When I published, in the year 2000, my thesis under the title “Sport and desire for war”, I was able to realize how some colleagues had the wrong idea of the book by having read only the title. However, for anyone who has read René Girard, the term desire could and should awaken a concept: “mimetic desire”. Is there a desire to replicate a warrior pattern in sport? Is there a possible connection between sport and war? In any case, through three scientific disciplines (linguistics, history, anthropology), let’s try to explore relationships, similarities, connections, etc.
For language sciences, when a new sector of activity develops, it will generate a semantic field to understand itself, and most of the time, it will borrow concepts from a “neighbor”. These borrowings are metaphors that can be lexicalized. So let’s see this in team sports: there is a team “captain”. “Strategies” are developed, “tactics” implemented in “attack” and “defense”. Of course, the match ends in a “victory” or a “loss”. The “triumph” of a team recalls that victory is won at the end of a “combat” (follow the adjective you want).
One might think that only collective sports or duels use warrior metaphors. Nay! Sir John Hunt, military leader of his state, leads the conquest of Everest and titles his book: “Victory on Everest”. Obviously, to say that we climbed to the top of Everest, that sounds a bit poor. It is better to personify the giant to conquer it and say that the fight was hard to get there. Let us dwell for a moment on this term of combat. We make Baron de Coubertin say that the main thing is to participate. In fact he said at the 1908 London Games: “The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well. » Which, we will admit, is not the same, and still feels its warlike odor.
In History, duels and struggles are legion. Here then ! We find them almost as they are in sport. With the difference that in sport, death is not admissible. Strict rules ensure this non-lethality and especially the advent of the referee (almighty on the ground) is the feature that will clearly mark the transition from warlike violence to the symbolic violence of sport. We will come back to it.
In an episode of the Bible, Israel was invaded by the Philistines. Instead of a ravaging war, David challenged Goliath. This is the first story where we see a clear desire to reduce human losses. Should we see the beginnings there? On February 13, 1503, the disfida di Barletta was a tournament of chivalry which pitted 13 Italian knights against the same number of Frenchmen. This avoids a war, but should we already see the foretastes of a collective sport, type rugby at 13? In 490 BC, Philippides ran from Marathon to Athens to announce victory over the Persians. There would be 42.195 kilometers between the two cities. Come on, let’s continue to celebrate this event!… Among the Amerindians (Iroquois and Algonquins), the canoe is just as much a transport boat as a warship. At the bow, very raised, stands the sniper. Before it became a sport or tourism machine, trappers used it to transport hides. The history of the tournaments of the Middle Ages and Soule, ancestor of rugby, comes little by little to discover new activities. If the sport was born in England at the time when this one is parliamentarized, it is not insignificant. Conflicts can now be settled in Parliament, or elsewhere, but orally, and no longer bloody.
We can finally ban real duels. But a slew of warrior duels can turn into sporting duels: epee, foil, saber can and must adapt. The fights with the jacket, percussions or body to body are organized. Archery, target shooting and biathlon also “dress up this museum that is sport”. All these activities are or therefore have warrior ancestors, and even if it is not a sport, but a simple physical activity, what is paintball if not a way of pretending to kill oneself, therefore of doing the war ?
Which makes us gently slide towards anthropology. Bernard Jeu considers that collective sports teams compete for a ball, symbolic of the Sun, therefore of life. This is one of the differences and at the same time similarities between sport and war: the symbolic dispute over life. One of the most interesting issues here and in anthropology is the relationship of women in sport. They are totally banned from the first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. Our dear Baron is strongly opposed to their participation. Later, in 1928, showing that he had a following in his ideas, he declared “As for the participation of women in the Games, I remain hostile to it. » Why ? Garri Kasparov said in 1991: “Chess is a fight. A ruthless fight. It’s not made for women. Sorry. » Why ? But here it becomes clearer. Other than the Amazons, who are arguably only part of a mythology, there are no women in the history of warfare (as in any good French grammatical rule, Joan of Arc is an exception). And from there to dare a hypothesis, there is only one step: War is a matter of men and women are not part of it. Quite naturally, and more or less unconsciously, they were therefore excluded from the emerging sport, which looked too much like war. Violence is associated with men, not women.
A last point, in the year 2000, I wrote that certain men or institutions sought to limit violence. But the times are not the same. Thus, the sacred—I’m talking about the Christian religion—was concerned with curbing violence. Jesus Christ wants to act before violence, by promulgating his famous: ” Love eachother “; even if powerful slippages sometimes (often…) contradict this wish: the Cathar episodes, inquisitions, etc. Still, it’s a good attempt to stop the violence before it happens. Justice (from the Latin justicia: punishment) chooses a different path. It intervenes after the violence. For there to be an act of justice, it is necessary to establish a fault, an offence. Justice is exercised afterwards, by punishing. Does this punishment serve as an example? Sport, on the other hand, is more pragmatic, it organizes violence in the present time. As the State reserves the monopoly of violence, it will delegate to the sports federations the power to enact rules and to appoint its police… sorry: its referees. Nice evolution!
And if that was the difference between sport and war: This faculty that men (and women, I don’t want people to call me sexist) have to want to manage violence… Well, not always!
