Political Perspectives on Violence in Sports Essays

Political Perspectives on Violence in Sports Essays Political Perspectives on Violence in Sports Essay Political Perspectives on Violence in Sports Essay This paper seeks to choose one of the perspectives that I summarized in my definition essay and write an informed, well-researched piece which qualifies and nuances that position. Violence in sports may be viewed under two perspectives.   One view would like to see a good number of violence in sports activities but another perspective would prefer to have less violence.   As an example, some would like to play or watch the game of chess but others would like to watch foot ball. This paper would like to discuss and analyze one view perspective on sports violence that of the presence of a good number of violence.   Under said choice, this paper maintains the allowed violence should commensurate with the type of sport, the fans of the sport and the players involve in the sport. Although chess is actually a silent game, there could be still violence as form of intellectual or emotional abuse made by fans, players or media by the words they say about the events.   To say for example that the â€Å"challenger is a moron compared to Russian Chess grandmaster† could be considered a verbal abuse which could constitute psychogical violence.   In football the kind of violence could be more than verbal abuse, it could result to physical violence not only among the players but also among the fans and the media in their depiction of the game.   The presence of violence in sports would seem to give truth to what George Orwell once said, Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play.   It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.[1]   Lance and Ross also confirmed that sports violence will likely occur.[2] The seeming nature of the games or sports would have discouraged people away from violence but why the attraction of people to violence?   Goldstein explained   the appeal of violent sports, arguing, â€Å"If we define violence as the unsanctioned or illegitimate use of harmful or destructive physical force, which I take to be a reasonable definition, then sports confront us with a paradox: boxing matches and a number of other sports events involve a great deal of interpersonally harmful but nonetheless sanctioned physical force.   In sports as in warfare, whose image sports are often taken to be, some forms of interpersonal violence are legitimate.   In many sports, physical violence is the core if not the name of the game.†[3] This should not be surprising since a game is a competition and what seems to be most intensive one is one where people participate with their all faculties.   Fans identity themselves with the players.   If their teams win, they also win and the glory of winning is simply priceless for many sports enthusiasts.   Goldstein used history to explain the appeal of violence saying: â€Å"The prestige of a Roman gladiator increased with the number of opponents he slew.   The mayhem at a medieval tournament was often more deadly than the carnage of a real battle†¦.   In our own time, a number of boxers have been beaten to death by opponents who were subsequently judged exempt from legal prosecution for assaults that are severely penalized if committed outside sports specially privileged time and space.   Like gladiatorial combats and knightly jousts, boxing matches are haunted by the specter not only of serious injury but also of immediate death.   Yet, these and similar ly violent sports spectacles have been enormously popular.   Why has this been so?   Before I venture a partial and tentative answer to this deceptively simple question, it will be useful very briefly to consider the spectators behavioras opposed to their motivations.† [4] Given the inherent nature of violence how to prevent the violence would seem to be challenging. Prevention of violence in sport is a unique function.   Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH) agreed when it said that deterring crime is not the same as preventing violence.   It argued saying, â€Å"Deterrents to crime such as burglar alarms, security bars, and neighborhood watch programs may reduce the likelihood of being burglarized, but do little to reduce violence.   Many believe that owning a gun is a good way to protect their home and family.   On the contrary, people who keep a gun in the home are at increased risk of injury or death because the very gun acquired for protection will more likely be used against them by an acquaintance, relative, or themselves.   Again, the majority of violence in our society is committed neighbor against neighbor, acquaintance against acquaintance, and family member against family member.†[5] Given the inherent nature of violence in some sport requires no simple solution. OSDH suggested that a better understanding of factors which lead to violence will aid in violence prevention.   OSDH argued that effective prevention strategies require the understanding of how the potential for violent behavior develops.   Noting that violence encompasses a large array of acts and circumstances while many factors which contribute to violence are the same no matter what form the violence takes, OSDH suggested a control of the violence contributing factors.[6] OSDH argued that most researchers thought that the factors contributing violence are associated with the potential for a person to commit violent acts but the correlations and underlying reasons are not well understood.   It added that not everyone who is exposed to these contributing factors will commit violence and individuals are affected differently by the same factors.   Hence, it suggested there must be protective factors which contribute to an individuals resiliency.   It believed that these factors may build a strong network of protection against the influences of violence but emphasized the need for further knowledge of individual characteristics, circumstances or events, social and cultural processes, which encourage or support violence.[7] There is reason to agree with the analysis in preventing unnecessary and not allowed violence as OSDH logically argued for the clear relationship between risk factors and protective factors and the occurrence of violence.   OSDH said, â€Å"If there are only a few protective factors in the balance, then relatively few risk factors can easily offset the balance towards violence.   Even if there are a large number of protective factors in the balance, there can be an equally large number of risk factors in the balance, leaving the balance teetering back and forth.   It is clear that violence prevention must focus on both decreasing risk factors and increasing protective factors if the prevention is to be effective and efficient.†[8] Conclusion: Violence prevention in sports challenging job in sport design because violence may actually make the sports attractive and hence patronized by fans for many reason including avenues for expressing man’ s greatest emotions. Historically sports develop from events that were littered with violence and although liabilities were established for what may have appeared as legal sports, recent developments have allowed the non-litigation arising from sports activities.   Manmade sports may have allowed violence that are no longer preventable because they are consented may still be a better alternative as mode self expression than actual war among states. World War III will not come after all because of sports with violence.