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Sport Enhancements: Implications for Spirituality

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Spirituality, Sport, and Doping: More than Just a Game

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Religious Studies ((SBRS))

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Abstract

This chapter considers possible implications of enhancement use for sport’s spiritual dimension. I ask how enhancements might affect sport’s spirituality that is manifested in hope. Values and intentionality emerge as central; if winning at-any-cost is the most important value in sport, then whatever improves the chances of winning is perceived as enhancing and desirable. Enhancements amplify normative values. If we fail socially to investigate our values and to be intentional about what is important to us collectively, then we risk amplifying implicit normative values and minimizing marginalized values. The discovery of the sacred in sport has not been well recognized or understood. This neglect has meant a failure to consider how enhancements might affect sport’s spirituality, leading to the possibility that sport’s sacred qualities may be compromised in our quest to win.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I suspect that Dreyfuss and Kelly (2011) share my conviction that sport can provide more than happiness since they link what they call “shining moments” to sport experiences.

  2. 2.

    As I outlined in Chap. 1, to cope with uncertainty, disorientation, and spiritual struggle, after re-trying usual spiritual pathways, we pursue “spiritual meaning-making, seeking spiritual support and connection, and spiritual purification” (Pargament 2007, p. 99). In this struggle, one’s beliefs are either changed or discarded (Pargament 2013b, p. 277).

  3. 3.

    Pargament made this comment in a discussion specifically regarding work but it is transferable to any sanctified aspect of life.

  4. 4.

    See my 2015 book for more critique of the concepts of natural, artificial, and pure. For our purposes, let us simply note that how we assess what counts as natural is problematic. We regularly use and even ingest natural and naturally derived foods, for example. Is flour natural? At what point do additives make it unnatural? Arguably, our processes to refine food are natural since they are derived from substances that are of the earth or that grow. On the other hand, these processes are unnatural because the plants, liquids, gasses, etcetera, are changed by our interventions. When does a chemical composition become unnatural? We apply many substances every day to construct buildings, neighborhoods, cars, equipment, medicine, and so on, and so forth. It may be that almost everything on our planet is unnatural to a degree because we have influenced it through pollution or by changing the food chain. Determining when something is natural or artificial is extremely difficult and often impossible. The attached value assessments are also fraught: are all things natural good and all things artificial bad?

  5. 5.

    For example, while helpful for determining an athlete’s maximal daily nutrient intake, nutrigenomics does not take into account the emotional impact of the foods we eat; I may need 21 supplements, 100 g of protein and four cups of leafy greens, but what if a piece of my friend’s fudge makes me happy and inspires me to train harder? While we can learn a lot about what makes us tick from scientific profiling and testing, such analysis does not give us the whole story. Humans are much more complex. We cannot be reduced to a series of parts and still make sense of our intra- and inter-connectedness.

  6. 6.

    It may be that people who follow an institutional religion find the sacred in their religious beliefs and practices, and possibly in other areas of life including sport. A belief in God or other transcendence does not preclude finding the sacred elsewhere. For some in monotheistic faith traditions, it may be a signal that God’s presence is unbounded.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Religion and School of Rehabilitation Therapy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada

    Tracy J. Trothen

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  1. Tracy J. Trothen
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Correspondence to Tracy J. Trothen .

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Trothen, T.J. (2018). Sport Enhancements: Implications for Spirituality. In: Spirituality, Sport, and Doping: More than Just a Game. SpringerBriefs in Religious Studies(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02997-5_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02997-5_3

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02997-5

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