Changes of Violence in Sport

Abstract

In the course of a development sociological analysis the question is asked, if violence in sports in the course of civilization process increases or decreases. The seeming contradiction between the thesis of decrease of violence in sports and the thesis of increase of violence in sports is solved by differentiating between expressive, pleasant, affective violence on one hand and instrumental, affectless, rational violence on the other. It can be seen that within long term development trends in society of increasing control of affects and monopolizing violence, ex pressive violence in sports is more and more repressed, tamed, i.e. compared to earlier forms of sports expressive violence in sports today has decreased. On the other hand change of sports towards success orientation, increasing economical, political, and public significance of sports leads to an increase of instrumental violence in the sense of a consciously planned, aggressive rule violation in the interest of higher aims. In contrast to this an analysis of development of female sports shows - because of the change in power balance between sexes, the change of female behavior standards - that in female sports as well an increase of instrumental as of expressive violence can be noted in the sense of an ad justment process to general social violence standards.