiration, but they do contribute TO inspiration, and it seems acceptable to me to consider other renderings of the original question.

reporter HS wrote:

What value does the elite athlete provide others?

Looking back, I notice this question in the original post. PALN, can an athlete "provide" inspiration, or do you see that, too, as a necessarily active and intentional verb?

math teacher wrote:

But you answered it yourself in your first post ("entertainment").

Of course, not all elite athletes are entertaining. I was jsut taking a stab at defining something tangible that they contribute.

math teacher wrote:

Looking back, I notice this question in the original post. PALN, can an athlete "provide" inspiration, or do you see that, too, as a necessarily active and intentional verb?

I don't think that someone can provide inspiration (or motivation, for that matter). Think about it: how would you inspire someone? Either a person is inspired or they aren't. It's all up to them. Inspiration is something that is felt by a person. The source might be from another person, but again, its passive and indirect. If my 3:59 mile at age 41 "inspires" you, remember these things:

1. I did it for me, not you.

2. My intent was never to inspire you.

3. You are inspired by my actions, but others might not give a rat's ass

And exactly what did I do? Well, I just ran a mile.

(I cannot run a mile in 3:59, 4:59, and right now, it's debateble whether I can run 5;59!!)

The good news is, elite athletes dont need to "contribute" one damn thing to society.

Nobody does. Society is not a charity that needs our help. Obey the laws, pay your taxes, be a decent person and all of the rest is just so much crap.

I would say that in most cases.... this is not the case. When a runner is motivated to run, it is because he is encouraged to do so by those who will revel in his success, so he is doing it for those people of whom he is trying to impress. Of course, he is trying to impress others, because impressing others causes his own self to feel good. So, under these conditions, he runs with the intention of exciting others... making others feel good.... which in turn causes himself to feel good. This motivational cycle is what keeps him going. Without the interest and involvement of others, I don't believe he would continue this motivational trend and I believe that the cycle would not continue. Would you still try to reach your running potential if you were the last person left in this world? Nobody else to share your success with? Well then.... maybe you are a truly selfish runner. But I don't believe that running would be what it is without the social aspect of running. Humans.... obviously, are a highly social animal and they're actions are usually motivated by social influences around them, influences which are brought about by the social needs of people around them. In this way, I don't believe that a runner would run, if he wasn't satisfying a need in society. Of course, the other possible motivating factor in causing a person to run, would be out of a need to survival, but I think you would have a weak argument at best, if you tried to argue that professional runners run in order to survive. It is not an easy profession to be successful in.

What's the difficulty?

This question is impossible to answer. Society is merely a group of individuals with diverse abilities and interests. Therefore, it is impossible to generalize that one group of individuals (elite athletes, in this case) provide some sort of value to everybody else.

In the long run, we are all dead.

Actually, Milton, in the short run for you

BWAH! HAH! HAH! HAH!

continue wrote:

I would say that in most cases.... this is not the case. When a runner is motivated to run, it is because he is encouraged to do so by those who will revel in his success, so he is doing it for those people of whom he is trying to impress.

Just curious-- have you had a sociology and/or psychology course? What you're basically referring to is extrinsic motivation, when actually intrinsic motivation (ex. exercising because it makes you feel good), in the long run, is more likely to result in a maintenance of that habit... exercise. It could be reasoned that people who survive collegiate running and continue to run (which is actually a rare breed!) have more intrinsic motivation for maintaining that habit. However, those relying on primarily extrinsic motivation (doing it for the money/fame/recognition) are less likely to continue with the habit. Then of course, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation may go hand-in-hand, and result in the difference between being a 'hobby jogger' post college or a competitive athlete.

As far as fulfilling a basic physiological need, if you look at our ancestors (or even animals), they hunted/gathered out of need/survival. Those thrifty genes have been passed onto us and evolutionarily, have not changed. However, in the post-industrial age, there's a mismatch between our diet and our level of physical activity that does not match our biological design. This is evident in the increase in obesity and many rising diseases (~osteoporosis, heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease). This may not have relevance to 'elite athletes', but having some level of physical activity is hot-wired in our genes and has physiologically significant.

Yes! good stuff! certainly! Yes, I've studied both disciplines. I remember that in psychology class it was ephasized that intrinsic motivation is indeed the most likely to stick with a person.... this of course is because a person who is conditioned through negative or positive reinforcers, will eventually lose that conditioning when this reinforcement disappears. The thing about elite athletes is that it takes an extreme amount of focus and determination to reach the level of athleticism that is achieved by such an athlete. Do you believe that a person could achieve this level of athleticism solely for intrinsic reasons? Simply because the activity makes him more healthy and makes him feel better? The social rewards that result from being an active member of society, I believe, play a large role in extrinsicly motivating people towards self-fulfillment. Yes, possibly the result is that a person is empowered from within, but I'm not sure it is even possible for a person to be completely intrinsicly motivated beyond basic instinctual reasons. I think that society/civilization plays a huge role in giving people meaning and purpose in their lives. Without the dynamics of society, what more would there be to life other than basic survival? Well.... I suppose the awe and mistery of one's own existence would be there.... but I'm not sure that many more desires would linger. Society seems to create desires within us... desires that seem almost pointless in its absence, but desires that become so powerful in its presence, that they shape and evolve the world around us. Think about a world where all people are isolated beings. Do you think humanity would have anywhere near the impact it has made to life on this planet?

nopers wrote:

The good news is, elite athletes dont need to "contribute" one damn thing to society.

Nobody does. Society is not a charity that needs our help. Obey the laws, pay your taxes, be a decent person and all of the rest is just so much crap.

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, not just in an ontological and spiritual sense but also collectively in political and economic realms, which determine our well-being in other ways. The Enlightenment has tricked so many of us unwittingly to contribute to our own demise.

Oscar Wilde says that all art is really quite useless. For that matter, so are professional sports.

Entertainment, however, serves a significant societal need. And excellence is cool in itself.

I appologize for posting incoherent thoughts from the top of my mind. I guess, in what I was saying, I was suggesting that a seemingly intrinsicly motivated 'jogger' is also probably extrinsically motivated by society, as well as the more obvious extrinsically motivated elite athlete. I find it hard to imagine that people living in a tribal society would waist their energy, running, for no explicit purpose. Although, I would say that as arts and crafts develop in tribal society, this is the transition to a civilized society, and that such aspects of the society are motivated by the social dynamics, themselves. It is also interesting to wonder... would art have evolved in humanity, had there been no need or desire to communicate amongst one another? I think that it is surprising to consider how much of our lives and how much of civilization is socially influenced. I would argue that 'running for the sake of running' is a civilized behavior. I don't believe that it is something that a primitive would do.

Civilization is really the result of people who no longer have a need to struggle for survival, trying to create a new purpose for themselves. Survival is not really much of a challenge for us, as we really have the upper hand over the rest of life on this planet... so we make life more challenging and interesting for ourselves through art, sports/athletics, capitalism/consumerism. As a result of these challenging games... we end up forcing many people to struggle for survival, but really.... food on this planet is plentiful and practically effortless to accumulate... in comparison to the amount of time we have on our hands. I mean really, a primitive person/animal must spend every minute of every day focusing on its next meal... instead, we mass produce our food, distribute it between those who play the societal games correctly... and then we dump half of it in the ocean for economic reasons. It is all a bunch of meaningless games in order to keep ourselves busy and as a result massive amounts of people end up suffering for the purpose of entertaining others.

in feudal times, mass amounts of people worked and suffered for the entertainment of a few aristocrats - basically, people who have nothing to do other than seek entertainment because their life is too easy - the only difference between now and then is that we have more aristocrats - most people in the west - who are living at the expense of those in the 3rd world. Then we do things like.... hold running competitions (let's see who is the fastest!) in order to entertain ourselves.

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.

You mean this is why YOU are predicting the fall of America.

People have been predicting the fall of America for 200+ years. We will, of course, fall eventually, like all powers. But it won't be because people were just being good citizens. If you want to do more, go right ahead. But America isn't going down because of us who pay our taxes, obey the law and generally do unto others as we'd have them do unto us.

By the way, we are not a democracy. We are a representative republic.

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