Contextualizing the Character-Violence Equation in Sports

Abstract

There is a millennia-long association between soldiering (willingness to shed blood) and citizenship (good character). The equation between violence and moral rectitude is both false and ubiquitous, and infuses principles of violent aggression into our language and actions, in settings ranging from paintball battles as a means of building intra-corporate solidarity to wartime metaphors for medical interventions, such as the "wars" on cancer and drugs. Given this context, it is almost inevitable that in the most violent forms of stylized (acceptable) combat — sports — the putative bright line between what should happen on the field and what may happen off the field is not as distinct as many would suppose. This problem is particularly acute as many sports have become increasingly violent, owing in part to advances in safety equipment technology, and as the implications of role modeling in sports move off the field and into all aspects of social interaction. This paper considers violence in sports as expressions of, rather than departures from, a cultural narrative in which moral rectitude is too often defined by the willingness to do harm.