Olympism and play

8/14/2019 Olympism and play

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For Coubertin, sport is the most authentic form of playing a life based on the principle be llum omnium contra omn e s: the stronger go on, the weaker areeliminated. At the same time, a victory achieved through a higher result, on which"progress" is based, is the foundation and limit of a sports play. As far as "sportstechnique" is concerned, it becomes a way of degenerating and destroying man's playing nature and the possibility of its realization. In sport, a patterned playingtechnique is mastered, "supplied" from the world of technique and involving theinstrumentalization of the body through a technicized productivistic activism,whose purpose is defined by the nature of sports play as war with bodies. At thesame time, by reducing the body to the tool for acquiring inhuman ends and to theobject of manipulation, a (self) destructive character is formed. A mercilessrelation of man to his own body becomes the foundation of a merciless relation tothe "opponent", who is seen not as a man, but as an enemy who is to be subduedand destroyed. The typical examples are the so called "martial sports", which,according to Coubertin, are the main means for educating the children and which

are based on the "right" to inflict bodily injuries and kill the "opponent". That iswhy Coubertin gives primacy to muscular strength, speed, resolve, courage -which are supposed to build a ruthless character of the bourgeois who, with fireand sword, will conquer the world - as opposed to the development of man's playing being and playing skill directed to the development of interhumanrelations. Coubertin's theory brings out what the bourgeois theory attempts to hide:sport does not derive "spontaneously" from "man's aggressive (animal) nature", but is a forced model of behavior and is thus a means for creating people at themeasure of the ruling order. "Sports play" becomes a capitalist way of degenerating man as a playing being.

Coubertin a nd Sch iller

If we compare Schiller's conception of play with Coubertin's conception of sport, we shall see that it is one of the "negative" starting points of Coubertin'sOlympic doctrine. According to Schiller, "man can be in contradiction withhimself in two ways; either as a savage, if his feelings control his principles, or asa barbarian - if his principles destroy his feelings."(1) Coubertin's positive man is below the level both of Schiller's savage and of his barbarian. He has neither feelings nor reason: there are only swollen muscles and a combatant character.Coubertin's deals with Schillers "playing instinct" which seeks to "annihilate timein time, to connect existence with absolute being, change with identity". (2) "The playing instinct" becomes an impulse for freedom based on the unity of thesensual and the intellectual. To be free within oneself, to temper extremities, toachieve internal peace - this is the basis for interhuman relations and a good life.Coubertin abolished both Schiller's "sensual instinct", which "departs from man's



physical existence or from his sensual nature", as well as "the instinct for form",which "departs from man's absolute being or from his reasonable nature and seeksto set him free..." (3 ) In that context, Schiller's picture of ancient Greece is inopposition to the picture of antiquity offered by Coubertin. Schiller : "We see theGreeks unifying in the fine human nature the youth of fantasy with the masculinityof reason; they are full of form and at the same time full of plenitude, they philosophize and at the same time educate, they are both tender and energetic."(4) "Fantasy", "reason", and "tenderness" are what Coubertin tries to deal with at allcosts. He uses sport in order to turn people into enemies; Schiller uses play to turn people into brothers. Schiller's conception is opposed to Coubertin's "will to power": instead of Schiller's "aesthetic instinct for play",(5) Coubertin's dominantinstinct is that for conquering and acquiring. He, like the Nazis, deals with"peaceloving aestheticians" (Hitler) who want to develop their sensual andspiritual nature, and tries to create colonial phalanges imbued with fanaticalracism. The pacifistic and philanthropic intention of Schiller's philosophy is what

creates an unbridgeable gap between his and Coubertin's doctrines.Unlike the theorists in whom play (the normative) dominates over man's playing nature, Schiller gives priority to the playing being, but he does notdifferentiate between the false play, libertarian play and free (true) play. InSchiller, there does not exist a normative project of play nor a concrete play; whathe insists on is the definition of man's playing being and an imaginary space whereit can be "realized". Schiller's conception is not a form expressing faith in man as alibertarian and creative being, capable of creating a new world in his humanimage, but a romantic cry for an unrealized humanity. In the "aesthetic state" it is possible to realize what is impossible to realize in everyday life: man can reach his

whole humanity. It is an illusionary world which, on the basis of emotionalenthusiasm, is built in people's heads and is experienced with the whole "playing" being. Schiller's "aesthetic state" is a parallel world floating on the clouds of imagination without any hope of descending on the ground. It is a space where thecreative spirit goes to a voluntary exile. Hence Schiller speaks of "aestheticappearance" - "which neither wants to stand for reality, nor does it need it torepresent it".(6) And he continues: "A pursuit of an independent appearancerequires more ability for abstraction, more freedom of the heart, more energy of the will than man needs to confine him to reality, and the latter he must overcomeif he is to reach the former."(7) Unlike Schiller, who by way of play seeks toovercome the spiritual horizons of the existing world, Coubertin deals withimagination in order to pin man down to the existing world and deal with the ideaof future. Schiller strives to the sphere of pure spirit realized in the "aestheticstate"; Coubertin strives to take spirit away from man and establish positivesociety. For Schiller, the "ability for abstraction" is the bridge leading man to the"aesthetic state"; for Coubertin, a ruthless combatant spirit is the bridge leadingman to his "sports republic". Schiller seeks "more energy" in order to overcomereality by way of "independent appearance" embodied in his "aesthetic state";



Coubertin insists on the development of the will with which not only the "aestheticstate" should be abolished but also man's very need for an illusory world. Schiller seeks to create "flying" people who will soar towards new worlds; Coubertin seeksto cut man's wings and for ever enclose him within the existing world. In Schiller,the human is realized in man by developing the fullness of his being - outsidesociety; in Coubertin, all essential things happen outside man - through theabolishment of society as a human community. At the same time, for Schiller,unlike Coubertin, what connects the "flying" people is not the material wealth, butthe spiritual wealth, and it turns them into a flock. Instead of giving priority to art,Coubertin gives priority to positive science: the principle savoir pour pr e voir,

pr e voir pour agir replaces a romantic ''day-dreaming'' about the future. Man is atthe same level with Huizinga's "banal" man: instead of trying to create areasonable alternative to the existing (anti-human) world, man returns to the patronage of superhuman powers, which in Coubertin appear in the form of "progress".

Schiller's "aesthetic state" becomes an illusionary world and thus dealswith man's critical-changing spirit, but, unlike Huizinga's illusionary world whichis reduced to an idealization of the Middle Ages, it is open for visions of thefuture. Schiller: "On the wings of imagination leaves man the narrow boundariesof the present, which involves only the animalistic, in order to strive forward,towards an infinite future..."(8) Man's spiritual cultivation is independent of hisreal life and social position. Instead of striving to liberate man from tyranny,Schiller seeks to release imagination from the bonds of everyday life. Man doesnot reach freedom by fighting to break his chains, but with his romanticenthusiasm in which he does not feel the burden of the chains, whereas "beauty" is

an abstract and instrumentalized concept creating the appearance of man'slibertarian practice. "Day-dreaming" replaces the political struggle for a newworld. Schiller's conception expresses a specific spiritual state in which romanticenthusiasm suppresses all that can jeopardize a free flight of imagination to the"aesthetic state" - where all that is impossible in the existing life becomes possible.At the same time, relations between people, as well as the flight of spirit to the"future", are not mediated by a progressistic logic and in that context by scienceand technique, nor by a trade spirit: man's faith in future is unconditional andunlimited. In spite of a romantic intonation ("more freedom of the heart"), Schiller offers a rationally based normative project intended to form the ideals of thehuman that become man's highest challenge and are a possible starting point for acritical attitude to the existing world.

For Schiller, aesthetic inspiration is the essence of movement, and natureappears as aesthetic inspiration, and not as an object of exploitation. In him, thedominant principle is that of taking pleasure in a free movement in nature, whichis totally opposed to Coubertin's principle of "greater effort", which cripples the body and destroys man's playing nature. Instead of an instrumentalized andtechnicized movement directed against man and nature, the dominant movement is



that towards man and nature. What he tries to achieve is the unity between nature,the body and the spirit: a liberated spirit moves the body and cultivates man'snature by way of symbols that inspire him and strengthen his faith in life. The skillof movement becomes the liberation, and not the restraint of the body and thespirit, which means an aesthetic challenge. Perfection is not reduced to a meredevelopment of the body and of a combatant character, as is the case in Coubertin, but to the development of the spirit. Skill is not only a "technical" presuppositionfor articulating the spiritual, but is a way of self-realization, self-affirmation andself-cognition and is thus a bridge to nature and to man. Bodily movement becomes a romantic flight of man's spirit, which is inspired by faith in man andwhich offers a possibility of overcoming the horizons of the existing world. It doesnot thwart, but fires imagination which gives to everything surrounding man afantastic and symbolic character. Play is not an escape from reality, but is theexpression of the aspiration to freedom and has a visionary character. Bodilymovement is not an animal or technical act, but is the expression of spiritual

movement: skating becomes a "fine art" (Fait) realized in nature which becomes ascene for a performance created by a "dreamy spirit". Movement does not"conquer" space and time; it is a way of opening a new infinite and timelessspiritual space in man, which reflects a romantic optimism. Instead of having aneffect with a quantitative dimension, in which man becomes alienated from hishuman powers, the main effect of skating becomes aesthetic inspiration: intensityof experience ("exaltation", "amazement") becomes the measure of its"endurance". Movement has an expressive and symbolic function. The sun ray isnot only light, but is a symbol of enlightenment; ice skates are not only a technicaldevice, but are "the wings on the legs" (Klopstock) which carry man to future;

there is no dualism between the body and the spirit; there is no manipulation withthe body in order to achieve certain political ends; there are no physical exercisesas a means for creating the character of a loyal and usable citizen; there is no fight between people for victory, nor is there Coubertin's principle of "greater effort"which was to become the basis for developing a sado-masochistic character of a positive bourgeois. Instead of Coubertin's Social Darwinist agon, there is aliberated spirit confronting the existing world and the unity of (abstract) humanityin spontaneous movement in nature, creating a synthesis between man's aestheticaland ethical being. In Schiller everything lies in unity: beauty, truth, freedom... Inthat context Schiller clearly differentiates between onesided and wholedevelopments of the body: "Gymnastic exercises create the athletes, but beauty iscreated only by a free and coordinate exercising of all parts of the body."(9) Thiscontains the basic principle of Schiller's physical culture which is a mirror reflecting the true, dehumanized and denaturalized nature of Coubertin's"utilitarian pedagogy".

Unlike those bourgeois theorists who seek to present the existing games,which are but the incarnation of the ruling relations and values in a "pure" form, asthe "oasis of happiness" (Fink) contrary to the existing world of unhappiness, in



his romantic enthusiasm Schiller seeks to create a convincing illusory world,where it is possible to realize the fullness of human playing being. In Schiller thereis no space outside man in which he is to find his lost humanity; everything occursin the heart and imagination of the "flying people". Hence he does not insist on astrict observance of the existing rules of a game, but absolutizes the subjective.Schiller's romantic enthusiasm is a reflection of the French Revolution in the heartof free citizenship, while his "aesthetic state" is an attempt to build an illusionarycastle of freedom on its ruins. In Schiller's "aesthetic state every one, even the onewho serves, is a free citizen, whose rights are equal to those of the most nobleman, while the reason, which forces the oppressed masses to serve its ends, mustask them for permission. So, here, in the realm of the aesthetic appearance, theideal of equality is fulfilled, the same ideal that an enthusiast would so much liketo realize in reality..."(10) Schiller is close to Coubertin's "sports republic" inwhich the oppressed are given the same formal rights as their oppressors, on thecondition that they renounce the fight for changing their slavery social status:

freedom in the "aesthetic state" involves the obedient acceptance of tyranny insociety. "The aesthetic state" becomes an exclusive community of "flying people"and not of free and equal people. However, the very right of a "free citizen" toappear in the "aesthetic state" is formal, since it can be done only by those whohave a developed aesthetic sense. Schiller does not hide that: "But, is there a stateof aesthetic appearance, and where can it be found? According to the needs, itexists in every fine soul; in fact, we could find it, as a pure church and purerepublic, only in a few carefully chosen circles in which the behavior is notdetermined by an empty conformation to strange customs but by one's own beautiful nature, in which man, with his bold simplicity and calm innocence,

passes through most intricate relations and has no need either to impinge on other people's freedom in order to keep his own, or to renounce his dignity in order toshow gracefulness."(11) In spite of insisting on an "aesthetic state", Schiller findsin the existing world mimetic impulses which crucially determine the formation of the aesthetic being. Schiller refers to that speaking of the "form", which is but areflection of the existing world, spontaneously controlling man: "Just as the formslowly approaches him in his flat, his furniture, his outfit, so it slowly begins tocontrol him, and transform not only the external, but also the internal man. Asimple jump turns into a play, an ugly gesture into a lovable harmonious speech of movements..."(12) In Schiller, form enters man by way of the already existingcultural sphere, while man does not have an active critical-creative relation to it, but a passive-receptive one. Practically, to live the life of the chosen is the basic presupposition for entering the "aesthetic state". Unlike Schiller, Coubertin seeksto open the door of his "sports republic" for the oppressed, especially at the criticalmoments for capitalism, in order to "teach" them to respect the order ruled by thestronger and thus integrate them into the existing world. Coubertin's "sportsrepublic" is not an illusory world which is reached by imagination, but a realworld which is "reached" by living a life based on the principlesbe llum omnium



contra omn e s and citius, altius, fortius . Instead of Schiller's postulate that "man isman only when he plays",(1 3 ) in Coubertin man is man only when he oppressesthe weak and conquers the world.

Schiller is not concerned with an (critical) analysis of the nature of concrete plays, since romantic enthusiasm is a force that enables man toexperience the most illuminated freedom in the darkest of slaveries - and thisfreedom consists in the right to participate in the creation of the world of illusions.The freedom given back to man through the "aesthetic mood" is, according toSchiller, "the greatest of all gifts" - "the gift of human nature".(14) "Namely, themoment the two conflicting basic impulses start acting in him, both of them losethe coercive moment, and from the confrontation of two necessities resultsfreedom."(15) Freedom "starts only when man and his two basic instincts arefully developed; it, therefore, must be lacking until he is complete and until heacquires one of the two impulses, and it must be capable of being established bymeans of all those things that give man back his fullness."(16) Speaking of his

"aesthetic state" Schiller concludes: "T o giv e fr eed om to th e one who is fr ee is the basic law of this realm".(17) According to Benno von Wiese, Schiller's true love"is not so much a moral freedom of the human kind, but much more an aestheticfreedom of a man who plays, since it is only by way of it that man can fully beman, not only as a kind, but also as an individual".(18) Through his romanticenthusiasm and aesthetic inspiration, man can be "free" within himself in spite of being a slave in society: slavery turns through play into "aesthetic freedom".Schiller's instincts are united and realized at the expense of man as a social being.He does not realize that human freedom in society is the basic precondition of afree play. Through the aesthetic appearance man does not acquire freedom, but

creates a false feeling of freedom. "The flight of imagination" is not "theexpression of freedom", but a day-dreaming of a slave. Freedom in art presupposes reconciliation to tyranny in society. Gadamer: "A reconciliation between the ideal and life by way of art is but a partial reconciliation. The beautiful and art give to reality only a superficial and false glow. The freedom of the soul, to which they ascend us, is the freedom only in an aesthetic state, and notin reality."(19) At the same time, in Schiller's "aesthetic state" man's hope andfaith in a just world are exhausted. In his "fine souls" there is a space for "beauty", but not for the suffering of the oppressed. For Coubertin, to claim freedom isabsurd. He despises the guiding principles of the French Revolution, and the rightsof man and citizen based on it, and proclaims "might is right" the indisputable basis of social structuring. Instead of Schiller's principle "freedom is reachedthrough beauty",(20) Coubertin argues for the principle according to which aruthless struggle for survival creates a "master race", on the one hand, and slaves,on the other. Instead of arguing for the "freedom" of the individual, Coubertinargues for the "perfectioning" of mankind under the patronage of the white"master race". He does not seek to "reconcile the ideal and life through art", but to



reconcile man to the existing world of injustice by destroying his faith in a justworld.

For Schiller, man is man only when he realizes the fullness of his human(playing) being. Like Nietzsche, he seeks to restore the "synthetic" man of antiquity, and beauty represents an integrative ideal in which the unity of human being is realized. However, Schiller regards man as an abstract being whoexperiences beauty independently of social reality, which means of his concretesocial being. According to Schiller, "man is man in the full sense of that word"only when he succeeds in completely separating himself, by way of romanticenthusiasm and imagination, from the gloomy reality and realizes the pureness of his being in the "aesthetic state". More precisely, it is only in the "aesthetic state"that man can establish a harmony between the instinctive and the reasonable, freefrom the burden of social existence. Play is not only an escape from society, but isan escape of man from himself as a social being. Schiller insists on the realizationof instincts, but he empties man and reduces him to an abstract being in which

reality and form are confronted and united - from which springs "the beautiful".Schiller: "From the mutual interaction of two opposing instincts and from theconnection of two opposing principles we have seen how the beautiful appears,whose ideal, indeed, we shall look for in the most perfect connection and balanceof reality and form.(21)

Schiller's "return to nature" is totally opposed to Coubertin's "naturalistic"conception. Speaking of animals and plants, Schiller concludes: "They are whatwe are; they are what we should again become. We, like they, used to be nature,and our culture, by way of reason and freedom, should return us to nature. Theyare, therefore, at the same time the image of our lost childhood, which for ever

remains something most dear to us; hence it fills us with certain sadness. At thesame time, they are the images of our highest perfection in the ideal; thereforethey bring us to a sublime emotion.(22) Schiller insists on establishing the unity between the natural and the intellectual in man; Coubertin insists on a completeintegration of man into the existing world by removing man's natural being and hisreason. In the "sports republic" man does not acquire the fullness of his human being, but is completely "emptied" of his humanity so that he can fit into theexisting world. For Coubertin, nature is not a peaceful and harmonious whole, butis a space of a merciless struggle for survival. Coubertin's return to nature is notmediated by "reason and freedom", but by "might is right" and "progress", which bring about man's degeneration as a natural being. While in Schiller man becomes,from being the "slave of nature", "its lawgiver the moment he starts thinking aboutit", in Coubertin, this happens through sport and physical drill based on theabsolutized principle of "greater effort" - with which the laws of nature turn into a power which controls nature, and it means also man's body and his "lazy animal"nature. According to Schiller, "man in his physical condition endures only the power of nature; he sets himself free from this power in the aesthetic state, andcontrols it in the moral one."(23 ) Coubertin does not seek to liberate the "forces of



nature" by way of aesthetics, let alone to "control it" by way of morality, but triesto turn it into an indisputable totalizing power. He does not even think of putting before the bourgeoisie Schiller's "reasonable request" to "turn its natural state intoa moral one", and thus demonstrate its "maturity".(24) What is "sacred in man", isnot Schiller's "moral law",(25) but "the law of the strong". Instead of "starting toshow his independence of nature as a phenomenon" and "freely ascend his dignityto nature as a force and his nobility towards his gods",(26) Coubertin's positiveman seeks to deal with all that offers man a possibility of establishing relation tonature as an independent(free) being. At the same time, since positive man is theincarnation of "progress" as a fatal power, in which the laws of evolution reachedtheir highest level, there is no duality and conflict in him, and consequently noneed for "reconciliation".

Coubertin a nd H uizing a

Huizinga's criticism of sport is one of the most comprehensive approachesof the bourgeois philosophy of play to sport. Huizinga: "Ever since the lastquarter of the 19th century play, in the guise of sport, have been taken more andmore seriously. The rules have become increasingly strict and elaborate. Recordsare established at a higher, or faster, or longer level than was ever conceivable before. (....) Now, with the increasing systematization and regimentation of sport,something of the pure play-quality is inevitably lost. We see this very clearly inthe official distinction between amateurs and professionals (or "gentlemen and

players" as used pointedly to be said). It means that the play-group marks outthose for whom playing is no longer play, ranking them inferior to the true playersin standing but superior in capacity. The spirit of the professional is no longer thetrue play-spirit; it is lacking in spontaneity and carelessness. This affects theamateur too, who begins to suffer from an inferiority complex. Between them they push sport further and further away from the play-sphere proper until it becomes athing sui g e ne ris : neither play nor earnest. In modern social life sport occupies a place alongside and apart from the cultural process. The great competitions inarchaic cultures had always formed part of the sacred festivals and wereindispensable as health and happiness-bringing activities. The ritual tie has now been completely severed; sport has become profane, "unholy" in every way andhas no organic connection whatever with the structure of society, least of all when prescribed by the government. The ability of modern social techniques to stagemass demonstrations with the maximum of outward show in the field of athleticsdoes not alter the fact that neither the Olympiads nor the organized sports of American Universities nor the loudly trumpeted international contests have, in thesmallest degree, raised sport to the level of a culture-creating activity. However important it may be for the players or spectators, it remains sterile. The old play-



factor has undergone almost complete atrophy. This view will probably runcounter to the popular feeling of to-day, according to which sport is the apotheosisof the play-element in our civilization. Nevertheless popular feeling is wrong. Byway of emphasizing the fatal shift towards over-seriousness we would point outthat it has also infected the non-athletic games where calculation is everything,such as chess and some card-games."(27)

The main Huizinga's objection to modern sport is that "sport has become profane". "The great competitions in archaic cultures had always formed part of the sacred festivals", says Huizinga. "They were indispensable as health andhappiness-bringing activities. The ritual tie has now been completely severed".Huizinga insists on competition as a form in which the divine spirit appears inman. A "sacred" competition, which means ritual expression of obedience to thedeities, is con d itio sin e qua non of sport as play. Huizinga has a criticaldetachment to the games which have become "overserious" and, due tocommercialization, have lost their "holy" character, which means that they have

fused into everyday life and thus do not enable man a spiritual escape from theexisting life and a "cultural" upbringing. When Huizinga speaks of sport as a"serious" activity, he wants to say that sport has turned into work, which meansthat it has become part of everyday gloominess. However, Huizinga's criticism of sport does not refer to the nature of sport and its rules, but to the position that participants have in it and their relation to the game. The present games, as theincarnation of the divine spirit, are the ideal of life which should be sought for andtherefore cannot be questioned. Hence play is not dominated by a strict formwhich has a liturgical character. It is interesting that Huizinga dispels the illusionthat sport is a festivity dedicated to the highest cultural values, and at the same

time, like the bourgeois theorists of sport, creates the illusion about chivalrousfights. More precisely, Huizinga deals with an illusory world which does notcorrespond to his (cultural) model, in order to offer his world of illusions as theonly "real" cultural challenge. Huizinga had good reasons to attack sport sosharply. We should bear in mind that, according to Huizinga, man's need for illusion, which could enable his spiritual escape from a hopelessly non-culturalworld, is the only value created in capitalist society. By accepting sport as a refugethe need for (Huizinga's) world of illusions disappears and, consequently, the needfor culture. Trying to stick to his ideological concept, Huizinga does not give sportthe character of a deception but of a mistaken belief. Anyway, it is definitelysomething false: the form of play becomes a way of giving to a non-playingcontent the legitimacy of the playing. Here Huizinga is not at odds only with sportas the appearance of play, but with his own conception on whichhomo lu de ns is based and according to which the form of play is the only criterion for determiningits truthfulness. However, Huizinga pointed out the crucial thing: sport lies beyondthe field of culture. It is precisely the basic point of Coubertin's doctrine: todeprive man of his cultural heritage and eliminate all that restrains thedevelopment of the bourgeois' "will to power". It is logical that culture was the



first to bear the brunt: without cultural self-conscious there is no human dignityand freedom. For Huizinga play is a way of being in culture and creating culture;for Coubertin, sport is a way of being in life and dealing with culture - and thus isthe ideal of positive life. At the same time, Huizinga tries to indicate the truenature of modern Olympic spectacle overlooking the fact that it is not "socialtechnique" as a phenomenon sui g e ne ris which has a decisive influence on sport, but the capitalist order which uses technique as a means for "raising" - "theoutward effect of mass demonstrations" to "perfection".

In the beginning of "Homo lu de ns" Huizinga questions his basic intention,namely, to examine play as a "culture phenomenon": "Play is older than culture,for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, andanimals have not waited for man to teach them their playing. We can safely assert,even, that human civilization has added no essential feature to the general idea of play. Animals play just like men. We have only to watch young dogs to see that allthe essentials of human play are present in their merry gambols."(28) Huizinga

reduces play to the given which is independent of people. Hence the playing of animals is the prototype of the playing world: the established norms should havein society the same power that natural laws have in the animal world - to beunconditional and eternal. Huizinga: "All play has its rules. They determine what'holds' in the temporary world circumscribed by play. The rules of a game areabsolutely binding and allow no doubt."(29) Huizinga creates from play aseparate world, the space of play being in a mystical way circumscribed by play: play determines its own rules within a temporary world, which is, again, separated by play. Huizinga uses such tautological constructions to create an illusion of social unconditionality, and thus the eternity of the existing plays. Play, as a

repressive normative mould which is the incarnation of the ruling relations, becomes the source of the playing and play. In this way man is not only closed by play within the existing world, but is deprived of his authentic humanity. In thealleged world of "freedom" and "illusion" the basic values of the existing worldfrom which Huizinga offers people an escape are realized in a disguised form.Play is not a way of liberating man and developing his human powers, but is the bars of a cage that should keep the "banal" man under control and thus maintainthe ruling (class) order. By cultivating man it raises him from his everydaygloominess: play becomes a peculiar religious ritual by which man overcomes his"banal" nature and becomes one with the divine. The stability of its rules confirmsthe perseverance of the "divine" in man without which he is left to his "banality"and doomed to fall into barbarism. Huizinga identifies the form of play with itsrules, and not with the forms of aesthetic expression. The basic purpose of play isnot the development of spiri- tuality, but the expression of loyalty to the rulingorder: a man who is not ready to accept the existing world cannot be a participantin play. As far as aesthetics is concerned, it is an instrument for creating anillusory world which is an idealized incarnation of the ruling values of the existingworld. Huizinga'shomo lu de ns can "dream" only about that which does not



question the ruling order and the image of the "banal" man - to which Huizingareduced the human being.

By his criticism of sport Huizinga creates criteria which can establish thedifference between culture and non-culture, which means between the human andnon-human. He insists on the rules which involve mutual understanding andagreement of wills that should prevent the tyranny of the strong and, at the sametime, stop the fight for changing the existing world. Play becomes a spider's webwhich should conserve the existing world and give it the legitimacy of beingcultural. Hence the unconditional "observance of rules", which are independent of people, iscon d itio sin e qua non of play. Coubertin is against the norms thatunconditionally apply to all. He rejects the "hairsplitting rules" that stop the "newman" in his endeavours to conquer the world. Unlike Nietzsche, whose "will to power" springs from the overflowing life force of man, which is the expression of a free action of his affective nature, the dominant spirit in Coubertin is that of agreedy bourgeois who relies on the expansionist and productivistic power of

capitalist monopolies that is not restricted by any norms. In that context, there isno compatibility of wills: the rules are imposed by the one who is stronger andwho is not guided by universal principles which have a transcendental character, but follows the logic of life dictated by the fatal course of "progress" - which is based on a merciless struggle for survival. The purpose of sport is not thedevelopment of the normative conscious, but the elimination of the normativefirmament of civil society and the integration of people, by way of a mindless(bodily) agonal activism, into the spiritual orbit of capitalism. In Coubertin, thereis no duality between being (S e in) and ought (Soll e n): the existing world is therealization of everything man can and should strive for. The analysis of the

relation between Huizinga's and Coubertin's conceptions of sport indicates thatCoubertin, in spite of absolutizing the "factual", created a normative model of sport (the Olympic Games) which offers a possibility of criticizing the Olympicreality. However, Coubertin, a "realist", constantly adapted his conception to thesports (social) reality in an attempt to preserve the original purpose of Olympismas the cult of the existing world. By the end of his life, in spite of his long fanaticalfight for preserving the "pureness" of sport from the fatal influence of money, thismade him show readiness to accept professionals, those, according to him, "circusgladiators", and raise them to the level which was reserved for sports amateurs.

Huizinga, like Coubertin, deals with modern man and reduces him to God¶sservant. Consequently, Huizinga does not refer to people as a ("banal") man, butas a superior being and in this he is close to the "divine baron" Pierre deCoubertin. He departs from Plato's words that "Though human affairs are notworthy of great seriousness it is yet necessary to be serious; happiness is another thing" («) "God alone is worthy of supreme seriousness, but man is made Godµs plaything, and that is the best part of him." (...) "Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a manwill be able to propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his enemies, and



win in the contest" (...) "Thus "men will live according to Nature since in mostrespects they are puppets, yet having a small part in truth"....(3 0) Stating thatPlato said those words under the impression of "turning his eyes on God",Huizinga concludes: "The human mind can only disengage itself from the magiccircle of play by turning towards the ultimate. Logical thinking does not go far enough. Surveying all the treasures of the mind and all the splendors of itsachievements we shall still find, at the bottom of every serious judgment,something problematical left. In our heart of hearts we know that none of our pronouncements is absolutely conclusive. At that point, where our judgment begins to waver, the feeling that the world is serious after all wavers with it.Instead of the old saw: 'All is vanity', the more positive conclusion forces itself upon us that 'all is play'. A cheap metaphor, no doubt, mere impotence of themind; yet it is the wisdom Plato arrived at when he called man the plaything of thegods." (3 1) Huizinga moves within the Christian conception of the world. Theability of the living beings to play is not a product of evolution nor is it a historical

product and thus a cultural phenomenon, but is the gift of "nature" (God) and isthus the given. Like Plato's man, Huizinga'shomo lu de ns is not a man-player, butis a man-plaything of "superhuman" powers. At the same time, he, like Coubertin's"new man", is deprived of doubt, critical reasoning, the creative; he is not releasedfrom responsibility and sin, like Nietzsche's "overman" and Coubertin's "newman", but responds to the Christian model of man, with the addition of having theright to kill: war and knight tournaments are the highest form of play. However, if man is "God's plaything", and this is the "best part in him", then play cannot lie"beyond good and evil", nor can it be "beyond truth and falsehood", and "have nomoral function" ± so that "the valuations of vice and virtue do not apply here."

(3

2) Play "in itself", as the gift of God, is indeed the highest good, and Huizingahimself departs from that trying to give play the legitimacy of somethingindisputable and eternal. Play becomes the insemination of the living beings withthe divine spirit, and as far as man is concerned, the revelation of the divine.Huizinga'shomo lu de ns is a puppet deprived of human contents and is thus ashadow of the divine light, while his play is the play of human shadows. Huizingaintroduces "the spirit" only to deal with man's creative being and his genuinespirituality. He places "the human" and "the noble" beyond the reach of man whoseeks to change the existing world. Huizinga deals with the emancipatory heritageof civil society and deprives man of the possibility of and the right to create theworld at his own measure as a free personality. Play is not a way of expressing theauthentic man's playing abilities, but is a way of controlling the "evil" humannature and of establishing a spiritual patronage over man. Huizinga's theory is par ex ce ll e nce antilibertarian and conservative and could be (conditionally) called theChristian theory of play.

Huizinga glorifies the "play" of animals which always proceeds in thesame way. Practically, man is below the level of animals, which completely behave in accordance with the internal playing demands which are incorporated in



them on the part of God, since their "banal" nature can become independent of play and thus question the existing world. Huizinga claims that even "animalscompete", but according to him there is no direct connection between an animaland man, that is to say, man did not inherit his playing nature from animals: bothanimals and man received their ability to play from God. The behavior of animalswhich Huizinga calls "play" is their direct existential activity by which theyacquire skill and develop the body in a way that should insure their survival. Their play is always the same and is determined by the nature of their kind. By playing,a child develops his individuality and becomes a man, unlike the young of animalswho through play develop the peculiar features of the species they belong to. Inaddition, animals do not choose their play with their free will; it is a necessaryconsequence of the development of the qualities contained in their genetics.Huizinga also "forgets" to tell us that animals "play" together regardless of their gender (while "love play" that precedes mating has special significance), and that people from their childhood, precisely on the basis of the existing games, which

Huizinga proclaims the indisputable criterion for determining the notion of play,divide in playing communities according to their gender (as well as according totheir races and classes). Coubertin brings things to the end: the woman is deprivedof the right to engage publicly in sport and take part in the Olympic Games, and physical exercises should serve to help her develop her maternal dispositions and become a national (racial) incubator.

Huizinga takes from the animal world everything he can use to prove the playing nature of homo lu de ns. He departs from the behavior of some animalswhich resembles the behavior of people and thus draws a general conclusion onthe competitive ("playing") nature of animals. Thus, according to him, even crows,

similarly to man, "compete". Not only is man outside the process of evolution, butthe evolution of animal species is discarded as well. Using the same method,Huizinga could have easily realized that a great majority of animals do not"compete" and could have drawn the conclusion that competition is not in thenature of animals. How can God be mother to some animals and step-mother toothers? If we have in mind the essence of Huizinga's conception, such questionsare meaningless since Huizinga, an aesthetician, does not use the causal-explicative method and does not try to offer arguments, but tries to invent a "nicestory" using the details from the animal and human worlds with which he canincite an aesthetic reaction and thus win man over. However, what Huizingaconsiders the play of animals was obtained on the basis of a certain ideologicalmodel of play. Huizinga's relation to the play of animals is the result of his relationto man - which is reduced to a combat with man's creative-libertarian being. Playis not the highest form of man's self-realization and of society as the community of emancipated individuals, but is an expression of spirit which "nature" (God)"bestowed" on the living beings. Buytendijk also opens a possibility for a critiqueof Huizinga when he claims that "sport bases its value and estimation precisely onthe strivings to one specialide al behavior" which involves norms as "obligatory



rules". "Pure play does not have this normative demand and belongs to acompletely different life sphere. Animals play; only in p e opl e ex ists sport, whichwithout norms, which m e ans without th e 'spirit' - is not possi b l e ." (33 ) Coubertindeparts from the assertion that man is by his nature an animal, but he does notdepart, like Huizinga, from the playing characteristics of animals and he reducesthe animal to a bloodthirsty beast. For Coubertin, the animal world is not a symbolof tolerance and pacifism; it is the realization of the principle "might is right" aswell as the principle of natural selection and thus is the model for humancommunity. Unlike those bourgeois anthropologists who regard sport as a meansfor pacifying man's "aggressive (animal) nature", Coubertin regards sport as ameans for developing his combatant will, since man is by his nature a "lazy beast".Sport is based on the principle of "greater effort" and is not "in the nature of man",(3 4) but is in the nature of the capitalist order: a sportsman is a capitalisticallymutated beast.

Trying to deal with the idea of future and man's struggle to create the

world in his human image, both Coubertin and Huizinga refer to the past. UnlikeCoubertin, who in an idealized antiquity finds the highest point in the developmentof humankind, Huizinga finds in a romanticized picture of the Middle Ages anunattainable model. It is an endeavour to create a parallel world in people's heads,in which everything man should and can strive for has already been realized. It becomes the ideal of a "perfect world", similarly to the Christian "paradise", whichappears as a way of closing man in the established world by means of a repressivenormative pattern, which is an idealized projection of the ruling social relations.Huizinga clearly sees that the world's imperfection is the basic presupposition of its openness to the future and human aspirations. If the existing world is to be

preserved, the sets on the scene creating illusions should be preserved first:Coubertin's principle of "control in heads" is the basis of Huizinga's philosophy.Illusion should destroy the hope of a better world and prevent a critical-changingconfrontation with the existing world of misery. Instead of striving for a justworld, man should strive for a "more beautiful" world. Play, which according toHuizinga is essentially "irrational", should achieve a certain psychological effectwhich, ultimately, is intended to show the ruling values of the existing world in aholy (divine) form, under the aureole of "rhythm and harmony", "the noblestqualities we are capable of perceiving in things".(3 5) Coubertin's words:"harmony is the sister of order" indicate the true meaning of this conception. Justlike Coubertin, Huizinga tries to create an appearance of the cultural byaestheticizing play (harmony, proportion, rhythm). It is an instrumentalizedaesthetics, but Coubertin argues for a dynamic balance and against the normativewhich represents a restraint to the "will to power" of the ruling class. UnlikeHuizinga-s conception, where there is a hint of the ancient principle of k alo k agathia , which means that the ethical and the aesthetical are given in unity,in Coubertin, the aesthetical, as the idealized picture of order, becomes a way of



providing a "cultural" legitimacy to the Social Darwinist and progressistic natureof capitalism. "Beauty" becomes a combat with freedom andnovum .

Huizinga, like Nietzsche and Coubertin, discards the categories of "evil"and "good", "unjust" and "just", "freedom" and "tyranny"... The relation to theworld is mediated by the aesthetical criteria of "ugly" and "beautiful". The maintask of art is not to deify the existing world, as is the case in Coubertin, but tocreate an illusory world ("a dream") which will be incorporated into man's head inorder to preserve "the human" and enable it to endure everyday life. In his pictureof the Middle Ages Huizinga does not show a man who suffers, but uses themisery of the oppressed to depict a life similar to the Christian world, in whichman, with the obedience of a slave, accepts his humiliating social position. Tryingto destroy human dignity, Huizinga, with pathological lustfulness, depicts thescenes of execution and of poor people in mud under the gallows. He condemnsthe modern man's becoming independent of the divine authority, which means hisalienation from his playing nature, and wants to restore the sphere which is above

man, which is independent of him and to which he is hopelessly submitted. Manshould "return" to the illusory world of the Middle Ages, which is the incarnationof the fullness of the playing, and thus reach again his divine being. Aromanticized picture of the Middle Ages becomes a mirror in which man is tomeet his lost humanity, and in that sense it serves to fill in the cultural emptinessleft after a hectic rush after money and a merciless struggle for power. Accordingto Huizinga, the modern world is doomed to "gloominess", while man, renouncingthe divine patronage, has become a "banal" being. The only truly valuable thingcreated in modern society is a need for an illusory world which appears in theform of a "dream" about the Middle Ages. Unlike Huizinga's picture of the Middle

Ages, Coubertin's picture of the ancient world does not present misery andsuffering. It is a picture of a (hopelessly) "happy world", which appears as anindisputable and unattainable challenge to the Modern Age. Instead of the yellingof slaves, from his mythological world come the clattering of arms and cries of thevictors. At the same time, Coubertin seeks to destroy man's need for dreaming. His positive bourge ois, guided by his insatiable lust and fear of the working "masses",is constantly awake. Instead of offering a "dream" about the Middle Ages, whichis reached through an aesthetic inspiration, Coubertin offers a ruthless fight on thesports field, which is the reincarnation of the "immortal spirit of antiquity" and isthus a light in the gloominess of everyday life dominated by a "futile effort"(Coubertin).

Huizinga's doctrine does not contain the idea of progress, which representsthe corner stone of Coubertin's Olympic doctrine: he strives for a static andunchangeable world. In Huizinga, there is no "perfectioning" of man, which is based on Social Darwinism and the principle of performance, nor are there anyother challenges which cross the borders of the aristocratic world. Huizinga: "Hehas won esteem, obtained honor; and this honor and esteem at once accrue to the benefit of the group to which the victor belongs. Here we have another very



important characteristic of play: success won readily passes from the individual tothe group. But the following feature is still more important: the competitive'instinct' is not in the first place a desire for power or a will to dominate. The primary thing is the desire to excel others, to be the first and to be honored for that." (3 6) Play becomes a fight for prestige between the aristocrats, and not afight for domination (survival) and "progress", as is the case in Coubertin.Huizinga is a representative of the aristocracy who acquired the monopoly over power "from God" and the static medieval order. A fight for victory is not thematter of survival, but of vanity, elitist status, as well as a form of the constantconfirmation of a complete submission to the existing order. However, at knighttournaments and in war victory is achieved by beating the opponent, which means by his elimination from further fight, which involves killing. Huizinga speaks of "bloody ferocity" at the knight tournaments and glorifies war as the highest test of a man's maturity. In that way Huizinga, under a different ideological veil, reachedCoubertin's position: the stronger survive, the weaker are destroyed. Huizinga

should be credited with opposing the "criminal power" which, in the form of "totalwar" hung over Europe at the time of the Nazi fury. Unfortunately, even themonstrous Nazi atrocities did not make Huizinga cast away his loyal shield whichhe proudly carried all his life: instead of supporting those who fought againstfascism, Huizinga addressed the Nazis asking them to respect certain norms intheir genocidal conquests. His endeavours to give a "cultural" (playing) legitimacyto the criminal practice of the fascists came down to disclaiming culturallegitimacy of the libertarian struggle of the oppressed. According to Huizinga'stheory, the American, French and Russian Revolutions do not belong to thecultural heritage of mankind, but to "barbarism", unlike wars and colonial

conquests which drove to death hundreds of millions of people - with "respectingcertain rules". At the same time, Huizinga "forgets" that competition between people involves a certain level of civilizatory development, and that in the courseof history competition has acquired new contents. The so called "primitive peoples" do not know of competition between individuals. In ancient Greececompetition was reduced to a ruthless struggle for victory. It is only in the ModernAge that the ideas of personal achievement, of comparing results and of record appear .

For Huizinga, just like for Coubertin, war between peoples is a necessaryand welcome destiny of mankind. However, for Coubertin, war is the highest formof natural selection and thus is the basis of the "perfectioning" of mankind, whilefor Huizinga it is the highest form of play. In that sense, man's readiness to kill isthe most important human feature, while the skill of killing is the superb playingskill. If we add that, according to Huizinga, "pleasure" is the highest challenge for play, it is obvious that Huizinga proclaimed the pathological character prophile of the aristocracy the character prophile of hishomo lu de ns. Huizinga's hypocrisy isalso seen in his speaking of a "chronical misery in war",(3 7) while at the sametime he sees in war the highest form of the fight of noblemen for "honor". The true



picture of war are not "magnificent military parades", but hanged peasants, burnedvillages, raped girls, famine, plague, corpses of children rotting in mud...Huizinga's "beauty" relies upon human misery and poverty. It is a cynical mockingat the working people who are left at the mercy of the aristocracy as theincarnation of a "fateful" power. "Law has invented horrible punishments" -claims Huizinga coldly,(3 8) forgetting to add that the punishments were inflicted by the aristocracy which he proclaimed the incarnation of "virtue". Huizinga doesnot hide that horrible scenes of execution arouse in him the highest aestheticexaltation. Bestial massacring of the poor - public taking out of the intestines, thecutting of limbs, burning, crucifixion on a wheel, cutting up of bodies by horsedrawn carts and the like - all this acquires in Huizinga the character of ritualswhich serve to offer human sacrifices to the highest of deities and thus expresscomplete submission to the ruling order. The same applies to wars and knighttournaments: to kill the "opponent" in a fight, respecting the established rules, isthe highest form of play, and thus a cultural act. Huizinga departs from the same

principle when he speaks of the suicidal fanatism of samurai (hara k iri ). Glorifying"feudal heroism" in medieval Japan, Huizinga concludes that "The Japanesesamurai held the view that what was serious for the common man was but a gamefor the valiant."(3 9) - overlooking the fact that the sword of a samurai symbolizesthe ruling order to which man is hopelessly submitted. Play becomes the highestform of man's devaluation.

Huizinga'shomo lu de ns is the picture of a "noble knight" who representsan idealized incarnation of the aristocracy and aristocratic values. Speaking of themedieval "sport", Huizinga concludes: "The warlike sports of the Middle Agesdiffer from Greek and modern athletics by being far less simple and natural. Pride,

honor, love and art give additional stimulus to the competition itself. Overloadedwith pomp and decoration full of heroic fancy, they serve to express romanticneeds too strong for mere literature to satisfy. The realities of court life or amilitary career offered too little opportunity for the fine make-belief of heroismand love, which filled the soul. So they had to be acted. The staging of thetournament, therefore, had to be that of romance; that is to say, the imaginaryworld of Arthur, where the fancy of a fairy-tale was enhanced by thesentimentality of courtly love."(40) For Huizinga, the duel is a ritual form of expressing man's complete submission to the established order. The same can befound in Coubertin: in a sports fair-play man's right to life is subordinated to theright of order to survival. Nothing human can restrain the will to power of the bourgeois who seeks to conquer the world and abolish the emancipatory heritageof mankind. Life itself becomes a stake which proves the loyalty to the establishedorder, while fight to life or death becomes the most authentic form of naturalselection. Both theorists place ambition and love of power to the forefront andreject love of man and freedom. However, what "honour" is proved by killing aman? What is the nature of the erotic impulse achieved through "bloodyfierceness"? What is beautiful in a cruel fight to life and death, in cutting throats



and butchering, in taking out the intestines, in mutilated bodies drowned in mud?And all that only "to win the favor of court ladies"? Huizinga proclaimed the pathology of medieval society the source of the highest human ideals. As far as thewoman is concerned, Huizinga reduced her to a part of the scene as a vaginal idiotwho from time to time breathes "romantic sighs". In Huizinga's medieval pictureshe serves to enhance the "emotional impulse" and "erotic charm" of chivalrousfights, as well as the "colorfulness" of the tournaments. Certainly, it refers to nobleladies. Plebeian women, in their rags, belong to a place of misery, pain, despair -in the mud under the gallows. Most importantly, in Huizinga's world of illusionsman obediently endures his everyday misery. In his picture of the Middle Agesthere are no angry eyes, or clenched fists symbolizing resistance to the "horribleworld" (Huizinga) in which the tyranny of the aristocracy is established.

Huizinga is not a historian, but an aesthetician. He depicts the Middle Agesin idyllic colors and is not interested in how much his picture corresponds toreality, but how convincingly it represents the illusory world he offers to man as a

way of escaping from the existing world. He seeks to avoid a "naive historicalrealism" in order to create the picture of the Middle Ages which will enable the(petty)bourgeois a "cultural" nourishment as opposed to the hopelessly non-cultural capitalist world. According to Huizinga, "At all times the vision of asublime life has haunted the souls of men, and the gloomier the present is, themore strongly this aspiration will make itself felt. Three different paths, at alltimes, have seemed to lead to the ideal life. Firstly, that of forsaking theworld."(...) "The second path conducts to amelioration of the world itself, byconsciously improving political, social, and moral institutions and conditions."(41) "For there is a third path to a world more beautiful, trodden in all ages and

civilizations, the easiest and also the most fallacious of all, that of the dream. A promise to escape from the gloomy actual is held out to all; we have only to color life with fancy, to enter upon the quest of oblivion, sought in the delusion of idealharmony. After the religious and the social solution we have the poetical. A simpletune suffices for the enrapturing fugue to develop itself; an outlook on theheroism, the virtue, or the happiness of an ideal past is all that is wanted. (...) Butwas it only a question of literature, this third path to the sublime life, this flightfrom harsh reality into illusion? Surely it has been more. History pays too littleattention to the influence of these dreams of a sublime life on civilization itself andon the forms of social life. The content of the ideal is a desire to return to the perfection of an imaginary past."(42) Huizinga is here again close to Christianity:the more miserable life is, the more intensive the need for an illusory world; thegreatest the everyday gloominess, the more attractive the colorfulness of illusion...Huizinga himself clearly refers to that when he claims that "every age strives for amore beautiful world. The deeper the desperation and pain because of a confused present day, the stronger the craving".(4 3 ) People should be blinded by a dazzlinglight, but Huizinga, instead of sports performances, offers a false picture of theMiddle Ages, in which man looks insignificant in comparison to a mystical fateful



power that emanates from that picture. Coubertin does not try to arouse in people acraving for a more beautiful world, but seeks to deify the existing world and turn itinto the illusion of a "happy world". The Olympic Games are analogous toHuizinga's "dream", which appears as an idealized picture of the Middle Ages.The Olympic spectacle becomes an "artificially beautified picture of pseudoreality", which for the modern man has the same significance as, according toFromm, "the shining glassy pearls" had for savages, who were prepared to givetheir country and their freedom for them.(44) Instead of a sports spectacle of thecircus type, which is intended to marginalize the crucial and enforce the marginalas fateful, in Coubertin, the Olympic spectacle becomes the highest culturalceremony at which man's being is mystically inseminated with the spirit of capitalism. The same goes with Huizinga: in his "dream" the dominant values of the existing world appear in an idealized form, but he, departing from Plato,identifies play with a cult - through which play acquires "holiness". In that context,Huizinga poses the question if the cult, as the "highest and holiest reality", can

also be play? That it is possible is confirmed by children's games, as well as anyother games which are "played with the utmost seriousness". It includes the playof a sportsman for he plays with "the utmost seriousness and courage that springfrom enthusiasm".(45) Criticizing modern sport, Huizinga expresses hope thatone day sport will restore the character of the medieval tournaments. Just like inCoubertin, "future" appears as the incarnation of the past. Speaking of Plato's viewof play and holiness, Huizinga says: "The Platonic identification of play andholiness does not defile the latter by calling it play; rather it exalts the concept of play to the highest regions of the spirit. We said at the beginning that play wasanterior to culture; in a certain sense it is also superior to it or at least detached

from it. In play we may move below the level of the serious, as the child does; butwe can also move above it - in the realm of the beautiful and the sacred."(46) Byway of play Huizinga raises man's spirit from the existing world; by way of sport,Coubertin nails it to the existing world. Olympism does not lead man to divinity, but seeks to deify the present world: it is the "cult of the present world" whichshould give an aureole of the eternal to the ruling order and cause a religiousrelation of people to it. Hence for Coubertin the Olympic Games are the "Church",while a sports stadium is the temple of capitalism.

Huizinga's play involves an indisputable observance of the roles to whichman is predestined on the basis of the class he belongs to. Play becomes theconfirmation of his unchangeable social status and a way of "free" playing of thegiven role. Huizinga laments the fate of the "gentleman from earlier times, who,obviously, with his formal outfit demonstrated his status and his dignity."(47)Above all, by his outfit a nobleman expressed his dominant social position, particularly the "superiority of his blueblood", and it acquired its true "aesthetic"dimension only in opposition to the misery of the working "masses". The way of dressing is not the expression of the aristocracy's free will and spiritual wealth, buta demonstration of the wealth and power of the ruling class and thus its obligatory



uniform. Huizinga is enthusiastic about the aristocracy's foppishness (theaesthetics of rich people's primitivism), seeing in it a dazzling power, which is of primary importance for the creation of his world of illusions intended to impressthe oppressed. In addition, clothes are the most conspicuous form of "virtue"whose bearer, by the divine will, is the aristocracy. It is, thus, a holy robe by

which the divine power should arouse admiration in ordinary mortals: the dazzling power of noble robes becomes a means for deifying the aristocratic order.Huizinga insists on the "art of life", and not on a free artistic creation. That is whyhe attaches such importance to "fashion": clothes are not the confirmation of human independence, but a class leveling shroud man is predestined to. It is quitelogical that Huizinga gives priority to the "art of life" as opposed to art itself, for it, above all, involves "nicely stylized forms of life, which should raise the cruelreality to the sphere of noble harmony". "The high art of life" ("fashion") becomesthe form in which a decorative aesthetics triumphs over art as a creative act.Speaking of the Middle Ages Huizinga says: "All these nicely stylized forms of

life, which should raise the cruel reality to the sphere of noble harmony, were partsof a high art of life, and did not find a direct expression in art proper."(48)Huizinga goes as far as to proclaim the apparent forms of the established relations"pure art". By way of the "artistic" form Huizinga actually seeks to prevent at allcost the original human creativeness from crossing the normative firmament of hisaesthetics and thus destroy the world of illusions and question the existing order.Man is not the creator of his own world, but is part of the sets on the scene of the present world.

Like Coubertin, Huizinga does not advocate a society "ruled by law", butone ruled by privileges. Huizinga's view of the structure of society is akin to the

view of the structure of medieval society of the court historiographer of Philippe leBon and Charles le Temeraire, Georges Chastellain: "God, he says, created thecommon people to till the earth and to procure by trade the commodities necessaryfor life; he created the clergy for the works of religion; the nobles that they shouldcultivate virtue and maintain justice, so that the deeds and the morals of these fine personages might be a pattern to others."(49) In spite of critical overtones in his presentation of Chastellain's work, Huizinga has not gone much further from thiscourt historiographer. For him, also, the nobility, "based on virtue", is predestinedto be the bearer of a cultural mission and is thus the spiritual "elite" of mankind.Huizinga: "The nobility, which once only had to be brave and defend its honor,satisfying the ideal of virtue, now, if it still feels called, has to stick to its task,either by introducing higher ethical contents into the ideal of chivalry, which in practice always turns out bad, or by being satisfied, through luxury, glamour andcourt customs, with the outward splendor of the high class and unsullied honor,and it however now has kept only the character of play, which from the very beginning was its distinctive feature, but used to have a cultural function."(50) Huizinga reduced culture to the aristocratic "culture of life", and it means to theimitation of strict forms of court life, dressing, indulging in luxury... Aesthetic



education is reduced to the imitation of the given pattern of behavior which is performed rhythmically and harmoniously: play acquires a ritual dimension.Culture does not appear as the development of man's spiritual wealth and hisuniversal creative powers, but as a constant rebuilding of sets on the scene of theworld which is given by the divine (self)willedness. There is not a word on thedevelopment of art, philosophy, on the creation of new playing forms: culture becomes a manifestation of the aristocracy's elitist status. By identifying the"higher culture", which becomes the highest cultural level and thus a criterion for determining the (non)cultural, with the aristocratic medieval culture, Huizingadevalued the extraordinary richness of ethnic cultures (which have become the basis of modern art), as well as the ancient and Renaissance cultural heritage. Inhis determination of culture Huizinga does not rely on mankind's emancipatoryheritage, but on the aristocratic culture based on a belligerant and oppressive practice of the aristocracy which reached its highest "cultural" level in "chivalroustraditions". Hence, according to Huizinga, the struggle between people for

acquiring "honour", including the tournaments and war, is the highest form of play. While Huizinga strives for cultural elitism, Coubertin seeks to destroyculture and turn society into a "civilized" menagerie.

Huizinga finds in "rationalism and utilitarism" the cause of the miserablespiritual state of the western world: "The overestimation of domineering factors insociety and in the human spirit was in a way a natural product of rationalism andutilitarism, which destroyed mystery and absolved man of guilt and sin. However,at the same time, they forgot to free him of stupidity and shortsightedness, andthus he seemed to be predestined to and capable of destroying the world onlyaccording to its own banality."(51) Using the already tested method of bourgeois

theorists, Huizinga proclaims the abstract "man" guilty of the catastrophic spiritualstate created by capitalism, and reduces him to a "banal" being in order to destroyhis self-respect. At the same time, Huizinga proclaims "technical development" anindependent and cardinal power which becomes the subject of social development:"With remarkable technical developments from the steam engine to electricity,man more and more cherished the illusion that this development also meantcultural development."(52) The banality of the capitalist world, in whicheverything is submitted to quantification and profit, becomes for Huizinga "man'sown banality". Huizinga's analysis of capitalist society shows that he had beforehimself such research methods which offered him a possibility of discovering thecauses of spiritual misery. However, his theory was not intended to remove thecauses of spiritual misery, but to protect the ruling order. Huizinga reduces man toa "banal" being in order to destroy his dignity as a libertarian and creative beingand for ever pin him down to the existing world. What he finds unacceptable isman's becoming independent of superhuman powers and acquiring the capabilityto create the world in his own image. Both Huizinga and Coubertin deal withman's creative-libertarian nature and the idea of future.



Trying to deprive man of the capability to create a reasonable alternativeto the world based on capitalist irrationalism, Huizinga claims: ''We, after all, arenot as reasonable as the 18th century, in its naive optimism, was prone to believe."(53 ) Thus, being no more capable of finding the causes of his misery and creatingnew roads of development, man was left to the mercy of the fatal effects of theirrational processes of the capitalist reproduction. Unlike the bourgeois theorywhich, by way of the "objectivistic" scientific mind, seeks to give the character of "being rational" to the irrational nature of the capitalist order, Huizinga, using theresults of the modern mind, seeks to instrumentalize irrationalism in order tofanaticize man and enable him a spiritual escape from the existing world. Theaestheticized model of play becomes a rationally projected space of the"irrational". Huizinga's irrationalism is not anti-rational, but anti-emancipatory.Like Coubertin, Huizinga does not refer to reason, but tries, by way of certainimpressions, to penetrate the subconscious and control the human being from"within". Hence such a plastic picture of the Middle Ages, his insisting on details

and human destinies... Every part of the human being, which is not capable of finding a suitable expression in the existing world, should find itself in anillusionary world. Huizinga portrays the Middle Ages as a time in which pulsatesall that is human: laughter and crying, birth and death, love and hatred, ornateluxury and gloomy misery... The richness of contrasts is opposed to theimpersonality of the industrial age; a number of open emotional expressions areopposed to a "serious" world where there is no place for laughter and crying and inwhich everything is subordinated to labour and gain; the world of imagination isopposed to a world governed by a strict and spiritlessratio . The heading of hisfirst chapter of "T he Waning of th e Midd l e A g e s'' : "The intensity of life" is quite

indicative and it becomes a metaphor with which Huizinga mocks the capitalistworld. However, Huizinga forgets that his ideals are founded on mankind'scultural heritage and present one of the streams of thought in its recentdevelopment. And this is the result of the thinking activity of the "banal" manwhom Huizinga addresses with contempt. Here we find Russell's paradox of theliar: how can we believe the man Huizinga when he denies the right and ability of the ("banal") man to make his own decisions? Obviously, Huizinga is not bothered by that problem. He sees himself as a link connecting man to the divine and thusas a modern "Messiah".

Huizinga's culturological criticism of capitalist society could be fruitful if it were intended to eradicate the source of non-culture. Then his thesis - thattechnical development does not at the same time mean cultural development,would gain its true value. Unfortunately, Huizinga proclaimed capitalist society ahopelessly non-cultural world in order to deal with the aspirations to create a newworld which would be a cultural community of free people. To make things evenworse, capitalism becomes the foundation for creating a world of illusions, which becomes man's highest cultural challenge. To prevent the struggle for a better world, Huizinga offers to the oppressed the illusion of a "beautiful" world in



which, by an aesthetic hocus-pocus, the world of misery is deified. In that context,culture has the role to create "beautiful sights for the spirit" and to bring man, byway of play, to the divine. Just as Huizinga tries to defend the existing world bymeans of play, which is reduced to a "dream" of an ideal world (the Middle Ages),so Coubertin tries to defend it by means of sport, which, in the form of theOlympic Games, becomes the reincarnation of the "immortal spirit of antiquity".Instead of a spiritual escape from the world, Coubertin argues for man's completeintegration into the existing world by way of a mindless agonal physical activism.To live the present life becomes the highest and most efficient way of its defense.

The true nature of Huizinga's theory can be seen only if we bear in mind thedestructive nature of capitalism. For here we deal not only with the "horror" fromthe Middle Ages, from which we should escape by creating "beautiful sights for the spirit", but also with the horror of capitalism, which threatens to destroymankind and from which there is no escape. Huizinga's play, from which he triesto make a colorful cover which will cover the world, becomes a death shroud.

O lympism a nd the "Oa sis of Ha ppiness "

Unlike the bourgeois theorists who insist on the dualism of the world,where play appears as an "oasis of happiness" (Fink) as oppossed to the world of "worry" and "unhappiness", Coubertin insists on the world's unity, where sport isan idealized form of the basic principles of the present world which are beyondman's critical-changing practice. "The sports republic" is not an escape from the

present world and a quest of "oblivion" (Caillois), but is the most important way of teaching man how to obediently accept the ruling relations and become integratedinto the existing world. In it the authentic ruling spirit of the present world playswith man in a direct form. Emphasising the ancient world as an unequaled modelto the modern world, Coubertin says that in it "the present world was - happiness"."Positive society" is a hopelessly happy society; "positive man" is a hopelesslyhappy man. As far as the working "masses" deprived of their rights are concerned,they should not strive for a "happy life", but should reconcile to the world of injustice and find "happiness" in masochisticly courting their masters.

In the bourgeois theory play can be only such behaviour which reflects thestructure of the existing world and does not question that same world. Caillois'view that "play is an end in itself"(54) has the same meaning as the famousmaxim "sport has nothing to do with politics". Play is derived from history, it becomes a phenomenon sui g e ne ris and acquires purpose independently of societyand human existence in it. Hence Caillois is not interested in how play appears nor in the formation of its rules, in what they express and what possibilities they offer to man: "There is no reason why they should be as they are and not otherwise",says Caillois.(55) By reducing play to the given which cannot be questioned by





and at least apparent calmness the bad outcome of even the most persistentendevours or a loss of incredibly big stakes. The judge's decision, even an unjustone, is in principle accepted. A distortion of agon begins at the moment when boththe judge and the verdict are no longer recognized."(57) In order to justify therepressive institutions of capitalist society, Caillois reduced man to a beast onwhom he planted "greedeness" and proclaimed "free competition", which is "oneof the laws of nature", the basis of social structuring. The ruling laws of capitalism become the laws of nature, while a psychological prophile of the members of the parasitic classes becomes the "nature" of the animal. Caillois "overlooks" the factthe the animal world exists uncomparably longer that man in spite of the animal"greedeness" and in spite of the law of "free competition" - even withoutrepressive institutions. In addition, animals also "play", but they are not restrained by the given norms, but by their instinctive nature, which prevents them fromhurting one another, to which Huizinga also refers. At the same time, animals donot have "destructive impulses", but seek to satisfy their primary needs in a way

which does not question the unique life cycle. However, if man is by his nature an"aggressive being", why does he seek "pleasure" in play dominated by a repressivenormative firmament which deals with man's original (aggressive) nature? If weconsistantly follow Caillois' anthropological conception and his view that play is away of keeping man's animal nature under institutional control, opting for playcannot have a "voluntary", particularly not "spontaneous", but a repressivecharacter. However, even according to Caillois' theory man is not dissatisfied because he cannot realize his destructive instincts and greedeness, but because of the imposed obligations, from which follows a constant uncertainty, fear, a need to"forget" his everyday life and "escape" from it. A pursuit of play becomes man's

psychological reaction to everyday life dominated by "anxiety". Hence Cailloisdoes not offer man play as a space where he can give vent to his "aggressive"nature, but creates an illusion about play as a space where man can realize hissuppressed humanity and thus experience "happiness". Speaking of play, Cailloisconcludes: "It exists only there where players want to play and where they play it,even if it is a highly tiring and exhausting play, with the aim to amuse themselvesand escape from their worries, that is to say to get away from everyday life."(58)Play is not a means for removing the cause of dissatisfaction, but is a spiritual drugwhich is supposed to stop the pain created in man by everyday life - the painwhich deprives him of the possibility of realizing his human being. It is a falseescape since in the "world of play" the ruling relations and the principles of theestablished world of "unhappiness" appear in an idealized form. An "unfree" manis offered "freedom" in the form of a new cage which is proclaimed the place of "happiness". In Fink's words, play "is similar to an 'oasis' of happiness in thedesert of our pursuit of happiness and our tantalizing quest. Play takes us away. By playing, we are for a while released from our hectic life - transferred to another star where life looks easier, livelier, happier."(59) It is a deception: illusion of a



happy world serves as a lure and a means for destroying a critical-changingconscious and faith in a better world.

Ommo Grupe goes even further: sport does not appear only as a "space of happiness" (Stück Glüc k ), but "in altered social conditions" it becomes a"relatively independent phenomenon" the purpose of which "is in itself" and whichdoes not need any "foundation or justification from outside". This tendency in thedevelopment of sport, as well as the "playing motive" (Spie lmotiv ), correspondless to a healthy foundation of sport, and more to a pursuet of "amusement, joy, pleasure, enjoying the present moment, companioship...", in what appears as "acounterbalance to everyday life". Grupe gives a "special role" to sport in thefuture: it should enable a "development of spontaneity" and mediate in theknowledge of "what is not necessary" ( Nicht-Notw e nd ig e n) as a "field opposed towork and profession". Sport should become an "offer of a free space", anindication of "certain human possibilities", an apparent form of what can bedenoted, "of course not precisely", as a "space of happiness", where happiness

cannot be conceived only individually but, ultimately, "only as sociallyconditioned".(60) The development of sport convincingly refuted Grupe's theory:sport is completely integrated into the capitalist mechanism of production.Anyway, even Grupe himself, questions sport and claims that he is not convincedthat "traditional sports disciplines", pervaded with "technicized forms of movement",can offer the realization of the human needs for a free movement.(61)

Coubertin holds the view that man is not "greedy" by nature, as claimsCaillois, but that he is a "lazy animal" and thus the main role of sport, as theincarnation of the principles on which capitalism in its "pure" form is based, is tomake man "overcome" his animal nature and become a super-beast. Greediness

pressupposes the possession of material goods, which are not intended to satisfythe impulses, but to provide the dominant position on the social ladder of power -which is based on the possession of material wealth. In sport, interhuman relationsare based on greediness, envy, hatred, fear, and this is conditioned by the nature of sport as a "civilized" form (fair-play) of natural selection. According to Coubertin,sport does not result from war, but is one of the ("peaceful") forms of the strugglefor survival resulting from the nature of capitalism as an order ruled by the principlebe llum omnium contra omn e s. Essentially, sport is a "playing of" thecapitalist way of life and thus is a voluntary "playing" with the forces whichdetermine the human destiny. It is a preparation for life and as such "liberation" of the fear of a life reduced to a ruthless struggle for survival. To live means to be ananonimous soldier in a war which for man is lost in advance. Coubertin sharesCaillois' view that killing is a legal and legitimate element of sport (play). That iswhy boxing is an indispensable means for educating the bourgeois youth. It isinteresting that the bourgeois theorists - according to whom the gladiator's fights,tournaments, duels, suicidal rituals of samurai and war are play - do not regard theclass struggle, the struggle for women's emancipation, the struggle against thecolonial yoke, let alone a revolution, as play. Also, in spite of emphasizing fight, it



does not occur to them to include in the notion of play the struggle between oldand new, which involves the expansion of the horizons of freedom and withoutwhich there is no true play.

A consideration of sport in relation to work is completely alien toCoubertin. For him, sport is not a kind of distraction, nor is it a preparation for work, as is the case in Marcuse and Adorno ("Preparation for work" is, accordingto Adorno, "one of the hidden tasks of sport".),(62) but is a means for developinga belligerent and progressistic spirit of capitalism. Hence the principle of "greater effort", which if formulated in the maximcitius, altius, fortius, is the cardinal principle of sport. Consequently, for Coubertin, sport is not the "duplication of theworld of labour", as is the case in Habermas and Plessner,(63 ) but is the"duplication" of the capitalist world based on the principlebe llum omnium contraomn e s. That is why in sport things occur which do not occur in labour: inflictionof serious physical injuries and premeditated killing; man's becoming not only thelabour force, but a labour tool and an object of labour etc. Sport reproduces not

only the capitalist way of production, but also the capitalist way of life, which isnot based on industrial labour, but on the capitalist way of industrial production: arecord is the market value of a sports result. At the same time, sport is a form of man's deerotization. It is not oriented to the achievement of a higher result(record), but to the repression and degeneration of man's playing nature. Thedevelopments in sport only confirm Kofler's identification of the tendency of "theever stricter quantification" with the "deerotization of human individuality".(64) Sport is a capitalistically degenerated play and thus is an authentic expression of the capitalistically degenerated world.

O lympism a nd Ph enomenology of P la y

If we bear in mind Coubertin's insisting on the will, which refers tosubjectivity, it could be concluded that his Olympic doctrine does not have muchin common with Gadamer's phenomenological conception. However, if weremember that, for Coubertin, man is not the subject of history but a means withwhich fatal "progress" removes the obstacles on its road, then we can concludethat Coubertin's conception is close to Gadamer's aspiration to consider play as the"guiding line of ontological explication" starting from the methodological postulate: "Not to examine what we do, nor what we are to do, but what happensto us beyond our will and action". In that context, Gadamer tries to "separate thenotion of play from a subjective meaning, which it has in Kant and Schiller andwhich dominates the whole recent aesthetics and anthropology",(66) for play"does not enter the conscious of the one who plays and is thus more than a kind of subjective behaviour".(67) "Therefore, our question on the essence of play cannot be answered if we expect to get it from the subjective reflexion of the player.



Instead of that, we ask about the mode of being of play as such. (...) For play hasits own essence, independent of the conscious of those who play."(68) From thatGadamer draws the following conclusion: "The subject of play are not the players,it is through players that play occurs.''(69) Gadamer deprives man of his playing(human) subjectivity only to proclaim play the subject of play. It is not man who plays, but play plays by way of man as its plaything. Since everything is at thelevel of the given and the phenomenal play is possible without players, and man'sappearing in play does not give it any specific character, since man is somethingthrough which play is carried out (play-plays-play) and thus is ranked along withwaves, ballots and mosquitoes.

In Huizinga, play is an escape from reality to illusion, while in Gadamer play is the fullest and most authentic form of the occurrence of life. UnlikeHuizinga, in whom play is a spider's web spun from the dominant values of thearistocratic order, in Gadamer, play is the reflexion of the being ( D as e in), whichacts in people directly since "play has its own essence, independent of the

conscious of those who play".(70) In Huizinga the essence of play are the givenrules which have the divine legitimacy, while in Gadamer the essence of play arethe ruling relations which acquire their playing expression in the form of "to andfro motion", while the rules of play are the reflexion of the being and are thus adatum which cannot be questioned. "Spontaneity" reflects the relation of the beingto man, and not the relation of man to play: "spontaneity" in play appears as amindless behaviour which blindly follows the spirit of play expressed in the formof the given rules. Man does not play spontaneously, but play spontaneouslysprings from life, which means that life spontaneously plays with man. Play is not based on the imitation of "significant gestures", which presupposes the existence

of the aesthetical pattern embodied in the aristocracy and the capability of imitation - as is the case in Nietzsche - but on a "spontaneous" behaviour which isa direct phenomenal expression of the being. Huizinga's aesthetics is aculturological critique of the existing world; Gadamer's aesthetics has neither acritical nor a culturological, but a phenomenological character: play is not a modeof man's specific existence, but the existence of the being - which is independentof man. By playing, man does not affirm his humanity, but his hopelesssubmission to the existing world from which the rules of play - which according toHuizinga must not, while according to Gadamer cannot be questioned - originate.For Gadamer, play is not a phenomenon sui g e ne ris , but is "life in its highestseriousness" ( ar evi ), which means that play is a form in which life lives itself,that is to say, the playing form of the occurrence of life. Man is not only submittedto the normative mould of play, as is the case with Huizinga'shomo lu de ns, but tothe phenomenon of play springing from the very structure of the world which is beyond man's critical-changing practice. Man is stuck between the being and playwhich is its normative reflexion and is thus an indestructible spiritual firmament:the conscious of play becomes a form of selfreflexion of the being. Gadamer seeksto preserve the "ontological dignity of play" at the expense of its socio-historical



dignity, which means to abolish play as a concrete historical phenomenon and toreduce it to an abstract superhistorical phenomenon. Instead of the notion of true play, which opens the possibility of demystifying the existing plays, Gadamer introduces the notion of a "complete play" which "is not connected withseriousness which comes from play, but only with seriousness in playing. The onewho does not take play seriously, spoils it. The mode of being of play does notallow the player to treat play as a kind of object."(71) Gadamer reduces play to adatum which is independent of man and he rejects subjectivity, while at the sametime proclaims "seriousness in playing", which means man's subjective relation to play, the criterion for differentiating a "complete" from an incomplete play.Consistently following his conception, man cannot treat play carelessly since it isnot he who plays, but play plays with him. Also, since play is a form in which lifeitself occurs, man cannot question the existing plays, let alone step out of them:they appear as a fatal phenomenological firmament of the existing world to whichman is hopelessly submitted.

For Coubertin, sport has the same meaning as play has for Gadamer: it is amode of man's being a slave of the existing world. In sport, life, which is based onSocial Darwinist and progressistic principle, plays with man. Sport does not belong to the sphere of aesthetics, but to the sphere of "pure" existence: itsymbolizes a qualitative leap in the evolution of the living world which came withcapitalism and its principle of "progress". Accordingly, sport has its own essencewhich is independent of man and his subjective experience of sport, but springsfrom the essence of the ruling order. Hence man is not included in sport by way of normative conscious, but by living a life reduced to a struggle for survival anddomination. Sport does not offer an illusory "escape to freedom"; it is a foreplay of

a cruel life play. However, in Coubertin, just like in Gadamer, what is essential for the survival of sport (play) is man's subjective relation to it, which means hisobedient acceptance of the ruling order and fanatical submission to the principlesof natural selection and "greater effort". Hence Coubertin attaches suchimportance to the principle of "control in heads" with which he seeks to abolishthe normative firmament that prevents the realization of the "will to power" of therich "elite" and thus the capitalist expansion based on the principle "right is might"and natural selection. He is not "burdened" with the questions on freedom,equality, justice... Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy" deals with man's subjectivelibertarian-creative practice, while "progress" is separated from man and its results become a means of the "trustees of the Olympic idea" for creating a positive manand positive society.

Gadamer discards Marx's methodological principle according to which "theanatomy of man is a key to understanding the anatomy of the monkey", but alsoCoubertin's evolutionism, and departs from the lowest forms in man's evolution(''savage'') in order to explain play as a phenomenon.(72) All between nature andman that offers a possibility of making play a cultural phenomenon through whichman's specific libertarian-creative nature is affirmed, is abolished. Instead in the



play of an emancipated man, Gadamer looks for conclusive evidence in the play of Huizinga's "savage" in order to support his assertions and makes the same mistakeas Huizinga. In a "savage", play has a ritual character and a strict form which byno means must be disturbed lest the fury of the spirits be aroused. Every play has aspecific meaning and specific rules and equipment, as well as appropriate masksand body drawings which are a preparation for play, and it also includes castingroles among the members of a tribe, particularly between the sexes and differentage groups. Therefore, the symbolic forms of bodily expression have specialimportance, and even Nietzsche attached primary importance to such forms of expression in his attempt to abolish a normative mediation in the education of thearistocratic youth and turn the aristocracy into an exclusive organic community. Atthe same time, play involves a playing skill by way of which man's playing beingis manifested and play is performed. As far as the play of animals is concerned,Gadamer, like Huizinga, establishes a relation between children and animalsaccording to formalized behaviours and disregards the crucial thing: by playing, a

child becomes a man (individual); a young animal, on the other hand, becomes ananimal (a member of its species). It is interesting that, unlike Huizinga who placesthe plays of animals and man at the same level, ascribing priority and originality tothe play of animals, Gadamer places at the same level natural phenomena and the behaviour of animals and man. Instead of the highest form of play being thestarting point for attaining the notion of play, it is attained from the analises of the"play" of natural phenomena and machines. From there follows that play is notonly "older" then culture, as it is in Huizinga, but that it is older then the livingworld. Following the evolutionary and progressistic conception, Coubertin doesnot depart from inorganic or most primitive forms of life, but from the highest

level in evolution embodied in capitalist "progress" and its "new man" as opposedto Gadamer's "savage". Hence Gadamer's phenomenology of play, based on ananti-evolutionary "to and fro motion", is for Coubertin basically unacceptable. InCoubertin, man, with his "lazy animal nature", has a need to fight for dominationand survival, but nor for "progress". In that sense, sport, as the embodiment of thespirit of "progress", has an essentially different nature from animal plays, as wellas from those human plays which do not have a "progressive" character. By wayof sport, as the "cult of intensive physical exercises" which is "not in humannature", a new quality in the evolution of the living beings is achieved, whichcorresponds to the expansive and "progressive" nature of monopolistic capitalism.The absolutized principle of performance, on which "progress" is based, is a new"quality" in the development of the animal world and civilization. Sportcorresponds to the ontological structure of the capitalist world, which is based onthe instrumentalization of natural forces: man is not the subject of play nor is the plaything of the being, but is the tool of "progress".

Gadamer locates play in the structure of the being by way of the "to andfro motion". Gadamer: "The motion which is play does not have an aim where itends, but is renewed in constant repetition. This to and fro motion is, obviously, so



central to determening the essence of play that it is irrelevant who or what performs it. The motion of play is at the same time without a substrate. It is a playwhich is played or proceeds - there is no a solid subject who plays. Play is the process of motion as such."(73 ) Gadamer gives to "the to and fro motion" ametaphysical character and proclaims it the first cause on which the ontologicalstructure of the being is based. It is a projection of a fateful power which, like a"pendulum of horror", constantly hinders every attempt at questioning the existingworld even in thoughts and taking a new path. Unlike labour and other purposefulactivities which have the beginning and end, "the to and fro motion" is purposelessand timeless. Play manifests the unchangeable structure of the world in a "pure"form by which man completely fuses into the (given) being. The purpose of a"purposeless" play is to completely integrate man into the existing world. At thelevel of a non-historical (abstract) "the to and fro motion" disappears quality,which means the human. This suits Coubertin: sport is not a form of the world'sduplication and a way of escape from it; a mode of creating an illusory world, as is

the case in Schiller and Huizinga, but is a field in which the ruling relations appear in a "pure" form and thus is the cult of capitalism. Gadamer's play rejects both thedialectic of nature and the dialectic of history. "The to and fro motion" does not proceed through opposites; it has a mechanical character and deals with thehistorical motion. It reflects the logic of the capitalist motion, and not of motion assuch: it is a way in which life throws man from one corner to another according tothe principle to gain - to lose. Gadamer's "to and fro motion" comes down to aneternal repetition of the same, which means that it is an apparent movement whichdoes not offer a possibility of stepping out of the existing world - whose play is but a reflexion. Ultimately, all forms of "the to and fro motion" are the forms of

the being's motion within itself. Instead of a timeless "to and fro motion", thedominant motion in sport is the motion "forward", which is conditioned by the"progressive" spirit of capitalism involving quantitative shifts without qualitativechanges. It is a progression without progress, which means that in sport we dealwith an illusory (non-historical) motion.

Speaking of the relation between play and conscious Gadamer concludes:"Here, basically, the primacy of play is recognizedr e lativ e to th e conscious of th e one who plays , and indeed on the experiences of playing which should bedescribed by a psychologist and anthropologist, a new and illuminated light isshed, if we depart from the mediatory sense of play. Play, obviously, represents anorder in which the motion of play to and fro starts by itself. Play also means thatmotion is not only without purpose and intention but also without effort. It proceeds by itself. The easiness of play, which of course, should not mean a reallack of effort, but should only phenomenologically think a lack of exertion, issubjectively experienced as a relief.''(74) Gadamer sees in play a behaviour whichis nothing but a "pure" form in which a life alienated from man occurs. In thiscontext Gadamer departs from the artistic play which can be "objectivized" by being deprived of the subject: play does not involve the aesthetic sense and



discovering the aesthetic in phenomena. Gadamer does not treat play as anaesthetic phenomenon, but as an abstract form without a "substrate", in which thequality of human play as a concrete historical phenomenon is lost, which becomesthe foundation of an ontological determination of play. Speaking of the play of animals, Gadamer refers to Huizinga, but overlooks the fact that Huizinga has inmind their playing together, which means that a playing community is the basic presupposition of play. This is what gives sense to the rules of play: they shouldregulate the relations between the participants in play. Since according to Gadamer play is possible without people, a playing community is not indispensable for play.That Gadamer is well aware of the limitations of his conception is seen from thefact that he gives the examples of the "play" of waves, machines and mosquitoes, but does not mention the play of the human spirit, the play of imagination, love play, namely, a specific human play which exceeds the framework of animpersonal "to and fro motion".

What is the link between man and play without the subjective, or, how can

play play with man? In Nietzsche, the cosmic powers affect man through hisDionysian nature which is developed by art. Coubertin "solved" that problem bymeans of "circumstances": from his early childhood man should be in such lifecircumstances in which he has to fight for domination and survival. "A voluntary"option for sport becomes a "voluntary" option for life. For Coubertin, sport is not possible as a subjective behaviour since man is not a subject but a "lazy animal"and thus is the material from which, by way of sport as the incarnation of the"progressive" spirit of capitalism, a tool for realizing the strategic interests of theruling order should be made. Technically, Coubertin is here close to the Christiandoctrine: the Olympic Games should inseminate man with the spirit of capitalism

and create a positive man. Sport becomes a way of creating the character andconscious of a "civilized" beast and a field in which the basic principles of capitalist society appear in a "pure" form. What, according to Gadamer, are the"charms" of play? Gadamer: "Indeed, play itself presents a risk for the player. Youcan play only with serious possibilities. (...) The charms of play lie in this veryrisk. Thus we can enjoy a freedom of choice which is nevertheless limited and atthe same time irrevocably restricted."(75) In his discussions on play Gadamer actually elaborates a logic of life. "The to and fro motion" becomes the pulsationof the life pulse of capitalism, while play becomes its manifest form. What makes play attractive and dramatic is that it is a play with "destiny", which means withthe ruling spirit of life to which man is subordinated. The risk on which Gadamer insists is the expression of the logic to gain - to lose, which is the reflection of thelogic to be - not to be. Gadamer gives a psychological prophile of the(petty)bourgeois who is "fascinated" by play, which corresponds to the worldruled by irrational laws of the market, where the creation of values is separatedfrom their acquisition: play becomes the paradigm of a life which plays with man.It is precisely because of this that man is attracted by play: by playing man seeksto cope with life following the rules dictated by life itself - which is always the



winner. What attracts man is a need to "enjoy a freedom of choice" - "which isnevertheless limited and at the same time irrevocably restricted". Here it is clear that, according to Gadamer, play is a peculiar play of life which has acompensational character: in play man plays with life by tempting it. Certainly,everything occurs within the strict limitations of play which do not allow anyquestioning of the rules that are only a normative expression of the rulingrelations. Man is "free" to join play and leave it at will - and this is impossiblewhen it comes to everyday life. A "free" fusion into life is the highest form of sumbission to the ruling relations. Coubertin's play has a ritual character and it belongs to "the to and fro motion" only by its form. "The uncertainty" of play doesnot indicate man's freedom, but the bars of a cage in which he is hopelessly closed.It is a lure which repeatedly creates the illusion of the possibilities of overcomingthe fateful powers that control man and that are always winning - as long as man plays by their rules. Just as ancient Olimpia was a holy playground where gods played with people, so is a sports stadium the holy playground where the ruling

spirit of the present world plays with people.Gadamer's conception is particularly problematic when it comes to theterms which are but an ideological mask for the phenomena whose nature isessentially different from the one denoted by those terms. The theory of sport andOlympism abounds in such terms: boxing is called a "noble skill"; the Olympiccompetitions are regularly accompanied by the terms such as: "peacefulcooperation", "internationalism", "love between the young people of the world"etc. Gadamer's phenomenological conception reduces the ancient Olympic Gamesto the modern "Olympic Games" in spite of the fact that they are an essentiallydifferent (historical) phenomenon. Also, if language reflects the unambiguous

ontological structure of the being, then there cannot exist contrary languageexpressions concerning play, which only suggest different (subjective) forms of the conception of play and a different relation to play. If it is not possible toestablish how adequately certain expressions denote a phenomenon, then thequestion of truthfulness of the being which is "spontaneously" reflected inlanguage expressions, cannot be asked. At the same time, the capitalist ideologygives a distorted picture of capitalism: the selfreflexion of the being occurs in a"curved mirror" in which the monstrous face of a witch acquires the form of avirgin.

O lympism a nd Art

Coubertin's conception of art is akin to the ancient conception from the"classical period" in which art affirmed its place in the "sacral world of cult, whichis its source. In its nature, it isagalma , a decoration".(76) While in antiquity thecult expressed submission to gods who symbolized the eternity of the cosmic



world as opposed to the temporary human world, in Coubertin, Olympism is the"cult of the existing world". This view determines the nature of the Olympicaesthetics: art is not a form in which man confronts this world wishing to escapefrom it or to overcome it, but is a means for its deification. The chief task of theOlympic cult is to remove everything that mediates between man and world andcan enable the establishment of a critical detachment to it: it is beyond good andevil. Coubertin has the same (utilitarian) attitude to art as to pedagogy and philosophy: art does not represent the conti- nuity of a cultural tradition and doesnot have a creative character, but is reduced to a means for building spectacular Olympic sceneries designed to fascinate people and enable the ruling values to"fill" the souls of spectators and integrate them into the ruling order. Artists arereduced to decoraters and illusionists.

Modern Olympism is not a "restoring" of the ancient cultural heritage, nor is it an embodiment of national cultures, but is a universal political instrument of capitalism for destroying the emancipatory heritage of Hellenic civilization as well

as the heritage of national cultures. In antiquity, aesthetics was the basis of man'sspiritual relation to the world, while in Coubertin it is only a means for giving acultural legitimacy to the primitive belligerent spirit that governs the world. TheHellenic aesthetical norms sprang from their conception of the cosmos: the way of ensuring existence and aesthetical challenges form an organic unity. In Coubertin's philosophy everything is in the hands of the "elite" which is not thwarted by itsfear of gods nor is it guided by its will, but is restrained by "progress" and guided by greediness. Instead in the Hellenic cultural heritage, Coubertin finds his"aesthetical" inspiration in the world industrial exhibitions, the pomps of themonarchy and military parades. The Olympic aesthetics results from the

"progressive" nature of capitalism and the endeavours of European colonial statesto conquer the world. Coubertin discards the ancient tradition in which aesthetics(proportion and harmony) was a spiritual expression of man's cosmic essence, andwhich was expressed in the principles gnothi se auton and me tron ariston . InCoubertin, there are no values which transcend the existing world. It is one of themost important flaws in modern Olympism as opposed to the ancient OlympicGames, which had before them an unattainable divine model. In Pindar, "a beautiful work of art" is the main purpose of life which brings you "honour" and a place in eternity.(77) Pindar's poetry has a cult character and is a peculiar prayer written in the honour of the olympians. Pindar praises the immortal, and it isneither man nor his world, but the divine order as the embodiment of thearistocratic values. In the life-and-death struggle at the Olympic playgrounds manshowed his complete submission to the cosmic order and maintaned the interest of the Olympic oligarhy in the survival of the world. "The gods are friends of theGames" - says Pindar. Coubertin's"O de to Sport" is the prototype of the modern''Olympic art".(78) It poetically expresses an idolatrous relation to Olympism asthe "cult of the present world" and serves as a prayer addressed to the modern godswho rule the world. The artistic inspiration, which is reduced to a deification of the



existing world, is no longer the "divine inspiration" but the Olympic inspiration.For Coubertin, just like for Pindar, the Olympic playgrounds are illuminated withthe purest of lights, but this light emanates not from the Olympic gods but fromthe original spirit of capitalism. Coubertin sees in it a reflection of the "immortalspirit of antiquity" - as opposed to the "gloominess" of everyday life - and thisspirit, by way of the "holy rhythm" of the Games, is to insure eternal life to theexisting world. Coubertin finds in antiquity the cheerful and careless youth of the present world, and not an obsolate past of mankind: the idealization of the pastserves to idealize the present time.

In antiquity the relation of the body to the cosmos is mediated by thereligious sphere; in modern Olympism the relation of the body to the world ismediated by Social Darwinism and the capitalist way of industrial production(quantity, technique, instrumentalism...). It is a mimetic and normative starting point of Coubertin's aesthetics in spite of his "negative" relation to the modern agewhich "moans in its futile efforts". While in antiquity and in the Middle Ages a

bodily movement springs from the aesthetical and ethical code which expressesthe statical character of the order, in Coubertin, movement is the incarnation of theexpansionist spirit of capitalism. Coubertin does not mould sportsmen accordingto the ancient geometrically constructed cosmos and its monumentalism whichsymbolizes its constancy and man's hopeless integration into it, but departs fromthe expansionist power of capitalism which destroys all obstacles on its way inorder to establish a global domination. Unlike the ancient monuments whichexpress a static unchangeability of the "classical" Hellenic world, sportsmenexpress a dynamic (progressistic) unchangeability of the capitalist world. At thesame time, the bodily movement in sport is beyond good and evil since it springs

directly from life which itself is beyond moral reasoning. Similarly to antiquity,Coubertin sees in physical exercises a means for creating the conscious of "racialsuperiority" and thus a means for a spiritual integration of the ruling "elite".Coubertin "moulds" the body according to a racist model. However, in antiquitythe strivings for physical "perfection" are not only the strivings for attaining anideal racial model, but are a form of spiritual (religious) strivings for the cosmic(divine) perfection. The ancient pai de ia does not insist on the creation of amuscular body, but on a harmoneous development of the whole organism and on physical health. At the same time, since a Hellene sought to build a beautiful body pulsating with an open erotic impulse, to achieve suppleness and flexibility of thelimbs was one of the most important aims od the Hellenic "chiselling" of the body.Harmony is the basis of rhythm and eurhythmics not only in antiquity, but also inthe Middle Ages, in the philanthropic movement, in Per-Hendrik Ling and inPhilippe Tissié, which involves the domination of aesthetical criteria and not ''thewill to power'', let alone the will to a greater performance and record. "To be better" is required by one's race, gender and class status and is proved by a behaviour which does not disturb the harmony of the established world. That iswhy graceful movements and measure (or d r e e t me sur e ) indicate a "good taste"





the active element, which in the formation of the soul becomes even moreimportant than in theagon of physical abilities."(80) In Plato, musical educationcomes before physical education for "a physically fit body cannot in virtue of itsexcellence make the soul good and excellent while, on the other hand, an excellentspirit can help the body to become perfect."(81) In Coubertin, music is an elementof the Olympic séance intended to inseminate man with the ruling spirit: "art" becomes a means for destroying the artistic. Coubertin does not hesitate to turn theartistic masterpieces into a decor for Nazi barbarism. At the close of the NaziOlympic Games Coubertin uses Schiller's"O de to Joy" to glorify Nazi Germanyand Hitler.(82) To what extent was Coubertin prepared to go in the manipulationof the artistic masterpieces is seen from the "cultural programme" at the openingceremony of the Nazi Olympic Games, which, at Coubertin's request, containedeven Beethoven's"Ninth Symphony" together with the most popular Nazi march of the time, "Horst W e se ll Li ed " , whose main refrain is as follows:"W e nn d ass

Ju de nb lut vom M e ss e r spritzt, d ann g e ht's nochmal so gut". ("When Jewish blood

splashes under the knife, then everything goes much better"). (83 ) The true natureof the Nazi monstrosity is not reflected only in killings, but in the way the killingswere committed. The killers set out to cut the throats of their innocent victimsaccompanied by the sounds of the greatest musical compositions inspired by loveof man and dedicated to the highest human values. At the gates of the death campsstood the following inscription:" A r be it macht fr e i!" ("Labour sets free!")Coubertin applies the same method when he glorifies France's colonial "exploits"and Nazi barbarism. He seeks to draw into a death whirl all that appears as asymbol of humanity as opposed to a clear picture of evil. In Coubertin's Olympicdoctrine, all human achievements by which man acquires his libertarian dignity

become a means for destroying the human.As far as the relation between Coubertin's doctrine and modern esthetics isconcerned, of the "three great modern aesthetics: 1) subjectivization of the world,2) a demand for the autonomy of art and 3) a demand for removing the borders between art and life", to which Mirko Zurovac refers,(84) Coubertin, like Nietzsche, adopts the first and the third. "Subjectivization of the world" is reducedin Coubertin to a direct experience of the world and the abolishment of a critical-changing relation to it. Coubertin reached a potentially fruitful idea of the "art of living" which opens a possibility of overcoming the world in which man's creative powers are alienated from him. Speaking of ancient Greece, Coubertin says: "Thelife of the gymnasium was an admirable compromise between the two sets of forces which struggle within man, and which it is so difficult to reconcile oncetheir balance has been upset. Muscles and ideas coexisted there in brotherhood,and it seems that this harmony was so perfect as even to unite youth and old age.Your ancestors, as a general rule, knew neither the extravagances of the adolescentnor the peevishness of old men: the art of living was at its apogee, and the art of dying followed from it quite naturally; people knew how to live without regrets for the sake of changeless city and an undisputed religion - something which - alas! -



we know no longer."(85) Coubertin does not abolish art as a sphere in which man'salienated creative power is institutionalized, as it is in Marx, but suppresses man'screative nature and deals with it. "The art of living" does not symbolize life as acreative act expressing man's whole being and creating complex interhumanrelations, but a complete integration of (crippled) man into a life which is a ''fact'and in which there is no hope of a better world. Coubertin seeks to abolish (not toovercome) the dualism between life and art by turning the existing artistic worksinto a decor which is to give an "artistic" legitimacy to "muscular primitivism"(Tissié) symbolizing the expansive spirit of capitalism. The imaginative Coubertingoes so far as to demand that boxing be accompanied with the sounds of Beethoven's compositions.(86)

The spectacular form of the Olympic performance best indicates thenature of Coubertin's aesthetics. It is dominated by monumentalism andgrandomania which have the same role as in antiquity and Christianity: to dazzlethe oppressed and arouse their admiration for the ruling order and a feeling of

human worthlessness. Coubertin's aesthetics is much closer to the original periodin the development of Hellenic civilization, the so called "cosmological"(Windelband) period, when man was completely submitted to the establishedorder, but Coubertin, following the spirit of the Modern Age, seeks to replace thestatic monumentalism of the archaic period with a dynamic monumentalism. Wehave seen that Coubertin finds his inspiration for the Olympic spectacle inmilitaristic ceremonies, monarchist pomps and industrial exhibitions, whosecommon characteristic is that of being a spectacular demonstration of thedominant power. Judging by Coubertin's writings, the Nazi Olympic Gamesserved as the best model for the Olympic spectacle. In the Nazi Olympic spec-

tacle Coubertin found "beauty", "courage" and "hope"...(87) As far as Couber-tin's insisting on organizing various "literary" manifestations is concerned, theywere intended to give the Olympic primitivism a "cultural" legitimacy. At theOlympic Games there is no place for Marcuse's "silence", in which the"concentration" of the human occurs; nor is there a place for Ionesco's moment of "amazement" in which "occurrence of man" take place; nor for Caillois' "ecstasy"dominated by "obsession"... They echo with the "passionate cry" of the winner,which represents a conquering (oppressive) call of the "master race" and can beheard in Coubertin's cries addressed to the French bourgeoisie at the start of hisOlympic "campaign", with which he sought to incite it into new colonial exploits:''R eb ronz e r la Franc e !" and ''Enrichiss e z vous!'' .

Coubertin's Olympic aesthetics has a utilitarian character. It turns the "lawof beauty" into an instrument of politics: "beauty" is that what is useful for preserving the established order. Not even art, as something that beautifies the present world, is possible as a separate sphere with the laws of its own: the natureof art is determined by its role as a means for building the cult of the presentworld. In spite of the Olympic Games being the highest religious ceremonydedicated to the deification of the ruling relations and values, Coubertin does not



argue for art which tends to mask, but for an art which seeks to the "perfectioningof reality" (Gadamer), departing from the model of positive society in whichmankind's emancipatory heritage is abolished. The Olympic aesthetics becomes an"artistic" shaping of the basic principles of the present world, embodied in sport ina "pure" form, and it is dominated by symbolism springing from life itself andglorifying the present order. Coubertin discarded from art everything that opens a possibility of establishing a critical detachment to this world and of stepping out of it: the nature of art is determined by the nature of the ruling order. This is thestarting point for selecting the aesthetical canons which will be used for creatingthe Olympic spectacle, with its emphasis on a liturgical form designed to createthe impression that everything proceeds under the supervision of mysticalsuperhuman powers. Coubertin "exceeds" the demands of traditional aesthetics,which is based on Kant's dualism between being (S e in) and ought (Soll e n), by proclaiming the existing world the ideal world which should be sought for. Thetask of art is not to bridge the gap between the ideal and life, but to contribute to

building an idolatrous relation to the present life. In Coubertin, there is nocontradiction between the form of life and that of art: it appears as the highestspiritual form of man's "reconciliation" to the present world. Hence harmony, as"the sister of order" (Coubertin), becomes the most important aesthetical category.Since according to Coubertin man is completely immerged into the present world,art is not possible as the creation of an illusory world, as is the case in Huizinga, but as a spectacular reflection of reality, with an emphasis on the "details" whichenable the glorification of the dominant relations and values. Coubertin'sutilitarian art becomes a prism magnifying and showing in bright colours theevents that should arouse people's admiration for the present order and for ever

integrate them into the present world. It is not a means for man's education andcultivation, or for the development of his creative powers, but for the creation of a positive man in whom all that can enable him to break the bonds with the existingworld and soar towards new worlds has been repressed and crippled. Hencedealing with imagination is one of the most important tasks of Coubertin's"utilitarian pedagogy". The "artistic" act becomes the confirmation of man'shopeless adherence to the existing world which contains everything man shouldand can strive for. Schiller's postulate that "education by way of art becomeseducation for art", turns in Coubertin into a postulate that education by way of artis education for the present life. Sport is the killer while Olympism is thegravedigger of the aesthetical.

x x x



Footnotes

(1) Fridrih iler, O lepom, 127.p. Kultura, Beograd, 1967.(2) Ibid. 163.p.(3 ) Compare: F. iler, Ibid. 153, 154.p.(4) Ibid. 130.p.(5) Ibid. 215.p.(6) Ibid. 211.p.(7) Ibid. 212.p.(8) Ibid. 199.p.(9) Ibid. 136.p.(10) Ibid. 220.p.(11) Ibid. 220.p.(12) Ibid. 217.p.(13 ) Ibid. 168.p.Cursive F. .(14) Ibid. 186.p.(15) Ibid. 182.p.(16) Ibid. 182.p.(17) Ibid. 218.p.Cursive F. .(18) In: Danko Grli , Estetika, III tom, 50.p. Naprijed, Zagreb, 1974.(19) Hans Georg Gadamer, Istina i metoda, 112.p. Veselin Masle a, Sarajevo,1978.(20) F. iler, O lepom,121.p.(21) Ibid. 169.p.

(22) F. iler, O naivnoj i sentimentalnoj poeziji, In: F. iler, O lepom, 222, 223.p.(23 ) F. iler, O lepom, 196.p.(24) Ibid. 123.p.(25) Ibid. 200.p.(26) Ibid. 203.p.(27) J.Huizinga, Homo lu de ns, 197,198.p. Routledge&Kegan Paul, London, 1972.(28) Ibid. 1.p.(29) Ibid. 11.p.(3 0) Ibid. 211, 212.p.(3 1) Ibid. 212.p.(3 2) Ibid. 6.p.(33 ) F.J.J.Buytendijk, Wesen und Sinn des Spiels, 120.p. Pod.F.B, Kurt Wolff Verlag, Berlin, 1933.(3 4) P.d.Coubertin, " Entr e de u x b ataill e s", In: P.d.C., Textes choisis, I tome,517.p.(3 5) J.Huizinga, Homo lu de ns, 10.p. Routledge&Kegan Paul.(3 6) Ibid. 50.p. Cursive J.H.(3 7) J.Hojzinga, Jesen srednjeg veka, 44.p. Matica srpska, Novi Sad, 1991.



(3 8) Ibid. 10.p.(3 9) J.Huizinga, Homo lu de ns, 1o2.p. Routledge&Kegan Paul.(40) J.Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, 81.p. Penguin, 1972,CursiveJ.H.(41) Ibid, 36.p.(42) Ibid. 37.p.(43 ) J.Huizinga, Jesen srednjeg veka, 39.p.(44) Compare: Erih From, Zdravo dru tvo, 173.p. Rad, Beograd, 1963.(45) Compare: J.Huizinga, Homo lu de ns, 30, 31.p. Matica hrvatska, Zagreb, 1970.(46) J.Huizinga, Homo lu de ns, 19.p. Routledge&Kegan Paul.(47) J.Huizinga, Homo lu de ns, 256.p. Matica hrvatska.(48) J.Hojzinga, Jesen srednjeg veka, 71.p.(49) J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, 56.p.(50) J. Huizinga, Homo lu de ns, 91.p. Matica hrvatska.(51) Ibid. 225.p.(52) Ibid. 254.p.(53 ) Ibid. 5.p.(54) Ro e Kajoa, Igre i ljudi. 35.p.(55) Ibid. 35.p.(56) Ibid. 82.p.(57) Ibid. 74.p.(58) Ibid. 34.p.(59) Eugen Fink, Oaza sre e, 15.p. Revija, Osijek, 1979. Cursive E.F.(60) Compare: Ommo Grupe, " Philosophisch e - antropologisch e Grun d lag e n de sSports ", In: Hans Lenk, Simon Moser, Erich Beyer (Hrsg.), Philosophie des

Sports, 203.p. Karl Hofmann Verlag, Schorndorf bei Stuttgart, 1973.p.(61) Ommo Grupe, Ibid. 202.p.(62) T. W.Adorno, Freizeit, Stichworte, 65.p. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a.M.1969.(63 ) Compare: J.Habermas, "Soziologisch e Notiz e n zum V e rh ä ltnis von A r be it un d

Fr e ize it ", In: Sport und Leibeserziehung, Piper, München, 1967; H.Plessner,"Soziologi e de s Sports ", "Deutsche Universitäts Zeitung", Nr. 22/1952, Nr. 23 /24/1952.(64) Compare: Leo Kofler, Beherrscht uns die Technik?, 66.p. VSA, Hannover,1975.(65) Hans Georg Gadamer, Istina i metoda, 10.p.Veselin Masle a, Sarajevo, 1978.(66) H.G.Gadamer, Ibid. 131.p.(67) Compare: H.G.Gadamer, Ibid. 18.p.(68) H.G.Gadamer, 132.p.(69) Ibid.132.p.(70) Ibid.132.p.(71) Ibid.132.p.(72) Ibid.134.p.



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Olympism and play