http://philosophyandsports.blogspot.com/2009/02/prolegomenon-hunting-as-sport.html
Part of a larger project while trying to resuscitate my academic career--may be of interest to others here. (where's Coggins when you need him?)
Jim T.
helping the State manage its pesky woodcock population . . .one doodle at a time
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20 comments:
I'm having trouble relating this whole sporting/unsporting thing with Krutch's argument that hunting is evil or the broader (absurd/hypocritical/idiotic) condemnation of hunting/carnivory. I'm sure this arises from my failure to read the "sporting" literature (they don't publish abstracts), but the sporting debate seems misplaced. I always liked your aesthetic categorization of certain ethics. Even in subsistence hunting societies there are aesthetic choices that are made in the selection and pursuit of food/game. A species tastes better so it is pursued. There is pride and pleasure in how one takes the subsistence game just as there is in taking the Maine partridge. Or, there is ritual meaning in killing one species over simply culling a chicken. Why then are subsistence hunters exempt from the sporting debate? I know that my hunting is not for subsistence, but I don't think of the hunting that I do as sport at all. Yucks about my unsporting approach to hunting aside, nearly every dimension of hunting that I value doesn't involve sport. If sport doesn’t apply to subsistence hunters then it certainly doesn’t apply to me. Am I simply semantically challenged? Discuss.
Nice post Jim, on the big boys blog.
I will start by saying this is not an area of expertise of mine, by any stretch. I will also start by saying that I am enjoying my bourbon. However, I think you do not go far enough with the etymology of sport.
Though you rightly point out the semantic disconnects between our current usage of "sport" and its early English/British usage, it might also be helpful to go the route of sport as adaptation, which becomes cultural construct.
Wiki says "The history of sport probably extends as far back as the existence of people as purposive beings. Sport has been a useful way for people to increase their mastery of nature and the environment. The history of sport can teach us a great deal about social changes and about the nature of sport itself. Sport seems to involve basic human skills being developed and exercised for their own sake, in parallel with being exercised for their usefulness. It also shows how society has changed its beliefs and therefore there are changes in the rules. Of course, as we go further back in history the dwindling evidence makes the the theories of the origins and purposes of sport difficult to support. Nonetheless, its importance in human history is undeniable."
This resonates well with Kellert's arguments about "sport" as one of a handful of manifestations of "Biophilia"- our innate affinity for nature. This argument seems to point at "sport" as something much more significant than trivial pastime, or recreation, or leisure pursuit.
Beyond the affront of the elitist antis who denigrate blood sport because of its barbarism, there is a more deeply troubling undercurrent of the idea of sport in general being meaningless, unsophisticated, perhaps backward,and anachronistic. I don't know about moral philosophy, but at a logic level, there are problems.
Anyway, I like you argument Jim, and only suggest that further etymology of sport might add arrows to your quiver.
Uncle Pete first (but thanks in advance to both of you for the thoughtful comments).
I wouldn't say you are semantically challenged. Let's just say, um, that semantics are not your metier?
heh heh
I have given a number of workshops over the years in various places where I've argued, basically, "why hunting is a sport and why that matters." I'm thinking of this piece as the introduction to a larger paper that will include the aesthetic categorization of ethics you refer to.
But in brief, the sport issue shakes out as follows, at least as I see it:
Logically speaking, hunting as a voluntary leisure activity (play) has structure and rules that make it structured play (game) and a physical aspect that make it a physical game (sport). These relations are logically entailed whether we like the term 'sport' or not.
Why this matters is because the structure and rules of the game give rise to our concepts and beliefs about fair play and fair chase. Again, this is true whether we like the term 'sport' or not.
With that said, I usually agree with others who argue that maybe our use of the term "sport" is not politically correct--I find myself in public referrring to "recreational hunting" more often than not.
Again, to me it's the importance of the "fair chase" culture wars both within and beyond the hunting community that makes the distinction significant and relevant. I'm not sure it's "just semantics"--I think that how people classify hunting affects how they think about hunting.
Uncle Keith second:
The key thing in the Wiki definition that catches my eye is the statement "Sport seems to involve basic human skills being developed and exercised for their own sake." To me that gets at the idea of play existing for its own sake--i.e., for no other utilitarian purpose. We play because it's fun and we want to, not because we have to.
With that said, Wiki also gets it right when it adds that sports develop historically "in parallel with being exercised for their usefulness." People--throughout history--have always been nervous about play for its own sake, and so they have attempted to justify their forms of play with arguments designed to prove how "useful" their play is. Which are the self-serving rationalizations that Joy Williams is so fond of, no doubt. We hunt for management. We hunt for food. etc etc
The problem with those rationalizations is that they are not honest. We don't hunt to help the state manage its pesky woodcock population one doodle at a time. We don't hunt to fill the freezer with woodcock. We hunt woodcock because it's fun to hunt woodcock.
So the other thing that sticks out in Cagey's comments is this: "This argument seems to point at 'sport' as something much more significant than trivial pastime, or recreation, or leisure pursuit." Although I don't use Kellert or biophilia to get there, my argument is that sport, recreation, pastimes, or leisure pursuits are hardly trivial. What we choose to do voluntarily with our freedom is often the most sacred occupation of all to us.
w'all I'll eat my socks. Thanks for the honor of being the quote of the week. wow. in the words of Darren Gavin in The Christmas Story, it's a Major Award!
speaking of the big boys blog, they're beating me up pretty good over there. I forget about the hostility to hunting among academic types sometimes.
OK, I didn't read your piece very closely. Nor did I read it that closely the second time (two minutes ago) after returning from a wonderful night at Zolas with my beautiful wife where I devoured the finest dishes that high culture can muster. I think I'm on board with your honest depiction of sport, which to me has a very trivial connotation. Actually, it has so many frickin' connotations I find it hard shake them as I read your argument. What I do read from your detractors, and from your piece, is an absolutely idealized creation of the subsistence hunter as pure, driven solely by the desire to feed his starving, anemic family. The lone Inuit on the ice praying for the seal, a la Kabluna. From a life time of traveling this globe I can tell you that image is one of the most profoundly ignorant stereotypes that exists. From a year with the headhunters of Borneo I feel my back hairs bristle (just take a minute to let that image sink in) when I read the absolute stupidity of your detractors in establishing a dialectic between sport and subsistence hunting. How does the wanton waste of a Buffalo drive conjur anything but an image of man's talents over applied?
So, drunk as a skunk after one glass of PA Gewurtz (poor) and wonderful Malbec and a pretty darn good Tokaj, I want to wholly endorse your sporting definition but deny you of your contrast of subsistence and sport hunting. If I decide to buy a Delmonico instead of a chuck roast does that mean I'm deciding upon sport versus subsistence? It's simply an aesthetic decision that comes with being human. Hickup.
Uncle Pete,
you do pretty good when you're drunk as a skunk, but alas! with one hand he giveth and the other taketh away:
"I want to wholly endorse your sporting definition but deny you of your contrast of subsistence and sport hunting."
(although see Language Log for some some elaboration on my gender confused wordsmitthery)
harumph.
I think you should post your comment over on the big boys blog. you know, come to my aid on a white horse and all that. You could leave out the references to substandard Quaker State vintages of course.
Jimbo:
I engaged with the big boys on your pansy blog. I don't expect any responses, beyond a bit of bafflement, and don't dare return lest I find I've committed every novice philosophical faux pas. Go get 'em.
Pete, good comments, you done good. Question though: I'm wondering whether a sense of "fair play" comes through in Borneo-style "subsistence" hunting.
One of the major motives behind my emphasizing "sport" hunting is that it is the structure of the game--i.e. the rules of the game--that provide the fair chase norms that hunters spend so much time bickering about.
It is my hope that if we could just get hunters (and conservation leaders) to see the essentially play-based origin of these rules, we could get everyone to move on to more important issues.
With subsistence-based hunting that is still done for pleasure (or at least in part done for pleasure and enjoyment), I'm not sure you have the equivalent of a "sporting code," even though as you say there are ritual aspects and norms that govern those hunts as well.
just curious I guess. but good job with the big boys. I'll let you know if we hear from anybody. sooner or later we're going to simply wear them down and they'll cry "uncle" I'm sure.
:-)
Wow...a fella heads to Nebraska for a couple of days--securing us all pheasant access for a long time to come--and all h*ll breaks loose on the blog. Mo waving Perch recipies about. The Kleinmans substituting fowl for fish in some fancy sauce, and going out to eat at Zola the night before! Dems STILL stealing our guns! Ice fishing in high gear!! And Tantillo re-energizing his academic career!!??
Where to start?
The sport-subsistence dichotomy is a false one. I think this is what The Ridge and Valley Eater hisself said, though I disagree with his self assessment that there is little 'sport' (if we think of sport as embodying codes of pursuit) in what he values.
Subsistence is not exempt from sport, nor should sport be alienated from subsistence. These 'either-or' arguments kill us, whether in the field, or the hallowed (hollowed?) halls of the academy: they give false weight to the arguments of those who would do us harm, because we agree to be placed in a box they have defined.
Does it make me an intellectual puss to say 'yes to both'? Am I fainting before the gauntlet? So be it. Style matters. Code of conduct matters. Rules matter. And in some contexts, the correct thing to do--in the spirit of creative play, which is what we are all about--is to violate your own rules. And meat matters. Do I need vension or duck or goose to survive? No. Do I prefer it, for reasons of health, aesthetics, and sport? Let the odometer of my old Explorer tell the tale there.
And yes, in some instances, even management matters. But we best not cling to it--"yahoo!!! time to drive 12 hours to Maine and keep the grouse populations under control--as our rationale and create a full trichotomized-lobotomized disaster.
The flourishing of my human condition happens at the intersection. Just not often enough. Which is why I sign my posts...Vicarious.
Richie Feller writes (echoing Dr. Dirt),
"The sport-subsistence dichotomy is a false one."
Spoken like a true sociologist.
:-)
fellas, fellas, fellas,
the point of the "sport-subsistence" distinction is philosophical, not sociological. I fully accept that so-called subsistence hunters may thoroughly enjoy the hunt as a form of recreation, and I'm also aware that recreational hunters can turn the game into a chore when the desire for results interferes with the sporting motive.
But . . . the philosopher's job description is conceptual analysis, not sociological or empirical or demographic description. That "sport" and "subsistence" exist on a continuum I freely admit; the same goes for play/work, luxury/necessity, or other paired concepts.
But here, to make a philosophical "distinction" is not the same thing as insisting on a metaphysical "dichotomy" between sport and subsistence. These terms may simply be inherently vague or ambiguous.
Take the following example from the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy:
"Consider a long painted wall (hundreds of yards or hundreds of miles long). The left-hand region is clearly painted red, but there is a subtle gradation of shades, and the right-had region is clearly yellow. A small double window exposes a small section of the wall at any one time. It is moved progressively rightward, in such a way that at each move after the initial position the left-hand segment of the window exposes just the area that was in the previous position exposed by the right-hand segment. The window is so small relative to the wall that in no position can you tell any difference in color between the exposed areas. When the window is at the extreme left, both exposed areas are certainly red. But as the window moves to the right, the area in the right segment looks just the same color as the area in the left, which you have already pronounced to be red. So it seems that one must call it red too. But then one is led to the absurdity of calling a clearly yellow area red" ("Sorites Paradox").
Denying the "red-yellow dichotomy" (as Rich might term it) on a spectrum or a continuum from red to yellow makes us run the risk of denying the very real conceptual or philosophical distinction between red and yellow as different colors. Yes, there are many shades of both in between, but it is important not to deny the reality of red or yellow as they clearly exist at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Why does this matter? on some level perhaps it doesn't. But again, my purpose in focusing on "sport" hunting is to help others see where our ideas about fair chase come from--as opposed to the standards of efficiency and expediency practiced by non-sport hunting (deer or elephant culls, for example).
Here's Ortega:
"So let us work toward a definition of hunting. Everything that does not do this is a digression, and we must never be content with mere ornaments and pretty penmanship.
"That hunting is a sport is incidental. There is also the purely utilitarian form of hunting, which was practiced by Paleolithic man and which the poacher of any epoch practices. This type of hunting, not at all sporting, is no less hunting than is the other type.
"Hunting cannot be defined by its transient purposes--utilitarian or sporting. They remain outside of it, beyond it, and they presuppose it. We hunt to divert ourselves or to feed ourselves, but these ends to which we freely apply hunting imply that hunting already is, and that it has its own consistency before, or apart from, those ends. The different ends attributed to hunting do not essentially determine the operation which is its substance, but rather . . . they modulate only it exercise, they stylize it. There is the style of the sporting hunter and there is the style of the professional hunter . . . ."
yeah, what he said.
Keith needs to post his e-mail comments so that he isn't lost in the longest exchange of Grousers' comments, ever!
I admire Jim's rhetoric but am having trouble with his "philosophical" vs "sociological" argument. Perhaps its because he can't summarize it in a 250 word abstract. Aren't sociology and philosophy all part of the continuum of knowledge?
I must be a sociologist. That's what you get for being raised by an anthropologist. I think the fact that "sport" exists in subsistence hunting in THE point. It's part of being human. If I were a robot I could program out the sport. Shite, now you guys have me admitting that what I do is sport. It's not! It's much more serious.
Now we're making progress. Pete writes:
"I think the fact that 'sport' exists in subsistence hunting in THE point. It's part of being human."
This gets it slightly wrong. I think PLAY can quite commonly exist in subsistence hunting; I think it may be too much to insist that "sport" (with its fixed and inherently arbitrary rules) predominantly exists in subsistence hunting.
One can make a game of anything. There's a great scene in The Wrestler where Mickey Rourke's character has just taken a totally depressing job working behind the meat counter at a supermarket. But within minutes he has turned selling cold cuts into a game, in part by reverting to the wrestler/showman that he truly is.
Again, sport is a highly refined subset of play--play is universal, sport is a more focused, narrower phenomenon.
I will post a picture of a chart from Guttman's From Ritual to Record that helps show the relations between play, game, contest, and sport.
one last point, and then I'll shut up or you all can vote me off the island--whichever comes first.
Pete also writes:
"I admire Jim's rhetoric but am having trouble with his 'philosophical' vs 'sociological' argument."
I like what Ortega has to say here on this topic as well, about the "mission of thought" being "to construct archetypes." The philosopher in some sense describes an ideal, whereas the social scientist (broad generalization warning!) describes the actual.
Ortega y Gasset:
"The mission of thought is to construct archetypes; I mean, to point out from among the infinite figures that reality presents those in which, because of their greater purity, that reality becomes clearer. Once understood in its exemplary form, the reality is also elucidated in its obscure, confused, and deficient forms, and these are the more frequent forms. A person who has never seen a good bullfight cannot understand what the mediocre and awful ones are. This is because bad bullfights, which are almost all of them, exist only at the expense of the good ones, which are very unusual. In the human order at least, the depraved, the stupid, and the trivial are tenacious parasites of perfection. Don't fret about it; the harmful doctor lives thanks to the eminent one, and if there are so many bad writers it is because there have been some good ones.
"The exemplary moral spirit of the sporting hunter, that manner of feeling, of taking up and practicing hunting, is a very precise line, below which fall innumerable forms of hunting that are deficient modes of this occupation; deficient in the aspects of dexterity, boldness, and effort, or simply in the moral aspect. . . . Hunting, like every human activity, has an ethic which distinguishes virtues from vices. There is such a thing as a rogue hunter, but there is also an affected piety of hunting."
once again . . . yeah, what he said.
Ok, Pete, here it is, but now out of order(probably in every sense of the phrase).
Jim, you probably should post the reply to this, the Cliff Notes version post.
I tend to agree with Rich and share what I read to be a concern with the looming dichotomy in this debate, but for perhaps slightly different reasons. My sense of uneasiness comes from the loss of the "otherness," the sublime in hunting that seems more important to me than whether or not the hunt has codified rules or is for subsistence. Hence, my earlier reference to Kellert's book "Kinship to Mastery." In this book Kellert says " We continue to particpate in exploiting nature, even when its Practical value is limited, because these pursuits reflect a passion for extracting at least a portion of our sustenance from the land and its creatures•.Consuming a life from the wild reminds us of our continuing reliance on other forms of life and our role in the cycle of energy and nutrients through the biosphere" (pg16). Further to this notion of hunting as the sublime, Pauley(2003) backs up the idea of the sublime in the following: "The motivation to hunt is often grounded in an urge to immerse the self into a world unmediated by thought,a world primarily controlled by instinct, so that the relation to an animal and the environment becomes direct and brute. The singularity of hunting is found in the vital pursuit of prey through the same land that they naturally and habitually traverse, to experience directly the depth and texture of the environment that so specifically shapes the properties of animals. In addition to this, a hunter presses an animal to reveal the depth of its capacities within its own world. This is the best way to explain the concept of engagement with prey. It is not just engagement with prey, but more properly speaking, engagement with the full and expansive reality of prey. The strength and grace of an animal belong to it as a consequence of living in its specific world and that strength and grace is sublime in its conformity to the world of the animal."
I do not mean to imply that Jim's logic is wrong, or that the argument does not hold merit. I guess I find the dichotomy within it less than useful in terms of the" Hunting Apology." Obviously, though, the argument of the sublime, esoteric enough, which reaches into the biophilia hypothesis, esoteric to the extreme, may not possess the instrumentalist silver bullet Jim continues to seek. We all have our grail to chase. Nice to see Jim back in the philosopher saddle. Looking forward to the book.
Okay Pete,
after Cagey wrote,
"What, you won’t reply without an audience? What did that Damn ballet do to you??? Go#-D*@n grandstander . . ."
and I replied,
"let's just say that writing in public keeps me more honest and polite and makes me work harder at my grammar.
"you Go#-D*@n friggin' punk"
(except I didn't use the term 'friggin') . . .
Here's what I wrote in response.
Cagey's argument is (I paraphrase, and correct me if I'm wrong KG) that the "sport" classification does not do justice to the "sublime" and the "serious" aspects of the hunt. In one form or another I have fielded that objection in every talk I've done on the sport theme. The main idea is that sport trivializes the sacred aspects of the hunt. This I gather has always been Jim Posewitz's main objection to my thesis.
I'm re-working my way through the following:
Charles Prebish's Religion and Sport: The Meeting of the Sacred and the Profane ; and
Randolph Feezell's Sport, Play, and Ethical Reflection.
Feezell in particular is very good on how the essence of "sport" should be incorporated into a larger, philosophically more sophisticated understanding of "play" as foundational.
This grounding of the term 'sport' in the more foundational concept of 'play' would in turn allow us to explain the sacred, serious, and sublime aspects of the activity, which have been particularly well studied by theorists who have thought about "play." These include Huizinga and others.
I haven't beat people over the head with the connection between sport and play because I have simply assumed the connection to be there. For more popular pieces on hunting and sport, I need to make those relations between the terms much more explicit.
Holy smokes. I feel like that famous sociologist friend of ours. Leave the blog for a day and look at how the world has changed!
Sport, play, schmay. To paraphrase the (posthumously?) famous philosopher, "semantics are not Pete's metier." I guess I finally got the point about play being fundamental to the human experience. I'll buy that, especially with the all encompassing definition of play that we've constructed. And I'll buy the point that structuring that play creates human meaning, the essence of life. Just don't expect me to retain any of that encyclopedia of quotes you've copied.
Cagey, wish you'd posted your stuff at the TOP of the comment section!
Jim says, "Cagey's argument is (I paraphrase, and correct me if I'm wrong KG) that the "sport" classification does not do justice to the "sublime" and the "serious" aspects of the hunt. In one form or another I have fielded that objection in every talk I've done on the sport theme. The main idea is that sport trivializes the sacred aspects of the hunt. This I gather has always been Jim Posewitz's main objection to my thesis." Reminds me of the bumper sticker I saw in Wyoming - "Eat lamb, 50,000 coyotes can't be all wrong."
I like the sport line of reasoning because it rings true. But the sociological line of thinking also resonates and needs to be included in the argument. Seems to me a few more arrows in the quiver is a good thing...
thanks for the great thread - goes to show that an old game warden can still learn something new... I think I'll go try the bourbon trick for re-energizing the brain cells..
Thanks for chiming in, Mr. Nuse. The bourbon trick I find to be indispensable in these kinds of chats. :)
Something what we all knew, not only is getting out in the field good for you, but what you get is good for you too:
http://health.msn.com/nutrition/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100237691&page=1
One more good reason to hunt, although we had plenty of good reasons already.
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