Cycling for Life Towards a Sustainable Philosophy of Endurance Sport
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Cycling for Life Towards a Sustainable Philosophy of Endurance Sport Ron Welters ISBN: 978-94-028-1192-6 Ontwerp: Bregje Jaspers | ProefschriftOntwerp.nl Drukwerk: Ipskamp Printing © Ron Welters Cycling for Life Towards a Sustainable Philosophy of Endurance Sport PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. J.H.J.M. van Krieken, volgens het besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 30 oktober 2018 om 16:30 uur precies door Ronald Peter Maria Mathias Welters geboren op 26 juni 1962 te Kerkrade Promotor Prof. dr. H.A.E. Zwart Copromotor Dr. L. Landeweerd Manuscriptcommissie Prof. dr. G.J. van der Heiden (voorzitter) Dr. I.M. van Hilvoorde (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Hogeschool Windesheim) Prof. dr. A. Müller (Universität Paderborn, Duitsland) Table of Contents 1 Prologue: The Good Life, Endurance and Sustainable Cycling 9 1.1 Towards an Ascetological-Ecosophical Understanding of 11 Endurance 1.2 Philosophical Accounts beyond Play 19 1.3 User’s Manual 26 2 Sport and the Environment: Considering Sustainable Thoughts 31 2.1 Sustainable Sport 33 2.2 Sport and Nature under Siege 36 2.3 Ecosophy of Sport 43 2.4 Taking the Measure of Records Sports 52 3 Answering three Ecosophical Questions: Asceticism 61 3.1 Implications of the Ecosophical Norm 64 3.2 Width and Depth 67 3.3 Close to Nature 72 3.4 Metanoetic Olympism 74 3.5 Looking Back and Ahead: Cycling for Life 79 4 Metabletics of Spinal Sport: When Poion meets Poson 87 4.1 Controversial Ponderings 90 4.2 Shifting World-Views: From Poion to Poson 96 4.2.1 1974: A Year of Poion 99 4.2.2 2010: A Year of Poson 105 4.2.3 Evaluating the Metabletic Watershed 110 4.3 Taking up the Thread of the Ascetological–Ecosophical 113 Perspective 5 Ascetic Practices, Hermeneutical Cycles and Ecosophical Endurance 123 5.1 Playing Games 125 5.2 Furthering the Meaning of Sport 130 5.3 Kynical Asceticism 133 5.4 Upwardly Oriented Hermeneutics 138 6 Continental Pragmatism: Enduring Life in the Strenuous Mood 145 6.1 For the Better 147 6.2 Finding the Right Gear 149 6.3 Reconsidering the Watershed 153 6.4 Into the Pragmatic Mood 156 6.5 Into the Strenuous Mood 158 6.6 Potential Perils Rebutted 159 7 On Agon and Ecosophical Endurance: Finding your own Pace 169 7.1 Sport in Agony 171 7.2 Retrospective: Agonizing Ecosophy and Ascetology 178 7.3 Agonize Thyself 180 7.4 Pragmatic Integration 185 7.5 Into Deep Agony 189 7.6 Enduring Agonistic Ecosophy 191 8 Epilogue: Turning in the Widening Gyre 201 8.1 The Second Coming 203 8.2 A Nearly Perfect Tool 207 8.3 Philosophy of Sport at a Crossroads 211 8.4 Lonesome Cannibal 215 8.5 Cycling for Life 220 Acknowledgements 229 Literature 232 Summary 245 Samenvating 252 About the author/ Over de auteur 259 Publications / Publicaties 261 1. Prologue: The Good Life, Asceticism and Sustainable Cycling Bicyclesletpeoplemovewithgreaterspeedwithout takingupsignificantamountsofscarcespace,energy,ortime.... Theycangetthebenefitsoftechnologicalbreakthroughswithout puttingundueclaimsontheschedules,energy,orspaceofothers (IvanIllich1974,p.63). CHAPTER 1 10 Prologue What is the good life? Or: how are we to live? Since ancient times the answer to this question usually is that we must work on ourselves and improve ourselves by way of training. This practical and practiced 1 philosophical investigation will focus on one particular dimension of this striving for human perfection by means of ‘asceticism’ (a derivative from the ancient Greek askesis, meaning exercise or training): endurance sports, such as long distance running, cycling and triathlon. These are all sports that flourish by dedicated training rather than sheer motor talent, which makes them not only accessible but also increasingly popular among the crowd. Especially the phenomenon of cycling has brought endurance sport within reach of the masses. Almost everyone can ride and afford a bicycle, a high tech artefact, which according to Ivan Illich “outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well” (1974, p. 60). This energetic economy makes the bicycle a straightforward tool for a more sustainable lifestyle. But the stakes of a life that is to be fully lived in endurance are higher. How can endurance sport at large and cycling in particular contribute not only to self-knowledge, but also to self-improvement and to sustainability? Because of its competitiveness and agonistic characteristic—at first sight the very opposite of peaceful sustainable coexistence—sport usually has a negative connotation in environmental philosophy or ‘ecosophy’ (a contraction of ecology and philosophy), a term coined by Arne Naess in the seventies and applied to sport by Sigmund Loland in the nineties. Inspired by Loland’s attempt to sketch an ecosophy of sport, and strengthened by Peter Sloterdijk’s analysis of man as an upwardly oriented training animal, set forth in You must Change your Life: On Anthropotechnics (2013), as well as insights from historical phenomenology (or ‘metabletics’), hermeneutics and pragmatism, I will argue for a vertically challenged life in what William James has called ‘the strenuous mood’: serious and hard pushing, rather than just pedalling around a bit. This results in an upwardly oriented ecosophical life, leading to qualitative growth, human flourishing, durability and a change for the better. Agonistic sport and environmental sensitivity: the twain shall not only meet but merge into a strenuous consequential truth. 1.1 Towards an Ascetological-Ecosophical Understanding of Endurance At the very heart of this interpretative-pragmatical research lies the attempt to reconcile aggressive and opposing sport and the peaceful striving for coexistent ecological sound practices. How can the idea of winning, record-setting and progress—paramount in elite sport, but to some extent usually also present in mass sport—theoretically and practically be reconciled with the ideal of peaceful coexistence of all creatures great and small, which is crucial to environmental philosophy? In the academic philosophy of sport so far relatively little attention has been paid to sustainability and sport. The most sophisticated attempts to over-think the increasingly problematic relation between sport and environment have been undertaken by the Norwegian sport philosopher Sigmund Loland in what I would call his ‘ecosophical efforts’ (1996; 2001; 2006). Ecosophy is a term coined by his fellow- 11 CHAPTER 1 countryman Arne Naess, cum founder of the deep ecology movement in the early 1970s. As indicated, it is a contraction of philosophy and ecology, and denotes a “personal total view on the relations between ourselves and nature, which guides our decisions” (1996, p. 71). In his essay Outline of an Ecosophy of Sport (1996) Loland argues that in the ecological movement competition usually is considered to be the “very counter-principle to ecologically sound practice in which cooperation and symbiosis are considered key values” (p. 70). The Norwegian ecological activist Nils Faarlund, for instance, reasons that the competition-motivated lifestyle presupposes ‘losers’, and thus is un-ecological or non-sustainable per se. Self-realisation for the elite presupposes that the others are denied self-realisation. Competition as a value is thus excluding and elitist. Outdoor life in the sense of exuberant living in nature1 presupposes on the other hand the self-realisation of others to achieve one’s own (i.e., a presentation of self which does not separate the individual from nature).... Enjoyment in the quality of one’s personal life conduct is an autotelic experiencing of value, of inner motivation (Cited in Loland 1996, p. 70). Notwithstanding the problematic relation between excluding and ‘agonistic’ competition on the razor’s edge and including and peaceful ‘ecological naturalism’, based on the work of Naess, Loland develops a set of hypotheses and norms that gives philosophical evidence for the idea that sport can be ecologically justified. Key terms in this interactive system of fundamental normative questions and adequate answers are ‘Self-realization!’2 on the one hand, and the idea of ‘biospheric egalitarianism’, or ‘the democracy of all life forms’, on the other. These are strivings which often collide, since human self-realization often seems to be at odds with the self-realization of other species. Where humans appear, other species usually get the worst of it. When we really are willing to reconsider our prominent position on planet earth we should better take a few steps back. For example, we might, under certain circumstances, reach the conclusion that human beings ought to recommend their own withdrawal as the dominant life form on earth to promote other life forms to live and blossom; this withdrawal may contribute more to the Self-realization for all. Such norms, critics could argue, cannot serve as a common basis for society at large (Loland 1996, p. 76). Living a sustainable sporting life therefore equals oscillating between the Scylla of self-interest and the Charybdis of flourishing life at large. As an escape route for navigating between the two extremes Loland proposes Naess’s slogan of ‘simplicity in means, richness in ends’ as an ‘ecosophical’ rule of thumb. This implies chosing the simpler, less-sophisticated option—say a standard racing bicycle 1 This refers to ‘Friluftsliv’, the typically Norwegian predilection for unpolished outdoor-life. Think of dangerous walking trails without safety measures which are still often called ‘family-friendly’. 2 With a capital S and an exclamation-mark, indeed. 12 Prologue rather than a high end time trail machine3—to satisfy ones deeply felt sporting needs. At the same time, nevertheless, technology can contribute to the ecosophical joy of sport and thus serve the process of 1 Self-realization. For instance, the introduction of ‘carving skis’, which make turning more efficient and enable skiers to maintain their speed, unlike older techniques that require more refined motor skills, has made skiing easier, therefore accessible to a larger audience, and thus augmenting the net sum of ecosophical joy through augmented self-development.