VIEW
Reflection
SPORT AND TECHNOLOGY: HUMAN QUESTIONS IN A WORLD OF MACHINES
Jan Rintala
The impact of technology and scientific research on sport is undeniable. Quantifiable indicators of performances are steadily—often suddenly—improving, safer equipment makes new skills and techniques possible, many aspects of training and conditioning can also be done more safely, and certainly, from an economic standpoint, there is an increasingly powerful sport technology industry. As Eitzen and Sage (1993) note, "To a great extent, the emergence of superior athletic performance is a consequence of technological innovation" (p. 387). There are, however, questions that need to be asked. Just because we can do something as a result of science and technology, should we? If we do choose to extend our use of science and technology, what are the ethical/moral responsibilities or consequences? What does it mean to treat the human body as an improvable and perhaps perfectible machine? The answers to these questions have implications not only for the athletes and sport scientists and technicians but also for sport itself.
© 1995 Sage Publications, Inc.
Because these are social issues with philosophical bases, a historical look at the philosophy of technology and the changing views of the human body in European-based philosophies provides a starting point. Several philosophers and social scientists have traced the changes in the ways bodies are viewed as a change from seeing the body in sacred terms to seeing the body as the body secular. In Judeo-Christian religions, the human body was seen as being made in God's image, with certain religious implications and overtones. The prevailing secular view sees bodies not as divine but rather, as Kimbrell (1992) notes, "through the lens of industrialization and the marketplace, as machines or commodities" (p. 57).
This change from sacred to secular has been occurring in cultures influenced by European thought since the middle of the 17th century. George Leonard (Johnson, 1986, p. 151) stated that "Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, and Newton lived in a dreamworld of forces and motion and manipulation without touch or taste or color or smell. Later, Locke and Hume and the Positivists might have been expected to bring us back to our senses, but they only reinforced the scientific mentality that has moved us to control the world and ourselves." These early philosophers of the scientific revolution were often
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SPORT & TECHNOLOGY
intrigued by the new inventions of the time. Kimbrell (1992) notes that as understanding about human anatomy increased, the comparison was often made to then-popular mechanisms—in this instance, the clock: "Thomas Hobbes, an early victim of the reductionist body mythology, wrote in 1651, 'For what is the heart but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body' " (p. 59).
Attendant to this change in the view of the body was a corresponding move to valuing positivism and Enlightenment rationalism. The basic premises of positivism are "that science is the only valid knowledge and facts are the only possible objects of knowledge" (Abbagnano, 1967, p. 416). The 18th-century industrial revolution "and the grand wave of optimism to which the first success of industrial technology gave rise" (Abbagnano, 1967, p. 416) created a cultural climate for promoting the views of Francis Bacon, the English empiricists, and the philosophers of the Enlightenment. This has carried through the 19th and 20th centuries' rise of science:
Many people, in fact, looked to science as the prime source of solutions for all human problems, from disease to hunger, from anxiety to depression. Individuals began to assess problems primarily in terms of their scientifically measurable features. In other words, all problems became largely technical or
scientific problems. (Kretchmar, 1994, p. 103)
Entailed in this shift is that all things (including humans) become "objects" of scientific method and inquiry and are treated as objects. This scientific and mechanistic view is epitomized in a New York Times lead editorial: People are not so much human as they are biological machines—special biological machines, but machines nonetheless (Kimbrell, 1992).
The ways in which athletes are sometimes described give credence to this technological view of humans. For example, in an article entitled "The Mechanics of Skiing," the first two paragraphs compare the machinery that is the downhill skier to the machinery that is an automobile. Because of techniques learned through practice in a wind tunnel, the skier is able to achieve minimal resistance at a speed of 80 miles per hour. The author goes on to say that whereas most car makers can only hope for drag coefficients of .30 or less, the skier is able to achieve a drag coefficient of .28. Additionally, the author compares the flexion and relaxation of the muscles in the skier's hips and thighs to automotive suspension systems that have only recently appeared in the laboratories (Dane, 1992, p. 34).
Regardless of the ways in which humans are described, they are not machines, and asking them to function as if they were is a source
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of some potential problems. Technology has enabled athletes to do some things more safely, but this appears to be a two-edged sword. Through digitizing movements and calculating the ideal forces and angles of stick figures, athletes may be inadvertently encouraged to perform skills beyond their abilities. The images on the computer screen portray an ease of movement. But stick figures don't get hurt; they do have joint angles but no tendons or cartilage, no muscles, and certainly no anxiety or human emotion to affect the performance of the skill. These are human factors in movement. These factors cannot be removed from the human nor programmed into the stick figure.
A dilemma for the athlete, as well as perhaps for the athlete's coaches, trainers, and scientists, is to reconcile or balance the benefit with the risk. It is to merge the mechanical and the human. The "sport ethic" makes this distinction difficult. Hughes and Coakley, in their study on positive deviance, conclude that this sport ethic contains four core beliefs. First, "an athlete makes sacrifices for the game" (Coakley, 1994, p. 141). This involves subordinating other interests for the sake of the sport and demonstrating a willingness to "pay the price." Second, "an athlete strives for distinction" (p. 141). In this principle, Coakley asserts that wanning is the symbol of improvement and breaking records
is seen as the ultimate standard. The third belief is that "an athlete accepts risks and plays through pain" (p. 141). As the athlete moves to higher levels of performance, there is an increasing risk of failure and injury that the athlete must be willing to confront and overcome. Finally, "an athlete accepts no limits in the pursuit of possibilities" (p. 141). Anything is possible if the athlete will ignore external limits. Coakley comments that, at first, these beliefs do not sound at all dangerous. "But when the sport ethic is considered more carefully and critically, it is seen that it can be dangerous if people come to follow it regardless of all the consequences" (p-141).
This danger can be accentuated when the athlete finds himself or herself in a cultural environment that sees the mechanical rather than the human. For example, one of the valuable features of a machine is that repetition of movement can be done without any long-term negative effect. The gears may need periodic lubrication, but a machine's major strength is that it can do the same thing over and over and over again. The human body cannot—at least not indefinitely. Discussion is not necessary about the variety of overuse injuries in sport brought on by too much repetition of the same action. Repetition is appropriate for the pistons in a car but not for the "pistons" that are one's legs. Finding
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the point at which enough is enough is problematic. Repetition is a normal and necessary part of conditioning and skill improvement. Yet, with the differences in people's bodies and with the differences in people's tolerance to pain, even well-controlled physiological research finds it difficult, if not impossible, to establish the point of optimal repetition. A more fundamental concern, however, may be to ask whether we are even looking for that optimal point with long-term consequences in mind.
Researchers have begun to document some long-term effects of the constant jarring and pounding in certain sports—gymnastics and football, for example—on the athlete or former athlete. Messner (1992) recounts an interview with a former pro football star who, although retired for several years, appeared to be in excellent physical condition:
He was relaxed, sitting in a chair and resting his feet on a table, talking about basketball. When I asked him how tall he was, I received a startling reply: "Oh, I used to be about 6'2"—I'm about 6 even right now. All the vertebras in my neck, probably from all the pounding and stuff, the vertebras used to be farther apart—just the constant pounding and jarring. It hurts all the time. I hurt all the time. Right now, that's why I put my legs up here on the table, to take the pressure off my lower back." (p. 71)
What is the cost? Are years of lower back and knee pain worth it just to perform in person a skill done by a computer-generated stick figure or for a thousand repetitions? Were the consequences ever considered prior to or during the athlete's sport involvement? And who were the decision makers?
DrewHyland (1979,1990) has developed discussions that focus on people's willingness to ruin their health if the actions might assist them in winning. Nixon (1993), Coakley (1994), and others have spoken of the normalization of pain and the culture of risk in sport. Many have suggested that this willingness to ruin health is based on an overemphasis on winning. And, to some extent, it may be. But this willingness may also be tied to the machine-like conceptions of bodies. Machines do not get injured. "I am invincible." "It won't happen to me."
Unfortunately, if this mechanistic viewpoint is extended, as much critical social philosophy does, this affects not only one's active sport life and long-term consequences of the involvement but the way in which one's sport life ends as well. When a car quits functioning— either totally or at least to a level of acceptability according to its intended use—it can be traded in on a newer and better functioning model or sold to the scrap dealers. After all, of what use is a piece of machinery when it no longer
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performs well? Has this mechanistic, performance-based conception in sport contributed to the dehumanization and alienation of athletes from their sport world and from themselves? If the athlete has come to think of himself or herself as an improvable if not perfectible machine, and if quantifiable performance and improvement are the essence of sport for that individual, then what happens when the machine quits, or slows down, or breaks down? What happens when one is replaced by a newer, more efficient model?
There is a potential, through an overemphasis on technology, that the technology will drive not just the training but the selection of the athletes. In the article, "High-Tech Olympians," David Bjerklie (1993) notes that, as technology improves, it affects which athletes will be successful in competition. He traces, for example, the changes in the rules and technology in rowing. By operating within the allowable boat dimensions of a kayak, and by taking into account drag and an ideal "aerobic strength-to-weight ratio," one reaches a point at which added bulk is a disadvantage regardless of the increase in strength that the heavier paddler can contribute. He also traces changes in the technology of the javelin and how the equipment alterations, for a period of time, put a premium on finesse rather than strength. For a number of reasons, the javelin was
"de-engineered," the finesse throwers faded into the second ranks, and a premium once again was placed on strength. Bjerklie states:
This important consideration applies to nearly every sport: change the equipment—make it lighter, faster, stronger—and you change the athlete. Or more accurately, you select for athletes who possess the traits that are able to maximize the performance of the new and improved equipment, (p. 29)
This then raises questions regarding the opportunity to participate— even before the implications of biotechnology and genetic engineering are discussed.
Researchers in genetics have identified approximately 250 disease-related genetic "defects." Additionally, the federal government is sponsoring a $3 billion research effort called the Human Genome Project. The intent of this project is to decipher all 100,000 human genes (Kimbrell, 1992, p. 54). A greater understanding of human genes could result in treatments for many debilitating and fatal illnesses. But is this all that will be done with the information? As Kimbrell notes, by the next century, many scientists expect to be able to screen fetuses and test-tube embryos for a large range of physical traits. This could make the selection process for future athletes (especially elite athletes) a prenatal concern. How
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might knowing this information affect decisions about the development of the embryo/fetus or what one does with or to that child?
Hoberman (1992), in the final chapter of Mortal Engines, compares the training of horses with the training of human athletes. From hormonal doping to mechanical (psychological) doping and on to regimented training techniques, the parallels exist. With equine athletes, there has also been a major focus on the breeding of pedigree stock. Will the parallels continue? Hoberman states that "it is genetic engineering ... that promises to bring about the most profound biological transformations of the human being, and it is likely that this technology will be used to develop athletes before it is applied to the creation of other kinds of human performers" (p. 286). Hoberman asserts that genetic engineering will not be uncomplicated scientifically. He also suggests that it will be "the great bioethical issue of the next century because it concerns nothing less than human identity itself" (p. 289).
Kimbrell (1992) takes the point even a bit further. He notes that scientists are becoming increasingly capable not only of identifying some genes but of altering them. There is speculation that, within the next 20 years, it may be possible to create "designer people"—built to specifications (p. 55). How might
this affect sport and the selection of athletes?
Kimbrell (1992) observes that all of this is really not as far-fetched as it may seem. He provides the example of human growth hormone being injected into children
not because they are sick, but simply because they are short. Although the treatment may be potentially dangerous, parents want their children to get the physical advantages they need in a society that worships the tall and thin. With the advance of genetic engineering, we maybe gaining the ultimate weapon against the body, a final solution that ensures victory over our stubborn flesh, blood, and bone. (p. 55)
Kimbrell was appalled that people would be willing to inject their children with a hormone for appearance's sake. Is there greater motivation to do so when one considers the rewards of athletic success? Murray (1989, p. 42) also presents some salient thoughts in his discussion of "The Bioengineered Competitor." He states, "Our increasing skill at genetic manipulation opens a door to wonderful—as well as terrifying—control of human physiology. As in all other instances of enhanced human dominion over nature, the power of biotechnology to do good runs apace with its potential for misuse." We have already seen numerous instances of this with steroid use and blood doping. There is potential for great
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harm when one combines the power of biotechnology and the power of the sport ethic.
There is another athlete-relevant ethical/moral dimension to the use of technology in sport. This surrounds the whole question of who is in the position of decision making regarding the use of the testing and the intervention strategies that scientists and technologists are developing. In many societies, science and scientists are held in positions of near reverence and awe. It is almost as if scientists are perceived as having some special access to the wonders of the world. The messages are given to not question scientists or their science. In following the tenets of positivism, an assumption is that natural sciences are based on unbiased, completely objective views of the world; an assumption is that all scientists are motivated exclusively by the search for truth; an assumption is that researchers are somehow incapable of making mistakes in scientific research.
There also seems to be an assumption that science is automatically tied into a notion of progress. Many people simply accept the premise that if "we can do it, we should do it," because progress is inherently better. Citius, altius, fortius is inherently better. This approach may lead to an unquestioning acceptance of the application of research and technology. Both the coach/trainer
and the athlete sanction this use. The question of whether something should be done is often not asked. Nor is speculation done as to what it will mean to the person in the short or long term. Effect on performance is the overriding concern.
What role does the athlete play, then, in this application of technology? Hoberman (1986) suggests that the body of the athlete has become, quite literally, a laboratory specimen whose structure and potential can be measured in precise quantitative terms (p. 319). It is possible that because of the concern for understanding the performance, the human becomes little more than a set of data points on a computer printout. This ignores the human and the human dimensions of sport. It turns the human into an object.
F. Allan Hanson has recently written a book titled Testing Testing: Social Consequences of the Examined Life. In a review of this book, Chris Petrakos (1993) concluded that whereas the unexamined life is not worth living, the overexamined life is not worth living either. In the review, Petrakos asserts that Hanson suggests that there are two serious consequences of testing as currently carried out. One is the effect that testing has on shaping society's perceptions of persons and persons' perceptions of themselves. People become constructed (perhaps limited) by test results. They come to see themselves and others come
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to see them as defined or described by IQ tests, body composition assessments, anxiety test scores, personality inventories, temperament type indicators, and so forth. What does this do to the concept of human agency?
The second concern is that this emphasis on testing and analyzing allows social institutions to control behavior. To do all of this testing creates a form of submissiveness training and creates a group of people who will do what they are told without demanding a rationale.
This submissiveness training and unquestioned acceptance of authority (be it science or the coach or perhaps both) typify the lives of many athletes. Sport in many countries, including the United States, is replete with examples of athletes who go through a tightly controlled sport system without ever making decisions; when that tightly controlled environment is removed, many of these individuals do not know how to make a decision.
This expectation of obedience combined with the societal awe of science and technology could be a potentially dangerous combination for the athlete. But it need not be. In "The Torch of Technology," Paul Shepherd (1992) states, "Science can provide the winning edge to athletes, but it demands that coaches not only have the education to understand the principles behind the data, but that they use the data
creatively to explore new possibilities and that they convey their discoveries to the athletes in such a way that the athletes gain new understandings of their performances" (p. 42). This requires turning some control of the sport environment back to the athletes.
Although sharing information may not always imply a sharing of control, if an athlete has an understanding of the training methods and the short-term and long-term consequences, then he or she could become empowered enough to actually take some responsibility. Within many current sport environments, empowering the athlete may not always be easy for coaches to do, but there may be ethical reasons for doing so—and this goes beyond a simple commitment to the principle that sport ought to be for the participants.
As a researcher, the scientist must conform to ethical principles surrounding the use of human subjects. The researcher is bound to weigh the balance between the potential benefits of the research and the dignity and welfare of the participant. If there is conflict, the priority must be given to the research participant's welfare. According to the American Psychological Association's (1982) guidelines, "In general, after research participation, the participants' feelings about the experience should be such that the
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participants would willingly take part in further research" (p. 18). Procedures are established to ensure freedom from exploitation in the research relationship as well as to ensure that the participant is involved in the research under the guidelines of informed consent. Informed consent implies that the participant is capable of making an informed decision, has the necessary information to make that decision, and makes the decision without coercion. All of this is designed to protect the research participant even under the supervision of an expert in the techniques or procedures being used.
Once these same procedures move outside the laboratory and into the sport training field, no such guidelines or protections operate. Especially in the use of technology and new research results, should there be ethical guidelines to protect the participant? Before a coach can test or use a new training technique or intervention strategy, should he or she evaluate the relationship between benefit to performance and potential risk to the athlete? Should the athlete be not only allowed but required to participate as an informed, consenting participant? Does the athlete have a moral right and perhaps responsibility to receive the information (including potential "side effects"), have the option to consent or not consent to the procedure or technique under noncoercive conditions, and have
the same right as any research participant to withdraw from the "treatment" at any time without penalty?
Athletes are not treated in this way in most sport settings. Bringing this about would demand a major change in the control of the athlete and his or her body and performance. Competitive sport, with the reward systems associated with winning, present unique challenges to a position that advocates noncoercive, informed consent by athletes. There are serious questions about the athlete's ability to make those decisions under present sport structures. A number of philosophical analyses dealing with notions of informed consent and coercion related to performance-enhancing drugs have treated this difficulty (e.g., Brown, 1984; Simon, 1984). But is informed consent a moral responsibility in sport—especially with the increasing understanding not only of what can be done but also of what the consequences of those behaviors are?
Knowledge itself is a two-edged sword. In the past, it could have been possible to apply the results of research that could have an impact on the short term and do so with a relatively clear conscience because many of the side effects, potential risks, or long-term consequences were unknown. Research has now provided many of these answers as well, and people are no longer
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required or perhaps allowed to surround themselves with naivete\ This would seem to demand an additional responsibility to inform of possible risks—even in a risk-taking sport culture.
The previous points have been centered on implications for the athletes, but there are ways in which technology may affect sport itself. The increasing use of technology could call into question issues of who is really responsible for the results in the competition. Who really won? Fred Hadley (1993), in "Sports and Technology," wrote about the success of U.S. athletes in Barcelona. According to Hadley, the success was not a fluke. In addition to the countless hours of training, a high-tech approach was used with many of the athletes in practice and/or competition:
Newly designed handlebars for cyclists were used to create a more aerodynamically shaped body position for racers. Archers used lasers to send their arrows toward their targets more accurately and kayakers were able to perform better using new designs that produced less drag in the water. Even the ammunition used by Olympic match shooters was improved by making each load exactly the same for every shell. CAD/CAM was used to design and improve the drag coefficient of many pieces of Olympic equipment, from skiing helmets to bicycle wheels to bobsleds, (pp. 25-26)
Some competitions are won by hundredths of seconds or fractions of an inch. If the technology results in a 5% difference in performance and the outcome of the competition was a 3% differential, did the athlete or did the technology really win? How much of the result was due not to the athlete himself or herself but to some external benefit to which he or she had access that was unavailable to other participants? Many athletes thank their god for their success in sport, as if the supernatural had some part to play in the athlete's performance—and perhaps that is appropriate. Should the athlete also thank the physiologists, psychologists, biomechanists, engineers, and pharmacologists—those individuals who may have contributed to the 5% difference that resulted in the outcome?
Matthew Fay (1988), in commenting on the Winter Games in Calgary, makes an additional note that "in sports like skiing and cycling, where hundredths of seconds count, equipment made of different composite materials gives competitors the edge" (p. 66). He goes on to say that "It is not facetious to argue that at the Calgary Winter Olympics ... the real competitors were the manufacturers, not the skiers who were using their equipment" (p. 66). The manufacturers were competing not only for the technological edge
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from a sporting standpoint but for the economic benefits as well. The athletes were the means for the competition between technologies.
There is another question. If technology is a factor in the result, is the competition fair? A fair and good competition is one in which all of the competitors have an opportunity to succeed—to win. This implies equal access to all of the nonhuman tools of competing. The technology is not inexpensive. Whereas the real winners may be the manufacturers, "the losers are the [athletes] from developing countries, who may not be able to afford to compete" (Fay, 1988, p. 66). They may, on the one hand, be denied opportunity or access; if they do have opportunity, they are competitively disadvantaged—and the fairness of the competition is in jeopardy.
This leads to the question of the influence of politics on attitudes toward sport technology. Hoberman (1986) points out that much of the research is being done in National Olympic Training and Research programs. He asserts that the concerns of the public for increased performance build on already existing feelings of national rivalry. He states, "It is only too clear how sport research has come to be seen as analogous to military research" (p. 322). Technology may have become one of our most effective tools in the athletic arms race; if Hoberman's views are correct, then
maybe there is little concern for the disadvantages of athletes in developing nations. It is certainly an important question to ask.
Up to this point, one could conclude that the major concern is with machines, physiology, and biomechanics rather than psychology. It isn't. Hoberman (1986) makes some important points when he takes on not just the physical and physiological sciences and technology but the psychological ones as well. He refers to sport psychology as the ultimate sport technology, noting that in the former West Germany sport psychology was sometimes referred to as "psychodoping." Hoberman thinks the term is appropriate. After having described some psychological techniques and interventions, he states, "It is becoming increasingly evident that sport science means the shaping of mind and behavior in conformity with technology norms" (p. 324).
There may even be something potentially riskier about psychological manipulation and control than about physical manipulation and control. The characteristics of the body that one has or that one is comprise the ways in which one is like others. One's attitudes, thinkings, and mental activities are what make each person unique. It is one's thinking that gives rise to one's agency. It is through one's thinking and feeling
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and imagining that things have meaning. To have some external person or force invade that which is the source of one's autonomy seems a potentially greater risk than the manipulation of body parts. Although most psychologists are probably not motivated to usurp another's individuality, the potential is there. Are the questions asked? Are the implications understood? Who makes the decisions?
There is another very important question related to sports psychology (and perhaps to the other sports sciences and technologies as well). Who is the sports psychologist's client in the first place? Is it the athlete? Is it the coach? Is it the sponsoring institution or governing body? Once again, when the performance is the key and the athlete is little more than the instrument for the performance, there is a profound risk that the athlete's needs and individuality become irrelevant.
Hoberman (1992) makes a scathingly critical evaluation of sports psychology and suggests that, in its quest for scientific credibility, sports psychology has been transformed "into a form of popular culture analogous to the 'human potential' movement of the 1960's" (pp. 186-187). To the extent that Hoberman is correct, the "client" may be the scientific credibility of sports psychology itself.
About 20 years ago, William Johnson (Figler 8c Whitaker, 1991) speculated about sport in the year 2000. He labeled one of his visions "technosport." Technosport involves an emphasis on ends rather than means, prize rather than pursuit, or product rather than process. If the outcome is the focus, technology becomes the means—or, perhaps through the changing of humans into machines, technology also becomes the end. Although many people wax enthusiastically about technosport, there is a concern that it may undermine some of the fundamental values of sport. The training and monitoring of athletes (programming?) potentially dehumanize both the athletes and sport.
Additionally, this emphasis on product and technology threatens to trivialize sport itself. Sport may cease to be about people and, as such, it ceases to be about those things that have attracted the spectator and, to some extent, the participant. As Coakley (1994) notes in his caution about technosport, the approach "subverts creativity, freedom, spontaneity, and expression among athletes and it turns sports into programmed spectacles" (p. 449). A sport event simply becomes a contest of technologies, which may no longer be interesting to either the participant or the spectator.
The points made so far could easily be construed as presenting an
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antitechnology position. This is not necessarily the case. Technology itself is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. Technology can be the tool for improving human activity, including sport. To the extent that technologies promote efficient development of an athlete's potential, technologies may be brought to the service of the athlete and his or her self-actualization. However, technology should not be a replacement for the human element; the human should not be the tool for improving technology nor the means through which technological superiority can be demonstrated. The human should not be seen as another piece of material for technological/scientific manipulation.
Ann Brunner (1986) provides both an optimistic look and a challenge regarding responsibility related to technology:
The rapid advance of technology, in an attempt to make our lives here somehow more convenient, tends to remove us from our organic nature. The experience of this distancing of the moving-breathing-sensing organism from our earthly source is leading us back to the fundamental, innate desire to feel whole through the full cultivation of our human capacities. People are not willing to abandon the global dimension of sentient being in favor of the linear dimension of rational thought or the flatness of mechanical precision. Because we obviously cannot scrap the tools of technology altogether, we are having to rediscover and learn new ways of being
fully human and spiritually alive. Teachers must be prepared to accept the responsibility to educate within the new context of our culture, (p. 168)
It may also be incumbent on sport sociologists and philosophers to accept responsibility to educate about and understand technology and sport. One of the patterns in societies is that people often do not consider the ethical/moral dimensions and impact of technology and research until after the tools have been applied. The dilemmas posed by the development of nuclear energy capabilities, reproductive technology, and the ability to mechanically prolong life are but a few examples of how an unquestioned application of science and technology can be problematic. Certain questions may not have first been asked. Just because we can do something, should we? And, if so, under what conditions?
Hoberman (1986) presents Heidegger's position that it is necessary to cease viewing technology as something neutral. In seeing technology as something neutral, Heidegger contends that one becomes blind to the essence of technology. Although Heidegger's concern was not with sport technology, that charge could be made to those who study the human dimensions of sport in society. By remaining blind or unquestioning, there is a risk that sport and the persons engaged in it may become less—not more—than they could be.
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AUTHOR
Jan Rintala is an associate professor of physical education at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115-2854. An earlier draft of this article was presented at the CESU/World University Games Conference in Buffalo, New York, July 1993. The author thanks the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and additional questions.
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