TOTW: How Would Anarchists Organise An Inter-National Sports Event?

TOTW: How Would Anarchists Organise An Inter-National Sports Event?

I've never come across anyone identifying as an anarchist who is opposed to fun. Arguably, fun seems to be a required aspect of any anarchist-activity, for it not to simply be reproducing workerist narratives that perpetuate the mechanisms of boredom. I find boredom to be absent in spaces of anarchy.

Can anarchists - specifically meaning here anarchists who embrace the idea of egalitarianism through collectivism, communism, communalism etc., - play games that involve a discernible winner and loser though? In communist-anarchist snakes and ladders, do we not all move round the board at the same speed, so as to not leave anyone behind in the revolution (of going up and then back down and the back up and then back down, revolving again and again and again and again)?

If we accept the idea that within an anarchist society we would seek to reproduce every day normal narratives like public transport, agricultural projects and media projects, why would we not also include inter-national (or perhaps inter-communal) sports events, like the Olympic and Para-Olympic games? How would we differentiate winners and losers - or does everyone just get a participation trophy? What sports would we include, if we don't want to exclude sports that aren't popular within the consumer-media spectacle of mainstream games?

Are cultural-events like sports tournaments incompatible with this vision of an anarchist society (or any anarchist-society)? Are anarchists then forbidden to play sports, regardless of whether or not they want to enjoy the fun, out of the potential risk of creating a form of social-hierarchy that would contradict egalitarian principles?

-ed. thanks to guest for this topic of the week submission

There are 51 Comments

In the US its nothing but a playpen. Your fully realized all-entertainment, all-the time utopia has arrived.

intentional anarchist kick ball tournament please.

kt vs bellamy mixed martial arts benefit match now please.

I wonder who would win in an mma match between KT and Bellamy? I would think IT would merely because he's bigger and I could totally see him going with the hair pulling tactice. Like KT would swing Bellamy around in circles by Bellamy's long hair and let go, leaving Bellamy to be flung in the corner of the square octagon. Then Bellamy would try to use some psychotherapy in a last ditch effort to trick KT into believing that his hair pulling tactic is problematic and not cool, but KT would block that attack with primalism and go straight for the jugular and do the hair pulling attack again. Bellamy would then be KO'd

KT is big, but he looks pretty fat and out of shape. Bellamy, from his videos, is skinny but looks like he works out. My money is on Bellamy. Usually real fights come down to endurance, reach, and maneuverability over raw strength.

You under estimate motivation and hustle in sports. Someone who wants to fucking kill you is way more valuable than a brain/body athlete cosplay.

KT kills him by the time he's gassed. And Bellamy is just scared from analysis paralysis.

Also how fucking lame are people around here that they're still into kickball.

Jesus fuck, go get some real body coordination already so you don't have to play 4 square and kickball like its some shitty 90s punk fest.

Maybe. But KT knows primalist jujitsu and treekwando. Bellamy just knows karate and psychotherapy-fu. Bellamy could do the windmill headbanging technique to block any shots KT is trying to land and knockout KT with some CBT. KT is vulnerable to CBT attacks. However, once KT knocks Bellamy to the ground and put him in an armbar and squirt near Bellamy's face. KT would win by making Bellamy submit.

funny how there is CBT and then there is CBT. kt probably should try both, it might loosen him up a bit. nah, probably not,

I mean it's hard to be invulnerable to cock and ball torture, but not cognitive behavioral therapy. If Bellamy pulls the former CBT he would win but if it's the latter CBT he would lose. Primalist jiujitsu has moves to block the brain attacks

Cognitive-behavioral therapy would probably help with his ridiculous and embarrassing rage problems that he tries to justify with "primal anarchy." The shitty state of the world is not an excuse to have no self-control.

karate and psychotherapy-fu for sure are fucking weak in a real-life fighting situation... where IIIIII would have both the fitness, stamina, punching power and speed for overcoming BOTH opponents in a perfectly nihilist endeavor entering the bout with WILD feral joy!

But Bellamy would have a trick up his sleeve and sireinzige would get in the ring and try to protect his idol. Sireinzige would then spit so mad word salad at KT confusing KT and causing brain damage and KT would be KO'd. Sireinzige would proceed to help his idol Bellamy up and proclaim him and Bellamy are the future of anarchism with as much jargon and word salad as possible.

he never swallows any of his salad … just chews and spits like he's feeding baby birds

YOU'RE HARDLY ABSORBING ANY NUTRIENTS!!!

To me, the most interesting anarcho-friendly sport, that is inter-communal, has always been the "soule"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_soule

Otherwise, mainstream team sports are awfully over-complicated in their rules, and have pre-set positions, which is but a mirror of the State.

This is epitome of beautiful soul syndrome.

Not only that but there's plenty of examples of team games that were developed "pre-state." Leave it to dumb white people to copy-paste their absolutist puritanical mental tentacles onto everything as claims of metaphysical law.

Energy vampires

Is it... "dumb" and "moronic" because it doesn't fit within your single-minded worldview where everyone's supposed to do the same things?

Is it... anarcho-fascism or just plain old fascism?

Sports make me want to be the very best, like no one ever was. To play them is my real test, to train them is my cause. I will travel across the land, searching far and wide. Teach sports to understand, the power that's inside. Sports, gotta play em all. It's you and me, I know it's my destiny. Oh, you're my best friend, in a world we must defend. A heart so true, our courage will pull us through. You teach me and I'll teach you: sports! Every challenge along the way, with courage I will face. I will battle every day, to claim my rightful place. Come with me, the time is right, there's no better team. Arm in arm we'll win the fight, it's always been our dream. Sports!

Its the most moronic idea as an international event, and anyway, I fear that an anarchist team would do badly against a nationalist Viking team, maybe even homocide would be the final score, casualties for sure against capitalist mercenaries.

Neonazi fucktard confirmed... Can't even spell "homicide" properly.

The homocide victim named anon-08:33 was found with their head imploded at their computer after they got upset over the use of slang in a comment and at thecollective for not removing the comment that upset anon-08:33.

More at 11pm

It is so typical of everything I've encountered in this subculture since 1981 that with all of what's going on in a rapidly collapsing USA the scensters can only think of niftier ways to have play-dates with each other. Can I bring my toy dump truck? How bout my plastic bucket and shovel?

I thought the plan was to dance amidst the ruins or some such. What are more... adult ways you'd hope people would respond to collapse?

TOTW author obviously has never crossed path of anon 08:57, given the opening line, "I've never come across anyone identifying as an anarchist who is opposed to fun." Nor apparently any strugglistas whatsoever, nor the fool who tried to get Emma to stop dancing. Do tell where is this anarchist utopia so I can move there!

anon-08:57, you sound like a very boring and uninteresting person. Do you ever go outside and run or walk around? I assume you don't because having fun is what's wrong with anarchism apparently. Damn those scenesters ruining anarchism by thinking about sporting matches. in 1980, it was all business and no play, but in 1981 it all went out of the window. Damn it feels good to be a anarchist.

A real anarchist-ass nigga plays his cards right. A real anarchist-ass nigga never goes outside. Cuz anarchist-ass niggas be the no-game playa and everything's quiet in the non-clique. A real anarchist-ass niggas don't run for shit.
Cuz real anarchist-ass niggas can't run. Damn it feels good to be an anarchist. BBQ broke legs.

...the anarcho-authoritarians i've encountered in this subculture since [whenever marx was writing] that when a few anarchos and anarchas are having a kickaround or a card game or playing music smiling and laughing and joking some sour faced prick comes along and says WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR THE REVOLUTION COMRADES

jokes on you. i posted this with one hand while throwing a tear gas cannister back at the feds in portland with the other. see you in the streets.

asking the question "can anarchists play games/sports with clear winners and losers?" just shows a clear case of category slippage. sports and games are no fun without winners and losers *in the context of the sport/game*. sports are not real life. winning at a sport means nothing once you step off the field of play. if winning on the field of play continues to have consequences outside the field of play, we have something other than a game/sport.

the value of games and sport is what they can tell one about oneself. learning a game can teach strategy, tactics and logistics. playing sport can tell you who plays well with others, who plays fair, what a body can do, what ones limits are.

having said that, playing among ourselves is one thing, replicating the norms of the current society is quite another. why is this even a question?

There should be a competition to see how well you get other people to carry you!

Why the jump from "sports" to "organize international sports event"?
Is it not enough to play at your neighborhood hoop with your buddies?
Sports can be fun, organizing huge events is not, ask event organizers.
Imagine the stark contrast of a chill day of going out surfing vs calling people, scheduling, setting dates, booking hotels, etc. Much has been written about the corruption in FIFA, the slavery in preparation, the negative impacts Olympics have on the cities that host them, etc.
Also, if anarchists organized a sports event, you can be sure it would not have "national" in the premise.
This premise seems written by a communist trying to troll or fit in. I will answer al lthose questions to show how silly they are:

"Can anarchists - specifically meaning here anarchists who embrace the idea of egalitarianism through collectivism, communism, communalism etc., - play games that involve a discernible winner and loser though?"

Yes. They may even engage in dom and sub role play, shocking I know. A thing done for fun with consent among all parts involved is okay. It's not as if sports winners or doms will be declared supreme rulers outside of the court or the bedroom.

"In communist-anarchist snakes and ladders, do we not all move round the board at the same speed, so as to not leave anyone behind in the revolution (of going up and then back down and the back up and then back down, revolving again and again and again and again)?"

I don't know, please share the link where we might see the rules to this game. Or is this a shitty metaphor?

"If we accept the idea that within an anarchist society we would seek to reproduce every day normal narratives like public transport, agricultural projects and media projects, why would we not also include inter-national (or perhaps inter-communal) sports events, like the Olympic and Para-Olympic games?"

This alludes to a valid critique that anarchists should not reproduce every day normal narratives like those you mentioned which are encompassed in the big bads we know as civilization, patriarchy, states, capitalism, and all kinds of oppressive systems/constructs/hierarchies.

So I accept the implicit critique, but refuse it as base for an honest question.

"How would we differentiate winners and losers - or does everyone just get a participation trophy?"

Do you want us to explain how sports work, or ? Each sport, as certain types of games, have clear rules that determine the winners and losers. Prizes need not be a factor, but could be.

"What sports would we include, if we don't want to exclude sports that aren't popular within the consumer-media spectacle of mainstream games?"

What? Do you want us to examine which sports are trending? Dude, you can do sports. Who is banning you from doing sports? Where is the strawman that cancelled sports? I don't see it.
Are you lashing out against anarchists because sports events got cancelled or postponed because of coronavirus?

"Are cultural-events like sports tournaments incompatible with this vision of an anarchist society (or any anarchist-society)?"

Anything is possible...if you believe. All you need is to be decided.

"Are anarchists then forbidden to play sports, regardless of whether or not they want to enjoy the fun, out of the potential risk of creating a form of social-hierarchy that would contradict egalitarian principles?"

All is allowed, nothing is forbidden. Anarchists refuse to rule or be ruled, oppress or be oppress because they so desire it, not because someone imposed a rule on them telling them to be like that.
Caricaturesque egalitarian straitjackets are stuff of the moralistic authoritarian left and communists.

Have fun playing sports!

Too bad that so many of the above comments are hostile or nitpicky.

It's not quite a sport but one quite interesting answer to this question is Fourier's idea of a world war of pastries. Not only does it involve intensive international (but ppl who pick on this word because "destroy all nations" are missing the point of the question IMO) competition, it's intertwined with his ideas about how to have a society where we don't work -- everything, absolutely everything is pleasurable -- but also create amazing stuff, like delicious pastries to eat.

you can eat pastries without wars.
you can have sports without nations.
no one is against fun.
it’s not nitpicky.
you like wars and nations?
you already have the world as it is, enjoy it!
you think you’re so imaginative and whimsical because you’re playing civilizational tropes but with a merry twist! how quaint!

Really missing the point.

There are no weapons in Fourier's war, just pastry making and pastry eating.

No rulz, eye-gouging, groin kicking anything goes, as if Trump and Johnson aren't experts at dirty infighting!

Homerun going on the far stretch hitting that sweet spot longo straight shot primo on the free-throw on the half-season overpass semi-quarter intramural subterranean Icelandic challenge cup. You bet your ass racquetball is an anarchic.

Be interesting to hear one of Emile's rants on baseball, the hitter, the fielder, and the baseball plenum.

fuck international. every city playground has a basketball court and a handball/paddleball court, at minimum (or used to).

My town only has a tennis court... :-( Tennis is full of bland yuppies with luxury cars. Best games I can play there is slashy-slashy the tires.

Anybody have experience playing three-sided football? I'm not sure about Jorn's concept of trialectics in terms of phenomenology but it seems like an interesting sport.

Never heard of it till just now, though I had heard of (but not played or even watched) three player chess. There are a few games I can think of, and have played, that support a free for all 3+ player mode, like magic the gathering. While the history of 3SF is interesting - the Situ connection and also the wiki says an anarchist group was maybe the first known to play it - I don't see what the anarchist ideas would be exactly. Maybe that would come from playing it.

There's definitely a big diplomacy (to use a statist word ofc) component to many multiplayer board and card games that I've played, like in two player mode i tend to think in terms of pure advantage and annihilation, but in multi you have to think very differently, about survival and personalities and emotions, etc.

There is nothing wrong with playing sports or organizing sports leagues and tournaments. There is no need to throw out "winners" and "losers" or give everyone a "participation trophy." Just make sure that the organizational model is consistent with anarchism, e.g. worker ownership and collective management. The current model enriches corporate elites and promotes militarism and nationalism. I would prefer a model that encourages workers and youth to participate in athletics rather than become passive consumers of an elite spectacle. I do not believe that anarchists should engage in puritanical attacks on recreational activities or entertainment, but we should think more carefully about what should or could be done differently, e.g. community ownership rather the corporate ownership of a franchise or an end to patriotic or military displays.

"Just make sure that the organizational model is consistent with anarchism, e.g. worker ownership and collective management. ... I would prefer a model that encourages workers and youth to participate in athletics"

sounds like a blast! I can't wait to be encouraged to participate in management.

An exquisitely sublime, timely and relevant contribution!
An exhaustive listing of game typologies.
And what a title: "Insurrection vs Extinction: Excerpt from the Book of Games"
Do you react the same way as I to the words at both sides of the colon?
"Insurrection vs Extinction", excitement, dread, the stakes are as high as can be.
"...Books...Games" boring, mere quotidian distractions.
Is the first the sauce to make palatable talking of the latter for a certain audience?
Insurrection is something we see in recurring and interrupted outbursts, always perceived as a break from the daily "normal". Extinctions happen every day and happening more often and more species are added to lists.
Games are interruption to work, books can be work and / pleasure.

In a similar sense, sports (as games, and like books, whether you practice it, work in organizing their production, or spectate) fills social roles. Some could say that it distracts from insurrection, diverting energies and attention, other saying that it can trigger riots. Either way, the truth is that when states declare a "state of emergency" sports suffer.
Quarantine and wars interrupt sports. The opposite can be true is soldiers take a break to play some ball?
Breaks, like naps to animals, is a vital part of the functioning of the megamachine.

Sports is an institution, like marriage and the nuclear family. Play is a biological thing, like birthing.
Sports is a technology, an algorithm, reducing play dynamics to an equation. Chess and now e-sports, a computer will always outdo people in bigger, better, stronger faster.
The first games that were made, the first instances of controlled play, could have spawned a predilection, or even a compulsion, an addiction, to make rules, to make all situations have clear cut scenarios and outcomes, to have fixed way of settling things. Some civilizations may have risen directly from sports, even playing a central place in their settlements. Neighboring tribes may have used sports matches to resolve differences without warfare, but this is just like politics, an extension of it by other means. Is it surprising that courts, where these issues between tribes were settled, resemble basketball courts, which resemble tribunals? The role of the tribune, the referees, the arbiters, the scores, the penalties, underline discrete notions of justice and retribution.
The bodies must be disciplined and shaped, built like in body building, for the limited and specialized set of repetitive motions. Sports injuries are something that come with the territory, and sports psychology is something that is needed to treat the lesions that athletes self inflict in the process of self-discipline.

Sports are an eminently civilized and civilizing activity.

Furthermore, consider how sport courts are arranged as people around the enclosed field, this is so people can exert themselves within a walled city. Prison life places an emphasis on exercise, since your health deteriorates if you don't do that while confined. The running track to compensate for the fact that civilization has made it difficult for you roaming freely, the treadmill more so, the swimming pool underlines the fact that you're discouraged to spend your day at the beach or the lake. Sports and games are symptomatic of a convoluted mental activity for self-amusement of someone who has had to endure long periods of boredom in captivity with others. Prison and schools have basketball courts or fields, and the time spent there is for many of the captives the only good part of the day.

Problems with competitive sport as inegalitarian: I can see this being an issue for collectivist/idpol anarchists who overdo the "informal hierarchy" idea. Though I'd add these were often the people misusing the Bakunin doctors quote to justify lockdown. I think for autonomy-focused anarchists, as long as it's voluntary it's OK. Of course without money, advertising, professionalism etc there would also be a much less steep ability curve.

The difficulties for post-left, eco and similar are more to do with the logistics of organising something on such a scale, with low-tech or convivial tech, and without central bodies setting the rules of the game or deciding which teams get included. Also there's the problem that sport has become part of the Spectacle and in some ways is an alienated form of physical activity done for life-purposes and/or carnival-like activities. I think this problem pretty much guarantees that sport in a bolo-like world would be mostly more localised or organised by special hobby clusters/bolos rather than general as it is today. The biggest clubs would be on the scale of the English non-league rather than professional superclubs. Probably it would be easier to organise knockout tournaments like the old European Cup, or challenge matches like in boxing, than it would be to set up big events like the Olympics.

There are indigenous cultures with extremely restrictive attitudes towards competition. People will downplay their achievements so as not to seem arrogant, ego-challenge others, or admit differences in eg. how much each hunter is catching. This can extend to sport: for example, I've heard cricket has spread to rural Papua New Guinea but the expectation is that hosts let visitors win. In this way, sport is incorporated into the standard potlatch-style gift-exchange cycles. There's also others where certain kinds of competition are encouraged (Guarani men according to Clastres, workrate of Ilongot women, potlatch itself, etc).

Before colonisation, there was a much greater diversity of local sports and games; it's only since the 1960s or so that there have been "global" sports (even now there's a lot of diversity by country). And there's been entire histories written of how sport is tied-in with "civilising mission" or beating the coloniser at their own game. When sports are played by small voluntary groups - for example, kids in the street playing soccer - there's often very loose rules, no referee/umpire, negotiation of what they are and how they apply, and significant deviation from the formal rules of the game. You'll also see kids innovating a lot in new variants of standard games like chasing each other, and lots of regional variants.

One of the big things in western sport (cf. Boal's critique of western theatre) is the overemphasis on spectatorship over participation. Sport in anarchic societies is much more participatory. For example, football in medieval England consisted of mass brawls between entire villages. Sports fan culture tends to restore a participatory element, supplementing spectatorship with chants, brawls, banners, pitch invasions, flares on the pitch, etc. Europe has anarchist ultras as well as far-right ones, though the latter are more common; the fanaticism of ultras has a lot in common with hunter-gatherer warrior bands. I'd also expect that we'd see a return to local allegiance in sports. Historically sports-watching has related closely to group camaraderie among workers in the same town or factory; this is no doubt how it would work in systems like anarcho-syndicalism. In Eastern Europe a lot of the big clubs were connected to factories or worker sectors in the Soviet era - hence why there's all these clubs called Lokomotiv, Shakhtar (miner), Metalurg and so on. Same thing in Asia and Africa to some degree. Even America has its Steelers and Packers.

Western societies do have an unusual focus on competition (eg in education, work, consumption, sex life...) which has been noted by anthropologists. Most social groups have more focus on cooperation, and I think there'd be less competition in anarchic societies. Competitive games have a particular vibe which is not always fun and which tends to mix up ego-boosts with the pleasures of activity. The whole situation where people are alienated from bodily pleasures and then use willpower to remould the mody for performance or in line with norms (thin for women, muscular for men) is completely tied-up with alienation and the domination of ego and superego over desire IMO. Not that there's anything wrong with fitness or health but a disalienated body has spontaneous motility, it isn't clay to be moulded.

Team competition can actually be good for ingroup cohesion (cf. the Sherif et al robbers' cave experiments) but relies on some degree of us/them, though it's sublimated in the Freudian sense, and in some ways an effective way of taming warlike impulses (which can be a good or bad thing depending on perspective). It's also a good way of simulating warlike conditions. I've experimented with creating more cooperative variants of boardgames and versions where players cooperate to (say) solve a scrabble puzzle; there's also games where humans compete as a team against computers. It certainly creates a different vibe.

Also wanna add a little snipe that growing food and driving trains are not "narratives". Thomas the Tank Engine is a narrative, but he won't get you very far. Just sayin.

KOBE!

* swoosh

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