Donovan Tom - Dialectic of Enlightenment As Sport

Dialectic of Enlightenment

as Sport

Dialectic of Enlightenment as Sport

The Barbaric Urge

within

Sports, Religion, and C apitalism

Tom Donovan

Algora Publishing

New York

2015 by Algora Publishing.

All Rights Reserved

www.algora.com

No portion of this book (beyond what is permitted by

Sections 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976)

may be reproduced by any process, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the

express written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Donovan, Tom, 1967

Dialectic of enlightenment as sport: The barbaric urge within sports, religion, and Capitalism / Tom Donovan.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-62894-162-3 (soft cover: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-62894-163-0 (hard cover: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-62894-164-7 (eBook) 1. Horkheimer, Max, 18951973. Philosophische Fragmente. 2. Adorno, Theodor W., 19031969. 3. Philosophy. 4. SportsPhilosophy. I. Title.

B3279.H8473P534 2015

193dc23

2015026714

Cover illustration by Wendy Walczak.

Printed in the United States

For Christine and Thomas

SPORT:

Physical activity engaged in for pleasure

To amuse oneself

To stray from style

To satirize

Tebow Time

It was hard not to believe that God was rooting for Tim Tebow on that glorious January day in 2012 when the Denver Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Apparently, more Americans than not believe that God helps Tebow win football games. In response to all this, Twitter broke twitting records and Google searches of this New Testament verse hit an all-time high. The urge to find metaphysical significance seems to extend from the local church to the sports field and even into the cyber world.

Still, Tebow himself doesnt seem to want or expect God to help him win. Rather he appears to be motivated by intrinsic values, and his focus seems to be on keeping his character and soul pure. Even when the game is on the line he has been heard saying: Dear Jesus, I need you. Please come through for me. No matter what happens, win or lose, give me the strength to honor you, And despite losing the next playoff game, and eventually losing his NFL job, Tebow has remained positive and grounded, and his popularity has not dissipated. For we live in the Age of Tebowing.

Introduction. Schizophrenic Modernity

One could half-seriously ask if Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno might find themselves rooting for Tim Tebow. Although, from all indications, these German philosophers were not fans of American football, today they might find themselves rooting for someone or something pushing back against actual existing modernity. In a world that has become increasingly cynical and economically calculating, two guys, who more than half a century ago already thought instrumental reason had become totalitarian, might have to get behind someone who seems to be guided by an intrinsic and metaphysical impulse.

Does Tim Tebow represent a challenge to the period called Modernity? Where else could one find such a competitive other of reason, such a force of nature? How dare coaches and football experts a priori determine what it means to be a quarterback when God is on Tebows team? Tebows popularity, success, and faith seem to offer a counterexample to the idea that in modernity victory, progress, success, and happiness require strategic conniving, scientific and technological advantage, progressive ideas, and the privatization of religion. For whether we are talking about Kants injunction that enlightenment means: Sapere aude ! Have the courage to use your own reason, Yet steel could not defeat prayer. The only ones compelled to face reality with sober senses turned out to be the Pittsburgh Steelers, and they also were full of tears and lacking in orientation, victory, success, progress, and happiness when Tebow finished with them. How strange are the times we live in if Tebows success and popularity seem to validate Horkheimer and Adornos warning of the return and revenge of the Other of enlightenment reason, as well as their skepticism towards the modern project in general?

As the Tebow phenomenon shows, the world that the Enlightenment was supposed to usher in turns out not to be sufficient for winning football games, grounding normativity, or giving humans something meaningful to believe in. And as we clearly know now, but perhaps dont like to admit, the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment themselves were deeply intertwined with superstition and faith, and these sacred impulses still have not melted into air. Metaphysical urges are hard to shake. In the world we live in today it is more than common to link ones idea of individual progress or social hope with some sort of non-human inspiration. Its difficult to rely solely on self-reflective reason or the merely human. Its unclear whether modernity can ever shake the pull of the transcendent, but that is not to say that people today completely trust their faith and pre-modern ideologies either. As the joke the Aunt tells in Woody Allens Crimes and Misdemeanors captures: a boxers corner asks a Priest to pray for their fighter and the Priest says he will, but continues with it will help if he can punch! In our world, many may still pray, but they also learn how to punch. Science and reason have not destroyed superstition and faith, and those who adhere to ancient myths dont typically reject all of modernity.

In the case of Tebow, his magical year did not lead to a second coming. while an artificial, steroid shooting, cyborg-like man from Russia uses ultra-modern training tools and propaganda to try to beat you into submission. Rather, todays Christian is a teched-out warrior on twitter. Go into any megachurch today and you will find Gods people logging into Facebook, see the congregations youth downloading Christian rock or rap, and watch the bible club exchanging tweets proving Gods existenceor even meeting to practice MMA submission techniques. Likewise, with Tebow, we saw a modern, rational, and calculating football player fused with ancient, faith-based beliefs and actions: wild animal aggression in Nike cleats running to the goal line transformed into a gentle pious Tebowing in the end zone, a chiseled Wolverine body with bible verses extolling love under the eyes, a self-proclaimed virgin who hangs with and dates celebrities. And if and when the football is over it wont halt the Tebow crusade. Religion can be found in all corners of our modern, capitalist culture so there will always be a place in modernity for Tebows ilk. And if the college football announcing doesnt work out one could imagine Tebow getting an online offer to sell his virginity to the highest bidder with the proceeds going to build a church in some depraved part of the world. But for now, Tebow and T-Mobile have teamed up, and the sacred and the profane have never been more intimate.

Tebows success and struggles makes it clear that the modern world is an ambiguous world in which it is hard to even adequately grasp, conceptualize, define, or understand. The world is becoming more and more profane, secular, and strategic, and at the same time, religion has come back like a force of nature. It is a world that embraces both The Wolf of Wall Street and the Jesus Freak. It is a world that seems to have paradoxically given us progress and decline at the same time, and from both ends of the spectrum.

On the one hand, we are the recipients of vast advances in health, longevity, modern comforts, scientific progress, and the like. Religion has been de-centered and made more tolerant as critical thinking and rival worldviews enter the lifeworld. On the other hand though, while many of our technological advances and modern comforts serve human needs, just as many seem to distract and alienate us. And de-centered religion, while making many more tolerant, has also brought out a more irrational, frenzied, and dogmatic faith in some and a complete disenchantment with religion in others. Tolerance, moderation, and modern subjectivity are getting squeezed between a reinvigorated medieval religious conviction and a hedonistic post-modern and pessimistic meaninglessness. Modernity seems trapped within a binary of stupid faith and senseless nihilism.