Excerpt from the book ³Philospohy of Olympism´ by Ljubodrag Simonovi , Belgrade, 2004. E-mail : comrade@sezampro.
OLYMPISM AND MODERN PHYSICAL CULTURE The theorists of sport cover the field of physical culture with the term "sport" to conceal the character of sport as a concrete historical phenomenon and prevent the creation of the basis for establishing a critical detachment to sport from the aspect of (true) physical culture. Coubertin is much more concrete: for him, "sport is a physical culture in the real sense of that word", and between sport and physical culture only "theoretical differences" can be established. Coubertin: "In theory, physical culture differs from sport; in practice, there can never exist a voluntary physical culture (intensive, of course, the only one that should be discussed here and which is the answer to the view of M. Hébert) without a sports element." (1) According to Coubertin, sport is not based on culture, but is a pure expression of the Social Darwinist and progressistic spirit of capitalism and thus is the means for creating a "new man", whose coming symbolically indicates the end of the old and the appearance of a "positive world" in which the cultural heritage of civilization is abolished. Coubertin's Olympism is not a movement of the emancipated citizens, which, inspired by the spirit of the Enlightenment and the ideals of the French Revolution, sought to create a new world, but of the imperialist circles, which sought to deal with the emancipatory heritage of civil society and conquer the world. Coubertin's Olympic Games are the expression of the "mondialistic" spirit of imperialist capitalism and are thus a combat with the cultural being of the ancient Olympic Games, as well as with the Olympic ideas and movements which appeared in the Modern Age and which are based on ancient cultural traditions and on the emancipatory heritage of civil society (Schartan, the Greeks, Brookes, Lesseps, Grousse...). From Coubertin's Olympic doctrine it clearly follows that sport falls in the sphere of war and military training and that it is the chief means for dealing with pacifist conscious. The view of Carl Diem, a loyal interpreter of Coubertin's doctrine and his follower: "Sport ist Krieg!" ("Sport is war!") (2) - fully expresses the gist of Coubertin's Olympic idea. It should not be forgotten that Coubertin set out towards the Olympic heights with the cry "Rebronzer la France!" only to urge the French bourgeoisie to embark on new conquering and plundering exploits. A colonial exploit without a "good sports preparation" is, according to Coubertin, "dangerous thoughtlessness". (3) It is no accident that England, as the leading colonial power favoring only "strong personalities", was the chief source of Coubertin's Olympic inspiration. Also, it is no accident that in the bloody fights on ancient Olympic playgrounds and in medieval tournaments of unscrupulous aristocrats Coubertin found inspiration for
the "ideal of chivalry" a bourgeois should strive for. War on a sports field was supposed to preserve the military traditions of the aristocracy and to "overcome" them by the belligerent and progressistic spirit of monopolistic capitalism. The ability to "look death in the face", which appears in the form of the "opponent", is one of the main qualities of Coubertin's "new man", while the ability to kill represents the highest challenge for his "utilitarian pedagogy". Unlike those bourgeois theorists who consider war the direct origin of sport, for Coubertin it is life itself dominated by a merciless struggle for survival and the absolutized principle of performance. Olympism is the "cult of the existing world", which means the celebration of the relations leading to a fight between people, races and nations: war on a battlefield is but one of its manifestations. In sport, competition comes down to a struggle for survival and domination which fully corresponds to the dominant spirit of the capitalist order: the stronger go on, the weaker are eliminated. The elimination of the "opponent" through victory achieved by a higher result is the capitalist form of "peaceful" natural selection. In sport, the belligerent spirit of capitalism becomes "independent" and, through the modern Olympic spectacle, it seeks to restore both the spirit of the ancient slave-owning aristocracy and the "chivalrous spirit" of the bloodthirsty medieval lords. A militarization of the body, the spirit, the interhuman relations and the relations between nations and races is the highest "cultural" form in which the dominant belligerent spirit appears. Hence militaristic aesthetics is the dominant form of a sports spectacle. Coubertin's Olympic doctrine deals with the movements of physical culture that appeared in modern society, which have neither a belligerent nor a militaristic character. It distorts and destroys the emancipatory impulses of the libertarian physical activism which developed after the French Revolution. A distinction should be made between, on the one hand, a free physical activism as a spontaneous and free manifestation and development of genuine human needs and abilities and as an inalienable right of man and citizen and, on the other hand, sport as an institutionalized incarnation of the basic principles of capitalist society in a "pure form", which creates loyal and usable subjects. In the former case, physical activism is intended to create the human world by developing man's universal creative powers; in the latter case, it is intended to create a "civilized" menagerie by destroying man's libertarian dignity and creative personality. A genuine physical culture and sport are incompatible. With the development of capitalist society, the original impulses of the libertarian physical activism of the citizens are distorted and acquire the form of an institutionalized "physical culture" reduced to a physical drill which destroys Eros, senses, imagination and, ultimately, man's personality. The official "socialist" theory of physical culture, hopelessly remaining within the ideological horizon of bourgeois society, was not capable of radicalizing the relation between physical culture and sport, nor was it capable of attaining the idea of a libertarian physical activism as an open challenge to the established order. The theses that sport is a peculiar "Esperanto"
(Giraudoux) is not acceptable because language produces man's cultural being, enables the cultivation of interhuman relations and the establishment of a criticalchanging relation to the existing world, while sport destroys culture, turns people into "opponents", maintains the state of constant war between nations, destroys a critical relation to the dominant order of injustice and completely integrates man into the existing world. Instead of being the meeting point of cultures, sports fields are turned into battlefields, where nations and races wage war by means of the muscular bodies of fanaticized storm troopers. Sport is the embodiment of the "mondialistic" spirit of capitalism and thus is a means for destroying the cultural traditions of mankind and creating global barbarism. Modern Olympism discards the emancipatory heritage of the Renaissance physical culture developed in Italian city states, which contributed to the establishment of people's "spiritual autonomy" (Jäger) as opposed to the Christian depersonalized "soul". It is a rediscovery of the body, Eros, affects and senses, modeled after the ancient principle of "beautiful and good" (kalokagathia). Speaking of the "perfectioning of personality" in Renaissance Italy, Burckhardt concludes that the ideal of a "universal man" (l'uomo universale) was the highest evaluative challenge. (4) As a result, in the first part of the 15th century gymnastics developed as a pedagogical discipline. At the court of Francesco Gonzaga in Mantova, Vittorino di Feltre opened a school in which "gymnastics (like all nobler physical exercises) was ranked along with science". (5) At the same time, a movement developed, one of whose founders was Petrarca, which was concerned with nature and with the liberation and development of man's natural being, and reflected the humanist heritage of Galen's physical culture. Coubertin's doctrine also deals with the so-called "folk" physical culture, connected with the existential cycle of a life based on labour. Contests between reapers or in horse taming, sheep fleecing and similar events illustrate the connection between competition and work. Folk physical culture was not only a form of strengthening the body, developing working abilities and a rest from work; it was a form of spiritual integration of the community and a form of erotic intercourse. It was a form of the production of society as a community of people in a most direct and vital form. In that context appears folks dance kolo as one of the highest forms of play in history. Folk festivities are dominated by a communal spirit achieved through the preservation of cultural traditions. Physical exercises and competitions demonstrated not only the working but also the biological and spiritual power of a community. The celebration of the existing world was not the celebration of a belligerent spirit and a plundering order, as is the case with Coubertin's Olympism, but was the celebration of life based on work in a community. Festivities were held in the open and expressed a natural and working cycle of life, unlike the modern Olympic Games which have an unnatural (fouryear) rhythm and are held in an artificial space. Nature does not have the status of an "opponent", as is the case in Coubertin, nor is the relation to nature mediated by an insatiable exploitational spirit and by science and technique alienated from
man, but by agricultural production, collectivistic spirit, physical strength and working skill. Even Thomas More saw in children's "work in the field" not only "practical exercise" but also "an opportunity to strengthen the body". (6) Rousseau's pedagogy is also based on agriculture and on a preparation for work as the basic life activity. (7) Fourier went even further. Arguing for "turning work into sport" he proposes the establishment of an (agricultural) "working tournament where every athlete will show his strength and skill and show off before beautiful girls who will at the end of his shift bring him lunch or a snack". (8) As far as Marx is concerned, he in the ''Capital'' argues for Owen's "factory system" from which sprang "the germ of future education, which for all the children over certain age will connect productive labour with education and gymnastics, not only as a method for increasing social production but also as the only method for producing universally developed people." (9)
Coubertin and Rousseau Coubertin's Olympic doctrine rejects the emancipatory heritage of Rousseau's philosophy which is one of the most important origins of modern physical culture. Unlike Rousseau, who departs from man as a free and reasonable human being who - guided by his original human nature and "without corruption in his heart" - is capable of creating a world in which people will be free, Coubertin seeks to abolish civil society and establish a "civilized" menagerie where the parasitic classes exercise tyranny over the working people. In Rousseau's natural order people are born free; in Coubertin's social order people are born as masters or slaves, depending on their class, race and gender. While Rousseau regards nature as a space that cultivates man, Coubertin sees society as a space where man's "animal" nature is most brought to light. Rousseau's "savage" is the embodiment of human virtues; Coubertin's "new man" is a super-beast deprived of all human properties. In Rousseau's "natural order", in which "all people are equal", "people's calling" is "above all to be human"; (10) In Coubertin's Olympic doctrine "people's calling" is to destroy everything that makes man human. Unlike Coubertin's man, who can be either the master or the slave, Rousseau's Emile "does not exhibit a creeping and slavery obedience of a slave, nor does he speak in the commanding voice of a master" for "he is well aware that he is always his own master". (11) Hence Rousseau wants to exclude from children's vocabulary the expressions "to obey and to command", (12) which represent conditio sine qua non of Coubertin's pedagogical practice. To be "one's own master" by living on one's own labour and to be in unity with one's natural being - this is the highest principle of Rousseau's pedagogy and the basic condition of freedom. It is on this basis that Rousseau attains "his" man who is neither a master nor a slave, but is an independent individual. At the same time, in the light
of Rousseau's philosophy the origin and true nature of Coubertin's "elitist" conception is revealed. While Coubertin departs from collectivity, which appears in the form of race (nation) and class, in order to create a "master race" which by fire and sward will conquer the world, Rousseau departs from the individual who appears in the form of an emancipated citizen, who, on the basis of his own labour and "social contract" (contrat social), seeks to create civil society. This is for Coubertin the least acceptable part of Rousseau's theory: not the rights of man and citizen, but the principle of "might is right" and the preservation of the order of privileges of the strong - this is the indisputable basis of social integration. Furthermore, Coubertin's "new man" is not his own master because he is an extended hand of the process of evolution which reached its climax in capitalist "progress" that uses man as a means for removing all the obstacles on its way. Rousseau is close to the spirit of the newly-born citizens who want to start a new life based on a productivistic activism of individuals, and not on conquering and plundering. Instead of arguing for a fight reduced to the tyranny of the strong over the weak, Rousseau argues for a fight by way of working activity with which the obstacles arising before man in his endeavour to ensure survival are removed. Rousseau¶s Emile is capable of performing any kind of work since his organs are "precisely and well trained; all the mechanics of skills is already familiar to him". (13) Rousseau wants us to "keep our bodies in activity and our limbs in their suppleness and to form our hands constantly for labour and for the uses which are beneficial to man." (14) While Rousseau tries to teach man how to be an independent personality capable of ensuring his existence with his own hands, Coubertin tries to cripple man and create from him a parasite capable of surviving only by exploiting other people. Rousseau teaches Emile to make a tool with which he will ensure his existence and thus become a free man; Coubertin arms the bourgeois from his childhood with a combatant (killing) technique with which he will subject the others and thus ensure his own survival: sport should prepare the bourgeois youth for plundering and killing the workers and the "lower races". Since Coubertin reduced the human community to a menagerie, it is logical that for him the martial ("bloody") sports are the most important means in the upbringing of young people. In Rousseau, a working movement produces a working body which is characterized by flexibility and adaptability; in Coubertin, a combatant movement produces the body of a warrior characterized by physical strength and explosive force. Instead of developing the body which will be capable of developing universal creative powers of man as an individual, Coubertin seeks to militarize the body of the bourgeois which then becomes the tool of the monopolistic capital for conquering the world and is thus a symbolic incarnation of its expansionist power. That is why military parades and industrial exhibitions represent the highest challenges for Coubertin's aesthetics. In Rousseau, as well as in Coubertin, upbringing does not involve a normative apriorism, but spontaneously follows from a life activism dominated by a fight against "obstacles" (Starobinski): the experience of the world is realized
through a productivistic activism which becomes the basic way of knowing the world and of the relation to it. Rousseau's "savage" is not a fanatic, like Coubertin's positive man, but a reasonable being guided by his enlightening mind that involves self-initiative, curiosity, exactness, perceptiveness, practicality, spontaneity.... Similarly to Rousseau, Coubertin does not argue for a pedagogy which is adopted through "learning", but insists on the circumstances, which means on the environment which directly and "spontaneously" influences the formation of a child's personality though his life activism. While in Rousseau the perfectioning of the human nature based on respect for a child's individual dispositions is achieved through a "return to nature", Coubertin seeks to turn human society into an animal realm and the bourgeois into a "civilized" beast. In Coubertin, physical exercises and sport do not serve to cultivate man, but to develop in him an aggressive and insatiable egoism and arm him for a merciless struggle for survival. While Rousseau emphasizes the perfectioning of physical properties and individual dispositions, and on that basis of man's personality, Coubertin emphasizes the "disciplining" of man, which means the suppression of his individual dispositions, repression of the body and man's submission to the model of a loyal and usable subject. In Rousseau, all essential elements of Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy" are present - courage, endurance, self-initiative - but the way of their realization does not turn people into enemies and does not turn man against nature (body), as is the case in Coubertin, but turns people into friends and teaches man to respect nature and his natural being. Rousseau is a firm opponent of competition and gives priority to the love of man over ambition: "Let all vanity stay far away, all competition, all ambition and all the feeling that leads us to compare with others. For such comparisons always produce in us a hatred of those who deny us priority..." (15) In this context, man cannot "compete" with nature, nor can he "control" it, from which follows Rousseau 's relation to the body. The basis of "happiness" is not a combat with one's natural being (body); it is a spontaneous and free development of the body, the spirit, the senses, of reason and skills... Nature, life and freedom are given in unity. For Rousseau, "a return to nature" involves the rejection of the aristocratic and Christian heritage that hinders man: natural movement becomes a synonym for free movement. "A return to nature" is not an escape, but a preparation for living in society: nature becomes man's ally in his fight against ancien régime. It is an endeavour to liberate man from his patterned behavior which kills his vitality, and that means to make him independent from an early age and develop his personality through his own life activism and the experience he thus acquires. A liberation from spiritual patronage and acquiring the character of an independent and free personality - this is the basic aim of Rousseau's "return to nature". Rousseau was aware that liberating the body from the repressive rules of behavior, as well as from a limited space, is one of the basic presuppositions of liberating and developing the human spirit and of creating a free personality. By way of a free movement man unites himself with nature and becomes cultivated as a
cultural and natural being, since for him nature is not only his immediate existential space, as it is for the animal, but is a space in which he realizes his working skill and spiritual powers. Most importantly, "a return to nature" means a reestablishment of man's unity with his natural being which was interrupted by the development of civilization: nature is man's natural habitat. In Coubertin, nature is a space of an unrestrained struggle for a place under the sun and thus is the basis of social structuring. Similarly to Rousseau, he does not rely on institutions, but his "state of nature" corresponds to a menagerie, while Rousseau's "return to nature" involves ancorrupted humanism (a humane "savage") based on man's existential unity with nature. Rousseau seeks to release man from the bonds of feudal civilization and develop his noble qualities; Coubertin seeks to "release" his "new man" from the emancipatory heritage of humanity and create a "civilized" barbarism. Instead of a free bodily movement, which spontaneously follows the mimetic impulses that man encounters in nature, Coubertin insist on a repressive model of movement, the nature of which is conditioned by the Social Darwinist and progressistic spirit of the ruling order. Coubertin relates to nature via the alienated technical sphere as the controlled natural forces which in the hands of the bourgeoisie become not only a means for submitting man but also for exploiting nature. Rousseau's conception is based on farm production and manual labour, which means that there do not exist technical and scientific spheres which mediate between man and nature. The skill that man acquires does not become the power with which he tends to control and exploit nature, but with which he tends to attain a complete unity with it. Emile does not seek to become the "master and owner" of nature, but to live in nature using his natural properties. Skill becomes the most important form of a life activism which involves a unity between natural environment and man's natural being. The dominant unity is that between man and skill which enables the cultivation of his natural being... Man and nature are not mediated by civilization: nature itself produces mimetic impulses which man spontaneously perceives by his senses and which condition his (natural) behavior. It is not an a priori knowledge and in that context a learned skill that represent a direct challenge, but it is the natural circumstances, and by meeting that challenge man gains experience and develops his human powers in the form of a skill which enables him to act freely. Human movement is a natural movement with which man unites with and develops his natural being. As far as knowing the world and attaining the idea of space is concerned, Rousseau concludes: "It is only through movement that we learn that outside us there exist other things, and it is only through our own movement that we attain the idea of space." (16) A joy of life is realized through a free bodily movement. The idea of man's "own movement" is alien to Coubertin, since his life is submitted to the fatal course of evolution of the living world which reached its highest form in capitalist "progress". In Coubertin, the dominant movement is not man's movement in nature, but man's movement against man, as well as the movement that represents a combat with one's own natural being - which is the
realization of a military physical drill "perfectioned" by the principle of "greater effort" and reduced to man's (self)crippling and his submission to the model of "positive man". While in Rousseau space is limitless and time is infinite, in sport, space is limited, and time is "compacted" into hours, minutes, seconds« and is the pulsation of the life pulse of capitalism. In Rousseau's doctrine, the dominant logic is not progressistic: man's relation to nature is conditioned by his existential needs, and not by the process of capitalist reproduction. Emil does not pursue a higher result: speed in itself, which does not enhance the certainty of survival, has no importance for him. Unlike Rousseau, Coubertin does not pursue a return to nature, but seeks to create special sports spaces which should become the cult venues celebrating the dominant spirit of the existing world which is embodied in sport. Sports fields are the capitalist forms of a degeneration and destruction of nature, while the "sportsman" is the capitalist form of degeneration and destruction of man. In spite of insisting on the laws of evolution, Coubertin does not see man in unity with nature, but departs from the contrasts between spirit and matter, soul and body, man and nature. The body becomes an "opponent" whose defense mechanism is to be blocked and he is to be compelled to self-destruction. Rousseau insists on the interdependence of the body and the spirit - the spirit cultivating the body and the body cultivating the spirit: "It is different with a savage: unbound to a place, without a proper job, not submitting to anyone, not obeying any other laws except his own will, he is forced to carefully consider every act in his life. He will not make a move or a step without considering the consequences. Therefore, the more his body does exercises, the more his spirit becomes enlightened; his strength and reason develop parallel and transform mutually." (17) And he continues: "Being constantly in motion, he is forced to observe many things and get to know many consequences; from his early age he gains great experience, he is educated by nature and not by people ;...(...) thus he parallel exercises his body and his spirit. As he always acts according to his intellect and not according to the intellect of others, he constantly combines his bodily and spiritual exertion. The stronger and mightier he becomes, the more intelligent and reasonable he is. It is the right way to achieve one day that what is considered disparate, and what almost all great men combine, namely, the bodily and spiritual power, the reason of a sage and the strength of an athlete."(18) Coubertin deprived man both of the soul and of the intellect. While in Rousseau the established relation is: a harmoniously built body - an inquisitive spirit and an independent mind, in Coubertin the relation is: a muscular body - a merciless combatant character. Coubertin prepares the body and the spirit for conquering and not for "using natural tools". As far as the spirit is concerned, it is not the spirit of man as a free person, but the spirit of the ruling order, which enters man by way of the life "circumstances" that force him to fight for survival. Rousseau seeks to educate man as an independent personality; Coubertin departs from a racial, class and patriarchal model to which he tries to subject man. Coubertin does not seek to
create reasonable people who will make judgments independently, but colonial fanatics. Rousseau's Emile is guided by natural circumstances in the development of his body and intellect; Coubertin's bourgeois is guided by the circumstances in society, reduced to a menagerie, in the development of a merciless combatant character and a corresponding (positive) conscious. The body is not an integral part of man's personality, but is the tool of the "spirit" for achieving anti-human ends. If Rousseau's view that "big and strong limbs bring neither courage nor geniality" (19) is compared with Coubertin's pedagogical postulate mens fervida in corpore lacertoso, it is clear that Coubertin and Rousseau hold essentially different evaluative standpoints. It is also confirmed by Rousseau's defining Emile as a "complete man", a working and thinking being "full of love", "whose reason is perfected by feelings (20) - who is totally opposed to Coubertin's "new man". Unlike the ancient physical culture dominated by a harmonious development of a child's universal bodily and mental faculties, in sport, a dualism between body and spirit is institutionalized: the body becomes the means for achieving a higher result, while a fanaticized "spirit" is the whip of the order forcing the body to achieve the given end at the price of self-destruction. The "secret" of the ancient physical culture, which makes it superior to Coubertin's physical culture and sport, is the relation of man to his own body, which is mediated by the idea of cosmos in which all parts are in unity with the whole and man is an integral part of nature: man's unity with the cosmos is the basis of his unity with his body. Rousseau's philosophy follows a holistic approach discarding aesthetic apriorism and giving it a natural dimension: Emile's body develops in accordance with his natural properties and corresponds to the natural environment. The basis of Coubertin's relation to the body (nature) is a complete submission of man to the expansionist power of monopolistic capitalism and the resulting "progress", and it is upon this that he basis his "cult of intensive muscular exercises", the principle of "greater effort", as well as the absolutized principle of performance expressed in the maxim citius, altius, fortius: in sport, the relation of man to his body is a symbolic expression of the relation of capitalism to nature. Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy" fully developed the conception which in the combat between "spirit" and "body" sees the basis of man's education. Instead of a cultivation of man's instinctive nature, as is the case in the Hellenic and Rousseau's pedagogy, a child's bodily and mental development is subordinated in sport to the creation of a "sportsman", which is reduced to his systematic crippling and to the achievement of a higher result (record). Coubertin and the ''Philanthropic Movement'' The modern Olympic doctrine deals with the cultural heritage of the philanthropic movement which, inspired by the enlightening pedagogical ideals
developed in Germany on the eve and after the French Revolution. The first step in its development was taken by Johann Bernhardt Basedow, who in 1774 in Dessau founded a public school in which, along with the ordinary scientific subjects, he introduced physical education. He inspired Johann Christoph Friedrich Guts Muths to write a book "Gymnastics for Young People" (''Gymnastik für die Jugend", 1793), which was the first comprehensive theoretical conception of physical education in Germany and was to become the basis of the philanthropic pedagogical thought and practice. Guts Muths departs from the view that for hundreds of years the starting point in education has been the maxim "a sound mind in a sound body" and bases on it his gymnastics: the basic aims of his "system of exercises" are physical stamina, strength, health and beauty. (21) In addition to these challenges, Guts Muths regards physical education as a means for raising young people's spiritual and moral level and developing their patriotic spirit, which was supposed to overcome the feudal disintegration and contribute to the national integration of the Germans. (22) Drawing on Rousseau, Guts Muths comes to the conclusion that civilization brought about a degeneration of man's original physical and spiritual being: the more man approaches the state of nature, the more physically superior he is to civilized man. Hence in "primitive man" he sees the ideal of "physical perfectioning" modern man should strive for. Keeping to the Social Darwinist evolutionism, Coubertin "concluded" that as man goes further and further away from his "lazy" animal nature he becomes more perfect, while in the struggle for survival and domination the white race managed to preserve the "pureness" of its racial blood and become the "master race", which is the highest and final stage in the development of human race. Guts Muths' gymnastics tends to bring man closer to nature and consequently to his human being; Coubertin's pedagogy seeks to move man away from nature and thus from the human. In Coubertin, there do not exist any natural obstacles that appear in man's everyday activity, but there is a fight between people for survival and domination mediated by quantitative criteria, which means by the endeavours of the parasitic "elite" to insure the exploitation of the working ''masses''. In that struggle man is not alienated only from his human, but also from his natural being. Coubertin's "civilized" menagerie is not a copy of the animal world, but serves to provide a naturalistic legitimacy to society governed by the spirit of monopolistic capitalism. Guts Muths tends to turn gymnastics into the means for building the national character of the Germans and for their spiritual and political integration. Just as in Rousseau nature is an ally in the fight against ancien régime, so in Guts Muths nature is an ally in the fight against the feudal disintegration and in the creation of the national state of the Germans. He sees in national emancipation the basic condition of civil and human emancipation of his compatriots. Instead of Coubertin's "immortal spirit of antiquity", which is reincarnated in the modern Olympic Games, in Guts Muths, the "sound mind" of the citizen, acquired by physical drill, becomes a reincarnation of the libertarian spirit of the "old
Germans". It is no longer Rousseau's "savage", but a romanticized picture of ancestors, and it is not only a libertarian and healthy but, above all, a national challenge. In that context, Guts Muths insists on their personal qualities such as, in addition to "health" and "strength", "loyalty" and "courage". A return to nature does not mean a return to man's animal nature, but a return to the original national essentiality, while a return to the natural movement becomes a return to the original national strength. Gymnastics becomes the means for restoring the Germans to natural life, which means to the living conditions of their ancestors, and for their physical and spiritual (character) strengthening according to the principle mens sana in corpore sano. Nature appears as an organic link with ancestors by means of which the continuity of national existence and unity of national being are achieved. The overcoming of natural obstacles should enable man to become fit and to restore his original national being. The original natural movement is the basis of the creation of the original national body and spirit (character) and is thus the integrative active power as opposed to the spiritual disintegration of the German national being. Naturality is equated with vitality, independence, incorruption... Instead of developing in the fight for life or death, as is the case in Coubertin, a "sound mind" develops through the overcoming of natural obstacles in the way that develops natural qualities and skill. (23) Instead of martial sports - hiking, running, jumping, throwing and other similar physical exercises become the most important segments of his gymnastic education. They are not dominated by the conquering and plundering spirit of the bourgeois, but by the spirit of the original natural independence of an emancipated citizen who wants to get rid of the bonds of feudal civilization, create a civil society and achieve national integration. Like Rousseau, Guts Muths associates the acquisition of health with the observance of natural laws (not with natural selection and the principle "might is right") and man's natural being. The life force is based on a harmonious development of the human faculties that enable man an independent life: physical drills should develop the body in the way that enables him to acquire the skill with which he can insure survival. For Coubertin, health is for the "weak"; what his bourgeois should acquire is a conquering (oppressive) character and a corresponding body. Guts Muths poses the following question: "Can a cultivated man approach the physical perfection of primitive man without becoming a savage?" (24) - and concludes that "the ideal cannot and must not be the primitive German savageness", but that "the German physical stamina and strength, courage and masculinity are connected with the culture of the heart and the spirit". (25) Referring to Rousseau, Guts Muths concludes that even the highest spiritual development without the development of the body represents only half of man, (26) and drawing on Democritus, says that an unsound body has an unsound mind. (27) Physical weakness results in nervousness, frailty and illness: "The weaker the body, the more it commands..." - Guts Muths cites Rousseau. (28) In Guts Muths, the dominant relation is that between body and spirit and not that between body
and character; however, for him, the spirit includes man's personal qualities, such as courage. He puts an emphasis on "health with the male strength and agility, with stamina, courage and unwavering spirit all combined in the male character". (29) Gymnastic exercises are "the most important part in the education of young people; physical strength, agility, a well built body, courage, presence of mind in danger and love of homeland built on it is their aim". (30) According to Guts Muths, "the only real and primary aim of gymnastics is a harmony between spirit (Geist) and body (Leib). (31) Departing from the ancient model, Guts Muths sees in a "well built body" an expression of "spiritual beauty", (32) which is alien to Coubertin's doctrine. Guts Muths here again sticks to the pattern mens sana in corpore sano: in a beautiful body - beautiful spirit. Coubertin discarded the maxim mens sana in corpore sano and proclaimed the maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso the guiding principle of his pedagogical doctrine: the more muscular the body is - the more combatant the spirit. For Guts Muths gymnastics is also the means for dealing with boredom. (33) Drawing on Rousseau's ''Emile'', Guts Muths sees in physical exercises, as the form of cultivating the powers that control him, a means for cultivating intelligence (34): the body is "a machine on which we weave the merry threads of thought..." (35) The nature of Guts Muths' conception is also seen from his critical commentaries on ancient gymnastics, above all from Euripides' fragment in which he says: "Among thousands of evils in Greece the race of athletes is the worst." (36) Guts Muths also cites an ancient saying, so relevant today: "Man does gymnastics in order to live, but he does not live in order to do gymnastics". (37) At the same time, he reminds us that Galen was explicitly against athletic gymnastics and that he divided gymnastics in "military", "harmful" and "real medical athletics", (38) and that Plato differentiated between "dancing gymnastics" (Tanzgymnastik) and "martial gymnastics" (Kampfgymnastik). (39) However, Guts Muths, like Coubertin, sees in gymnastics not only a means for strengthening the body, but above all the means for creating "future defenders of the country". He contrasts male strength with female "weakness" (40) and rejects music as an educational means for he sees in it something "feminine". At the same time, Guts Muths reduces the body to a "machine" and thus deals with man's playing nature. His "gymnastic skill" (Turnkunst), like Coubertin's physical drill, becomes a peculiar military drill: the militarization of the spirit is achieved by the militarization of the body. Turners are symbolical representatives of nation, and the result (victory) they achieve is not the expression of their personal achievement but of national strength. While Coubertin, with his "utilitarian pedagogy", seeks to create from the bourgeois European youth a "master race" that will conquer the world, Guts Muths seeks to create a "young citizen of the world" (Junge Weltbürger) who will be "so physically educated that he can stay moral". (41) When martial forms of physical education are concerned, Guts Muths recommends wrestling considering it a means for building the combatant national character of the "defenders of the country", not the conquering (oppressive) one
favored by Coubertin, but defending and libertarian. In his study from 1817 "Tourner's Book for the Sons of the Homeland" ("Turnbuch für die Sohne des Vaterlandes") Guts Muths discusses in detail the skill of wrestling (42) and explains that its main purpose is to "train the defenders of the homeland". Guts Muths' social theory sheds special light on his concept of physical culture and indicates an unbridgeable gap between his and Coubertin's doctrines. While Coubertin supports an order based on the criminal exploitation of children, Guts Muths argues for social justice and objects to children from the "working people's class" at the age of 10 earning their own bread, leaving school and being subjected to "slavery labour". (43) The elitist spirit of Coubertin's Olympism conditions his implacably hostile attitude to Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi's doctrine. Unlike Pestalozzi, who argues for "people's education (Volkserziehung) and the development of the corresponding "fundamental principles" (Grundsätze), (44) Coubertin insists on a class approach: his "utilitarian pedagogy" tends to create a "master race", on the one hand, and "masses" of the oppressed, on the other. Pestalozzi insists on "the reestablishment of the national spirit of gymnastics". (45) For Pestalozzi, man is not an animal, but a free playing being. He refers to the wealth of the original human playful nature and demands that a child from an early age be provided with a "free versatile playing ground" for his physical activity and his need for movement, (46) holding that the body of a child is the "temple of the holy spirit", and not the "prison of the soul". (47) Instead of a physical drill reduced to a (pre)military training, Pestalozzi insists on "natural gymnastics" (Naturgymnastik), which is only the basis for the development of "artistic gymnastics" (Kunstgymnastik). (48) He wants to develop a harmoniously built man, and insists on his physical, intellectual, aesthetical, moral and professional education. (49) In that context, instead of boxing - which is for Coubertin the most important means of education, Pestalozzi emphasizes a "permanent disposition to movement" in children and their need to "play with their bodies". (50) Similarly to Rousseau, Pestalozzi opposes the parasitic mentality of the ruling class and seeks to educate the child for a life in which he will be able to do anything that could make him an independent personality. Independence resulting from existential activism and characterized by man's ability to earn his livelihood through work, represents the highest challenge for physical culture. Hence in Pestalozzi the "popular spirit of gymnastics" is not affirmed only at folk festivities, but also in school and work in the field. (51) Pestalozzi insists on an "inseparable whole" that man acquired from nature, the heart, the spirit and the body being only the manifestations of that whole. It follows that the development of one part is closely connected with the development of all other parts of the body: "an organic unity" is the basis of independence and freedom. (52) Coubertin develops his pedagogy for the parasitic classes and therefore needs to develop a combatant character and a muscular body at the expense of working abilities and of the development of intellect, spirit, emotions, Eros... Instead of a harmoniously developed (human) organism,
Coubertin's man is characterized by the hypertrophy of one and atrophy of the other "part", which corresponds to the social (class) position and (conqueringoppressive) "duties" of the bourgeoisie. In Coubertin, man is instrumentalized for the purpose of capitalist expansion - these are the underlying principles of Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy". Preventing the bourgeois youth from developing their productivistic-creative abilities, Coubertin creates crippled parasites who can survive only by exploiting the working "masses". Like Nietzsche's "overman", Coubertin's bourgeois is the slave of his incapability to ensure his own livelihood. Hence a "revolt of the masses" does not mean only a loss of the bourgeois' privileged social position, but also a loss of his livelihood. Like Rousseau, Guts Muths and Pestalozzi, Gerhard Ulrich Anton Vieth also holds that physical exercises do not affect only the body, but also the spirit. (53) Vieth insists on a simultaneous building of the body and the spirit and advocates the maxim mens sana in corpore sano. (54) He favors physical health acquired through movement and physical exercises and discusses the effects of physical drills on organism and on the development of limbs and muscles, as well as the functioning of joints. According to him, physical drills should develop a proper bearing and prompt the "masculinity" of movements, but also a well-built body modeled after the looks of a soldier. (55) Hence, instead of insisting on suppleness and a creative body, Vieth insists on physical stamina and favors the maxim mens sana in corpore sano. In Vieth, also, the physical has priority over the spiritual, although it is not superior to the spiritual. He departs from the fact that physical exercises do not decrease the need for spiritual and intellectual activities but increases it and refers to Rousseau: by strengthening a child's body we strengthen his reason. (56) By rejecting the maxim mens sana in corpore sano, and introducing the maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso, Coubertin abolishes the relation between the body and the spirit which contains the possibility of establishing a relation between the body and the mind. He reduces the body to muscles and establishes a relation between muscle development and combatant character, resulting in an explosive muscular strength which symbolically expresses the expansionist power of monopolistic capitalism. In addition, instead in the Olympic Games like Coubertin, Vieth finds in ancient gymnasia the model for a system of physical exercises suitable to the Modern Age. (57) Unlike Coubertin, Vieth differentiates between "chivalrous exercises" (dancing, riding, fencing...), which are the privilege of the aristocracy, and "gymnastic exercises" (wrestling, running, jumping, throwing, balancing, swimming...), which are the right of the citizens, and thus differentiates the aristocratic from the bourgeois physical culture. Unlike Coubertin's "mondialistic" Olympic spirit which deals with peoples' cultural tradition, Vieth seeks to turn gymnastic performances into a "folk festivity" (Volksfest), with music and appropriate decorations creating a solemn atmosphere. In that context, Vieth, like Guts Muths, proposes the organization of performances similar to the ancient Olympic Games and the Roman games in amphitheatres, but "smaller in size". (58)
The official "father" ("Der Turnvater") of the gymnastic movement (Turnbewegung) in Germany, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, was one of the pedagogs who tried to create the Germans' national character by way of physical drill. With regard to the exceptionally nationalistic and militaristic spirit in Jahn's works, it could be said that Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy" is closely akin to Jahn's "turner" pedagogy. However, there is a crucial difference: Jahn's doctrine does not have a conquering-oppressive, but a national-liberating character. Drawing on Guts Muths' book "Turner's Book for the Sons of the Homeland", Jahn writes his work "The German Folk Turnership" (''Deutschen Volksturnens") and in 1811 in Hasenheide near Berlin builds the first drill field (Turnplatz) where the young practiced running, throwing, jumping and climbing. Those were "folk exercises" (volkstümliche Übungen), a peculiar pre-military training for a "national war" against the French domination and for the unification of Germany into one country. (59) "The spirit of the basic rules" of turners is contained in the principle: "Fresh, Free, Cheerful and Pious." ("Frisch, Frey, Fröhlich, und Fromm"). It is, according to Jahn, the symbol of the "kingdom of turners". (60) Instead of "freshness", Coubertin argues for a "muscular body"; instead of "freedom", for a limitless exploitation of the oppressed; instead of "cheerfulness", for a fanatical focusing on the given colonial ends; instead of "piousness", for an oppressive "will to power" based on insatiable greediness. Jahn's thesis from 1815, that "the spirit of the turners' being is folk life, and it is possible only in the open, in the air and light", (61) clearly suggests that Jahn developed a libertarian national-populist movement, which is totally opposed to Coubertin's plutocratic elitism and colonial fanatism. Coubertin, the aristocrat, guided by capitalist "progress" and insatiable lust of the bourgeois "elite", discarded the basic principles of the aristocratic physical culture. Speaking of the forms of physical culture in the Modern Age that preceded sport, Hopf cites Eichberg's analysis of aristocratic training, which involved "a special bearing of the body, refined movement and decency" as opposed to "uncourtly customs and peasant clumsiness" and "anyone who excessively practiced only one physical activity was viewed askance". "Positive values, measure and form, are contrasted with negative values, non-measure, and non-form". "Order and measure had to be retained, considered but not exceeded". (62) According to MacAloon, "Whether or not Coubertin had rejected ordre et mesure in his aristocratic patrimony, he had certainly retained the value of prouesse, and he saw no prouesse in gymnastics, only in sport."(63) If we consider the change in the canon of exercises, we can see that philanthropists "first took over the traditional canons of aristocratic exercises, which involved dancing, riding, jumping and fencing, and tried to fit them in their "new systems of gymnastic exercises". In addition, they introduced new exercises following the Greek model and folk training". Hopf goes on to say that "the aristocratic and philanthropic physical drill - however traditional it may be - radically differs from what we call sport. It is based on a "geometric-formal notion of beauty, oriented to
dancing". Hopf refers to Eichberg's conclusion that Fait tried to turn skating, which was then becoming popular, "into a truly fine art" (Fait) adds that "here, the bourgeois moment made it felt - the discovery of natural beauty". It is quite clear from Klopstock's ode to skating. "The experience of skating" is tightly connected with "a deep sense of the beauty of winter landscapes, in the morning as well as in moonlight". Philanthropists inspired the notion of beauty with a new spirit. They contrast the "static ideal of perfection" with a "dynamic" one, which is expressed in the "use of the word perfectioning". (64) As far as measuring of results in today's sport is concerned, "in philanthropists, it is introduced gradually". There are only "individual measures of efficiency, which in the beginning, following the aristocratic tradition, were considered an oddity". Philanthropists are "even closer to measurement in the old sense of the word - as a measure that should be retained". According to Eichberg, philanthropists mark "only the beginning of the transformation of physical exercises into sport". The road to sport in Germany was "relatively long and finished only with the victory of sport over exercising (Turnbewegung), namely, in the beginning of this century". As far as competition is concerned, philanthropists used contests "as a means of upbringing - and that was something new", but "another one hundred years were needed for the idea of competition to completely prevail over exercising and thus become sport". Hopf cites the view of Krockow that philanthropists represent the "historical beginning" of the transformation of physical culture into sport in Germany. According to Eichberg, it is the "process of a growing quantification of efficiency, connected with the idea of a limitless increase in efficiency. (65) It should be added that Klopstock refers to ice skates as "feet wings", thus poetically suggesting a way of overcoming the existing world and a road to future. (66)
Mens fervida in corpore lacertoso Coubertin rejected one of the most important tendencies of the traditional forms of physical culture: that of building a sound body and on that basis a sound mind. According to Coubertin, the principle mens sana in corpore sano is "simply a hygienic instruction, which is based, like all other similar instructions, on the adoration of measure, restraint, the golden mean...", but, "sport is a passionate activity". (67) Coubertin opposes the view that the basic purpose of sport is people's physical and mental health: that area is reserved for physical culture and it involves the "weak". He rejects the principle of health because he is not interested in man, but in the development of the ruling order and thus in the creation of positive man who is the embodiment of the expansionist power of capitalism. Hence, instead of the maxim mens sana in corpore sano, Coubertin favors the maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso and proclaims it the highest principle of his "utilitarian pedagogy" - which is intended for the "master race". It does not
occur to him to refer to Hippocrates, "Father of Medicine", who, lake Galen in ancient Rome, was strongly against boxing, considering it not only unworthy of man but also fatal to his mental health. The example of boxing shows that Coubertin subordinated the right to health to the right of the ruling order to survival. Coubertin's conception is characterized by a political instrumentalization of the body: sport (physical exercises) serves as the means of the ruling "elite" for producing the character and conscious of an ideal citizen (positive man). The body in a "combatant effort" (Coubertin) is the incarnation of the ruling spirit of capitalism and the symbol of its stability. Hence Coubertin rejects the suppleness of limbs, the softness and elegance of movement and proclaims the "iron body", accompanied by the "iron character", the highest aim of sport and physical drill. At the same time, by discarding the principle metron ariston, Coubertin, who constantly refers to the "immortal spirit of antiquity", shows how much he cares for the ancient cultural heritage. Anyway, Coubertin's maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso is the final renouncement of the view according to which physical and mental health is the basic aim of physical drill and sport. The maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso does not have a narcissist character. The purpose of "chiseling the body" is not to acquire "better looks", as is the case in modern body-building, but to build an "iron body" with a corresponding "iron will". The muscular body of a sportsman in a combatant effort has a symbolic character: it embodies the expansionist and merciless nature of the ruling order and is its propaganda. Coubertin deals with the maxim mens sana in corpore sano, but in his new maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso he preserved its antiemancipatory essence. It is a form in which the members of the ruling order strive to mobilize certain social strata in achieving their ends, and involves the equation of character and conscious after the model of a loyal and for the given ends usable subject. For the ideologues of liberalism, the maxim "a sound mind in a sound body" was a call to the bourgeois nouveau riche to passionately devote them to acquiring an ever bigger profit. It was a war cry with which the ever greedier bourgeois set out to exploit both "his" workers and colonized peoples. "Courage", "resolve", "uncompromising attitude", "readiness to take a risk" - these are the basic features of this basically conquering (oppressive) spirit with genocidal overtones. As far as the "sound mind" of a sportsman is concerned, it involves a fanatical will capable of driving the organism to self-destruction. It is a dehumanized and denaturalized conscious which corresponds to the destructive nature of capitalism in the form of "technical civilization": to imitate the "perfect work" of machines becomes the highest "pedagogical" challenge. It is obvious that a "healthy body" is not defined according to medical but according to evaluative (ideological) criteria. The "sound body" and the "sound mind" of the Nazis was, for the victims of their terror, the tool for destruction and a barbarous mind. Although the bourgeois theory repeatedly propounds the thesis "a sound mind in a sound body", a "sound mind" does not derive from a "sound body" but, on the contrary, the aggressive and
merciless mind of a petty-bourgeois is what determines physical "soundness". The basic purpose of sport is not to create a "sound body", but to produce a positive character and conscious, which means to preserve the established order of domination: "to establish control in the heads" is the basic principle of Coubertin's Olympic philosophy. At the same time, sport does not only involve the production of a certain conscious but, above all, the production of certain relations between people as the incarnation of Social Darwinism and progressism. The maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso excludes education and intellectual development, which clearly follows from Coubertin's view that "the character is not created by the spirit, but by the body". This view acquired its full meaning in Nazi pedagogy, whose essence is formulated in Hitler's postulate that "a physically healthy man with a good, strong character, full of boldness and strong will, is more valuable for the folk community then an intellectual whimp". (68) Anti-intellectualism is one of the corner stones of Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy". Dealing with the spiritual heritage of the old Greek civilization in order to use it as a means for verifying his conception, Coubertin claims that the old Greeks "were little given to contemplation, even less bookish". At the same time, the "healthy" spirit of a bourgeois is beyond good and evil and thus is "the fact" which cannot be questioned. In that way the basic postulates of the old Greek paideia are discarded, as well as Plato's conception of education according to which "the soul cannot become good and virtuous by virtue of a trained body, while, on the contrary, a virtuous spirit can help the body to become better". (69) However, man's character and conscious, which means his relation to other people and to himself, are not conditioned by the body but by the nature of a concrete physical activism. For Coubertin, "muscles become teachers" only in so far as their development is based on a fight between people and on a physical drill with which man's playful nature is suppressed and degenerated. It is no accident that, for Coubertin, man's character and body are not to be developed through work, art, folklore, mountaineering and other activities involving physical effort and cooperation between people as reasonable and creative beings, but through (French) boxing as the embodiment of a mindless and murderous agonal physical activism. Bearing in mind that Coubertin abolishes the divine firmament and reduces Olympism to the "cult of the present world", he could be expected, like Nietzsche, to have a higher esteem for the body. However, sharing the Jesuit fanatism, Coubertin defends the medieval custom of torturing one town¶s body and proclaims it one of the most important principles of his "utilitarian pedagogy". In the article on physical education in the 20th century, published in November 1902, Coubertin concludes that medieval torturing of the body has a more "humane" and "nobler" cause then certain literary works would have it. It results from the "need of the soul to torture the body in order to make it more submissive". As a model for the pedagogy of the 20th century Coubertin offers the example of "saint" Colomban who "at midnight comes down to a frozen lake" and
"flogs himself with a nettle", not because he wants to "insure place in Heaven", but "to preserve within himself that wonderful energy from which his work sprang and gave him an encouraging performance." (70) Coubertin is close to the Christian teaching: the body is not an integral part of a person, but is the source of evil which should be dealt with. By way of physical drill sexual energy turns into aggression against oneself (the principle of "bigger effort" and building of a masochistic character) and by way of sport into aggression against other people (the building of a combative-sadistic character). However, the Olympic physical drill is essentially different from Christian asceticism. To suffer physical torture ("disciplining the body") is not a form of repenting the "sinful thoughts", nor is a way of weakening the body as the "prison of the soul", but is the basic way of creating an "iron body" and "iron character" and obtaining a "surplus" of energy necessary to torture the working "masses" and conquer the world. Instead of a "victory" of the spirit over the body, which expresses the superiority of the divine to this world, the ruling order ("progress") gains a victory over the spirit and the body. Even when it comes to man's relation to his own body, Coubertin applies his universal principle of ruling by violence which removes everything that can jeopardize the stability of the ruling order and "progress". Oppression is the cardinal and universal principle of the life of a "true" bourgeois which he earnestly applies to his own body, and thus develops a sado-masochistic character: violence over one's own body and destruction of humaneness within oneself are the basic presuppositions for torturing the others. Instead of cultivating man's natural being by way of cultural activism, on which the ancient paideia was based, Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy" deals with culture and man's natural being in an attempt to create a trained beast. That is why Coubertin rejects physical activism based on national cultures, above all the folk dances in which a bodily movement expresses a spiritual movement and which are dominated by a man's movement to another man (homo homini homo), instead of a man's movement against another man (homo homini lupus), which is dominant in sport and which is directly founded on the "combatant character" and deals with man's creative and libertarian being. In that context, readiness to die becomes the highest form of submission to the ruling order: instead of being the "plaything" of the Olympic gods, man becomes the plaything of capitalism. Coubertin insists on developing in sportsmen a religious spirit, which existed in the ancient athletes. However, it is not based on a respect for values that transcend the existing world, but on a fanatical submission to the ruling order which ruthlessly deals with the critical reason as well as with spirituality. Coubertin's religio athletae involves a complete "dedication" of sportsmen, as representatives of their nations and races, to the belligerent and progressistic spirit of capitalism, appearing in sport in a "pure" form. That is why Coubertin proclaims money the "worst enemy" of Olympism and sport in general, calling professional sportsmen "circus gladiators". A sportsman must accept his symbolic role in this modern pagan spectacle, while humankind is to show its total
submission to the ruling spirit, which has an absolutistic character and cannot be negotiated. At the end of his life, fearing that with the inevitable development of professionalism his rigid amateurism could be overcome and his "fame" could wane, Coubertin made a radical turn and gave to professionals the same status which, during his Olympic career, was exclusively reserved for amateurs. (71) If we have in mind the nature of his Olympic doctrine, it is clear that the attempts of modern "Olympic officials" to justify professionalism and commercialization of sport by referring to Coubertin's original Olympic idea is totally unacceptable. Coubertin's principle "to know oneself, to control oneself, to overcome oneself" follows the basic intention of Descartes' mechanistic conception of the relation between the body and the soul expressed in his "Letter to Arnauld", according to which "the relation in which soul stands to body" is the same as "the relation in which gravity stands to body". (72) While in Descartes man, as a "thinking thing" (res cogitans) can exist without the body, (73) in Coubertin man can exist without the mind. The essence of Coubertin's maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso is such a development of muscles which will repress man's playful nature, create a combatant character, destroy the cultural conscious and create "pure material" (Hitler) to which a certain (conquering-oppressive) conscious will be attached. Descartes reduces the body to a "machine" but, being created by God, it is "incomparably better made" and has "more excellent movements" then any other man-made machine. (74) Coubertin deprived the body of all those properties that do not belong to the model of the positive world based on "progress". Instead of the body as a specific machine whose "excellence" reflects the superiority of the divine spirit, Coubertin argues for the model of the body that embodies the progressistic and expansionist nature of capitalism. Coubertin destroyed both the ancient and the medieval spiritual firmament. The dominant model of the body does not correspond to a certain cultural pattern any longer, but is a direct incarnation of the ruling order: positive society corresponds to the positive body. Consequently, the bodily movement is not an authentic expression of man's natural or divine being, but is a manifestation of the conquering (oppressive) character which is a direct product of the life "circumstances" dominated by the principle "might is right" and quantitative comparison. It is obvious that it is not the muscular body that creates the (submissive) character, as is claimed by Coubertin who tries to hide the manipulation of man, but a merciless physical drill. The body is not man's integral part and the basic possibility of experiencing his human fullness, but is the tool for attaining inhuman ends. Instead of uniting the physical (natural) and the spiritual, which was the basis of ancient kalokagathia and the basic possibility of the physical movement as a cultural movement, Coubertin "united" the suppression and crippling of man's natural needs with the destruction of the spiritual. The principle mens fervida in corpore lacertoso is not only a means for man's dehumanization, but also of his denaturalization.
Olympism and the ''Philosophy of Performance" In spite of giving primary importance to the principle of "greater effort", Coubertin does not argue for the "philosophy of performance" (Leistungsphilosophie) which would result from the endeavours to establish an indisputable domination of the progressistic principle citius, altius, fortius, but insists on the Social Darwinist principle as the main spiritual power and the basis of social order. Nevertheless, Coubertin's maxim "it is important to fight well" cannot avoid a comparison of performance by quantitative criteria, since it is the basis for determining a "victory" over "opponents" as well as a "victory" over oneself. Quantitative comparison becomes an "objective" criterion for determining the place on the social ladder of power, which appears in the form of Arnold's elitist "theory of pyramid": one hundred people are to engage in physical culture if fifty people are to engage in sport; fifty people are to engage in sport if twenty people are to specialize; twenty people are to specialize if five people are to achieve "astonishing bravery" (prouesse étonnante). (75) The pyramid of success indicates a hierarchical structure of Coubertin's "natural selection" and mechanistic logic of "competing" which corresponds to "competition" on the free market and to "industrial society''. Most importantly, quantitative comparison becomes a form expressing the dominance of "progress" over man and affirming its indisputability and eternity. Again, Coubertin mystifies phenomena: quantitative comparison is not a product of history, but is a "fact" which by no means can be questioned and is thus an instrument for teaching the subjects how to accept social inequality as something inevitable. At the same time, a record is not important as a human achievement, but as a means for proving the "progressive" nature of the ruling order and thus the growing power of the "master race". Since there are no medical or moral barriers to the progressistic principles of "greater effort" and citius, altius, fortius, it is clear that man's "perfectioning", based on them, leads to his (self) destruction. Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy" does not contain the idea of "optimal effort", which is one of the basic principles of modern sports training, nor does it distinguish between tiredness and exhaustion, which means between normal physical exertion and excessive effort that destroys the organism and leads to death. Coubertin's principle of "greater effort", as the basis of "overcoming" man's animal nature, involves man's deerotization, destruction of spontaneity, creativity and imagination, in short, the suppression of man's playing nature and the creation of "positive man". Hence the dynamics of "greater effort": the increasing torturing of the body increases the suppression of primary (sexual) needs resulting in an increased combative energy which, in turn, increases the suppression of Eros. The circle is closed. Coubertin insists on "perfectioning", but his sports pedagogy rejects the principle of the universal development of man's physical faculties and insists on onesidedness and uniformity. Instead of suppleness and flexibility, the highest
challenge for his "utilitarian pedagogy" becomes the production of an "iron body" corresponded by a ruthless "iron character". Instead of the Christian "prison of the soul", the body becomes an iron fist with which "progress" removes the obstacles on its way. The destruction of naturalness and humanity and the transformation of man into "pure material" which will be used for making a new "master race" capable of conquering the world is one of the most important aims of Coubertin's pedagogy. Sport and physical drill become the ways of producing physically and mentally degenerated people, who are prepared to destroy themselves in order to achieve the given end and who find ''pleasure'' in it. Hence sportsmen represent a bodily and character model after which young people are to be educated and thus are a mythological incarnation of the highest values of the present world. In spite of criticizing the present world ruled by "futile efforts", Coubertin is not opposed to science and technique, the pillars of capitalism, but wants to turn them into an exclusive means of the bourgeoisie for gaining control over man and nature. His principle of "greater effort", with which man's "lazy animal nature'' is to be overcome, is founded on the expansionist power of capitalism based on the development of science and technique: the mechanization of the body becomes the highest form in which the process of evolution of the living beings appears. Unlike the ancient techne where there is no distinction between nature and man and which involves an artistic shapening, sports technique is a capitalist form of controlling nature and dealing with man's natural being and creative nature. The mastering of a sports technique comes down to the suppression and crippling of man's original playing, spiritual, reasonable and physical faculties, and his subjection to a dehumanized and denaturalized "progress" that becomes a superior power whose fatal course can be slowed down, but cannot be stopped: sport symbolizes the victory of "technical civilization" over man. Since the nature of capitalism directly affects the nature of sport and since sport brings the process of capitalist reproduction to its conclusion, man in sport is not only a labour force, as claim Habermas and Rigauer, (76) but is a labour tool and raw material for making, by way of capitalistically degenerated science and technique, "recorders". In antiquity people fought for victory, but not against nature. It is the same with the Renaissance, the aristocratic culture and with the Enlightenment and philanthropic doctrine. It was only in capitalist society, in which everything is subject to the logic of profit and the progressistic principle of performance, that people started to fight against nature, which was to become evident even in sport. The ever faster movement through space, based on the development of technique, becomes the capitalist way of "controlling nature", which above all means controlling the body - man's direct nature. At the same time, the speed of movement is not relevant as the expression of the development of human powers, but as a symbolic indication of the developing force of the ruling order. Records, measured in seconds, tens of seconds and hundreds of seconds have for man an abstract value. Also, a record, as the market value of a sports result, is not only the measure of man's self-alienation, but also the measure of man's alienation from
nature and of the destruction of his own natural being. In Coubertin's Olympic doctrine space and time are given quantities, independent of man. Coubertin's relation to the sports space is the expression of the view that capitalist world is the highest form of evolution and that it is possible to improve it, but not to change it. Hence the sports stadium becomes the most authentic space of capitalism. It symbolizes man's complete and final closing in the spiritual horizon of capitalist world and is thus a modern pagan temple in which, in the form of "sports competitions" and "physical exercises", man's libertarian dignity and his faith in a just world are offered as sacrifice to the ruling spirit of destruction. Movement through space is the basis of man's essentiality and libertarian self-conscious: at the beginning there was movement. The difference between human movement and mechanical and animal movement is in its relation to the existing world and movement towards new worlds, which means in its libertarian and visionary dimension. By reducing man to the tool of "progress", Coubertin brings his movement to a level below that of an animal and gives it a mechanical dimension. He abolished man's independent movement, with which he relates to the world and shows his distinctive character, imposing on him, by way of sport and bodily drill, a model of movement that corresponds to the nature of the capitalist order. Coubertin's eurhythmics is close to that from antiquity: man is supposed to become one with the existing world and its organic part. To a dehumanized and denaturalized world, based on capitalist destruction, corresponds a dehumanized and denaturalized body and a destructive movement. The dynamics of bodily movement in sport is conditioned by the "pace of living" dictated by the dynamics of capitalist reproduction and represents a com- bat with the natural rhythm of movement. "The perfect rhythm of movement", the highest functional and aesthetic challenge, which was in the past found in the animal world, is now found in the world of robots. It has turned out that Coubertin's "new man", like Hitler's "overman" (over-beast), was only a transition to the creation of a "Rambo" (killer-idiot), that is to say, a "terminator" (a manlike robot-destructor), who is the incarnation of the ecocidal spirit of today's capitalism. Sport becomes a way of taking man out of the living world and transfer- ring him into the world of machines. Coubertin's "progress" is not a movement forward. It is reduced to an endless and ever more intensive circular movement, which can be seen on the sports field, and it should stop history and prevent man from stepping out of the existing world - leading to his destruction. Sport becomes the capitalist merry-goround of death that revolves faster and faster« Coubertin rejected the emancipatory heritage of the traditional forms of culture and thus the bodily movement oriented to the development of human relations and man's unity with nature. "The development of human powers" by way of sport has become a systematic destruction of man's creative powers; "the fight for freedom" by way of sport has become a sidetrack leading to a further development of destructive processes; "the activation of the masses" by way of sport is reduced to establishing control over people in "their free (leisure) time"
and to the creation of mass-idiocy; "the playing technique" has become a means for crippling man and creating hordes of modern Frankensteins... The dominant tendency in the "development" of sport suggests the dominant tendency in the "development" of the contemporary world: instead of creating the possibility of "leaping from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom'' (Engels), capitalism destroys the germ of a novum created in modern society and makes man increasingly dependent on the increasingly threatened environment. Sport does not only deal with culture, it deals with life. x x x
Footnotes (1) P.d.Coubertin, "Le sport et la morale", "Revue Olympique", Févr. 1910, In: P.d.C. Textes choisis, I tome, 402.p. Cursive P.d.C. (2) Carl Diem, Olympische Flamme, 86.p. (3) P.d.Coubertin, "Sport et la Société moderne", In: P.C. Textes choisis, I tome, 617.p. (4) Compare: Jakob Burkhart, Kultura renesanse u Italiji, 82.p. Dereta, Beograd, 1991. (5) Compare: J.Burkhart, Ibid. 119.p. (6) Tomas Mor, Utopija, 98.p. Kultura, Beograd, 1964. (7) an- ak Ruso, Emil ili o vaspitanju, 36.p. Valjevo-Beograd, 1989. (8) Compare: Charles Fourier, Civilizacija i novi socijetarni svijet, 161.p. Cursive Ch. F. kolska knjiga, Zagreb, 1980. (9) K.Marx-F.Engels, Dela, I tom, 21.knj. 428.p. (10) an- ak Ruso, Emil ili o vaspitanju, 17.p. (11) Ibid. 167.p. (12) Ibid. 74.p. (13) Ibid. 217.p. (14) Ibid. 186.p. (15) Ibid. 250.p. (16) Ibid. 47.p. (17) Ibid. 112.p. (18) Ibid. 113.p. (19) Ibid. 258.p. (20) Ibid. 222.p. (21) Guts Muths, Gymnastik für die Jugend, Vorrede, XVII. Schneppenthal, 1793. (22) Compare: A. Krüger, Sport und Politik, 13.p. Fackelträger Ver., Hannover, 1975.
(23) Guts Muths, Gymnastik für die Jugend, 9.p. (24) Ibid. 2.p. (25) Ibid. 66.p. (26) Ibid. 74.p. (27) Ibid. 75.p. (28) Ibid. 98.p. (29) Ibid. 138.p. (30) Ibid. 145.p. (31) Ibid. 197.p. (32) Ibid. 233.p. (33) Ibid. 245.p. (34) Ibid. 249.p. (35) Ibid. 252.p. (36) Ibid. 274.p. (37) Ibid. 275.p. (38) Ibid. 274.p. (39) Ibid. 271.p. (40) Guts Muths, Turnbuch für die Sohne des Vaterlandes, 66.p. Frankfurt, a.M. 1817. (41) Guts Muths, Gymnastik für die Jugend, 140.p. (42) Guts Muths, Turnbuch für die Sohne des Vaterlandes, 185.p. and farther. (43) Ibid. 20, 21.p. (44) Compare: Elisabeth Blochmann (Hrsg.), Pestalozzis Einleitung auf den Versuch einer Elementargymnastik, Julius Beltz Verlag, Weinheim, 1962. (45) Ibid. 7.p. (46) Ibid.15.p. (47) Ibid.7.p. (48) Ibid. 21.p. (49) Ibid. 27, 28.p. (50) Ibid. 19.p. (51) Ibid. 16.p. (52) Ibid. 17.p. (53) Compare: G.U.A.Vith, Encyklopädie der Leibesübungen, 12.p. (54) Ibid. 22.p. (55) Ibid. 16, 17, 18.p. (56) Ibid. 19.p. (57) Ibid. 23.p. (58) Ibid. 28.p. (59) Compare: Arnd Krüger, Sport und Politik, 14.p. (60) Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, Die Deutsche Turnkunst, 233.p. Berlin, 1816. (61) Compare: Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung, 33-42 Kapitel, First part, 524.p. Werkausgabe, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 1977. (62) Compare: Vilhelm Hopf, "Polja", 174.p. April, 1982, br. 278.
(63) J. MacAloon, This Great Symbol, 109.p. Cursive M.J. (64) Compare: Vilhelm Hopf, "Polja", 174.p. April, 1982. (65) Ibid. 174.p. (66) Klopstock, "Der Eislauf ". (67) P.d.Coubertin, "Une Campagne de 35 ans", In: J.MacAloon, This Great Symbol, 108,109.p. (68) Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, In: Ljubodrag Simonovi , Olimpijska podvala, Tre e dopunjeno izdanje, 106.p. (69) Compare: V.Jeger, Paideia, 355.p. and farther. (70) Compare: P.d.Coubertin, "L' éducation physique au XXe siècle : la peur et le sport", In: P.d.Coubertin, Textes choisis, I tome, 374.p. (71) Compare: Jean-Marie Brohm, Jeux olympiques à Berlin, 162,163.p. Editions Complexe, Bruxelles, 1983. (72) In: Norman Kemp Smith (ed.), Descartes, Philosophical Writings, "Letter to Arnauld", 263.p. Foot-note, The Modern Library-New York, 1958. (73) René Descartes,"Meditations on First Philosophy",Ibid,237.p. (74) Compare:René Descartes,Discours de la Méthode, 81.p. Informatypeservice, Paris, 1973. (75) In: "Historia", Numero 595, 53.p. (76) Compare: Lj.Simonovi , Sport, kapitalizam, destrukcija, 8-31.p.Lorka, Bgd, 1995.