The Dharma of the Game

This is the first in a series of posts on the ethics of competition that I've been working on...

Hi. My name is Linus, and I'm competitive.
[Hi, Linus...]

It's sort of a running joke in the local Flock. I'm the guy who will shove you out of the way and then throw himself into the wall head-first to hit the handball. I will gladly smash a shuttlecock directly at your head to win the point. I frequently want to keep going when everyone else is done. If there is another opponent available, I will continue long past the point of general fatigue - I'm famous for writing checks that my body can't cash.

Some have suggested that perhaps I do this because I don't know how to play "just for fun" or that I'm trying to compensate for failings in other parts of my life. Others say that it must be my ego that drives me to play so hard, or perhaps it's just that I'm trying to impress the ladies with my prowess. These sentiments usually come from those who can't beat me, but snarkiness aside, I maintain that competitveness serves a higher purpose.

I contend that the ultimate point of competition is the spiritual betterment of the competitors.

There are a multitude of other reasons to play sports - fitness, excitement, entertainment, camaraderie, etc. All of these reasons are valid, and most people begin playing sports for one or more of them, but the diligent pursuit of any sport eventually begins to reveal its greater qualities. When the golfer, for example, comes to the end of a lifelong pursuit of the game, he has learned much more than how to strike the ball. Ideally, he has learned to deal with others, in good times and bad. He has learned to take responsibility for his actions, how to handle pressure, and how to accept the seemingly cruel dictates of random events. In short, he has evolved - and golf was the catalyst for that evolution.

Sport is the one place where there exists an opportunity, however fleeting, for all to actually achieve some kind of equality. With due diligence, the rules of a game can remove politics, race, and class, and the outcome of such a contest is as purely based on the skill of the competitors as it can be. In that situation, sport becomes a pure test of that limited set of skills that the game is designed to measure. For example, a foot race is a simple check to determine which of the competitors can cover a given distance on foot in the shortest time. At the finish line, the person who crosses it first is the fastest, at that distance, on that day. If the rules of the contest have been diligently created and applied, then that racer can feel justifiably proud of his accomplishment, and the race remains pure.

Suppose however, that you add in other variables that lie outside the rules. One of the runners has a performance-enhancing drug in his bloodstream, another has special shoes with rocket assist, and a third tripped another runner when they were out of sight on one of the back corners of the course. Obviously, if one of these three runners is the winner of the race, it could be considered to invalidate the outcome. As we stated above, the purpose of the race was to see who was the fastest - not who had the cleverest doctor, or who had the best shoes, or who was most devious. Because these three runners have introduced other variables into the test, the test is now broken, and the results are not valid. The winner, the other competitors, and the spectators, if there are any, are all cheated out of the pure result they were promised by the agreed upon test.

Even if the winner is not one of those who introduced other variables, he is still cheated by their behavior. His victory is now invalidated, because how are we to know that the illegal behavior of the others has not altered the outcome of the race, and artificially placed him on the winners pedestal? A strict adherence to the rules and a dedicated effort to win are required of all contestants if the test is to remain sound. Even if one of the other racers simply doesn't do his absolute best to win, he has skewed the outcome of the race. Remembering the original purpose of the race - to find the fastest runner over a given course on a given day - it becomes clear that in order for the test to be valid, everyone in it has to be putting forth their best effort.

Next installment: different levels of competitors.