THE ESSAY OF FORCE ON SPORTS

SPORTS

The early 1920's ports became a very important part in citizens lives. With World War I just ending, people needed something to turn to. Radios were just now available to homes all over the United States. Sports were followed throughout the entire country house to house by the radio. With the work force changing and shorter hours in effect, people had more free time at the end of the day, and leisurely time at the end of the week. This made it more easily accessible to all people all over the country. With these events all taking place, it was perfect timing for these superstars to emerge, and shine.

Many different types of sports became popular in the 20's. With these stars and athletes the 20's was officially named the "Golden Age of Sports". Baseball, football, boxing, horse racing, tennis, and gold are just some of the events that captured Global attention.

IDEOLOGY

When talking about ideology I think that there are two concepts that need to be defined for people just wanting to know a little bit more about it. The two concepts that need to be defined are ideology and hegemony. Ideology is defined by Krishna Kandath, one of our guest speakers, as a set of ideas that organize a group's, or society's, understanding of reality; a code of meanings that shapes how a group of people see the world. Hegemony is defined by him as a cultural process where people take ruling class values for granted-even when they don't serve their own interests. But that is just one person's definition of those. Judith Hendry another guest speaker of ours also has her own interpretation's of those words. "An ideology is a set of pattern or set of ideas, assumptions, beliefs, values, or interpretations of the world by which a group operates." "Hegemony is the privileging of one group's thinking over another's and directs us to understand the world in certain ways and to view those who hold alternative views as abnormal, radical, or strange. By knowing these two concepts a person can better understand the following paper as influence of ideology is being talked about.


To begin with my personal experience, I want to start by telling you that I am a good way Activist-Athlete From RDC Living in Switzerland a term that sticks out in my mind that is important is the term consumerism. Ms. Judith Hendry talks about consumerism during one of her lectures, and to me consumerism is the idea of the consumer having wants and needs and their pursuit to get these things. Ms.Hendry has consumerism defined as "our voracious appetite for consumer products." I think this is an important concept for my personal experience because the goal of most people is to get as much stuff as they can while they are alive. And if that wasn't enough to think about, while people are trying to get as much as they can they try to get it for as cheap as they can if not for free. That is why some people want to be in the shoes that I am in.

They think that sport players get everything catered to them, but that is not the case. Athletes work very hard all days of the week most of the year. So it hurts my heart to see and hear people talk about what I do, something that is paying for my way through school, and thinking that everything is catered to me which it is not. .


Another concept that I think is important that Krishna Kandath was talking about in one of his lectures was the American Dream. He defines the American Dream as "the faith that an individual can attain success and virtue through strenuous effort-is the very soul of the American nation. I think that most people's definition of the American dream is the same as the idea as consumerism. Trying to get as much as they can for as little as they can or even nothing at all called for example Fast food Fast Fashion Fast Dream. I know that it is a little far-fetched but I really do believe that that is most people's idea of the American fast dream.

What exactly Fast Fashion Do?

For those who don’t know, don’t worry; the term is a relatively new one. It is used for those fashion retailers that producing a high turnover of items in order to refresh their collection often. This means that instead of having only one winter and one summer collection, you will find new garments every month, or even more so for some retailers. The most famous fast fashion retailers are Zara, H&M, Peacocks, Primark and even Topshop.

The phenomenon is quite new and stems from the fact that people always want more, consumers’ desire for new clothing is constantly increasing due to the mass consumption. Plus, we need to acknowledge forecasted and/or built-in obsolescence or ‘outdatedness’ of items within the fashion industry. High profile models are constantly replacing their old outfits with those from Fashion Weeks in order to accelerate new trends.

Further to this, fast fashion retailers are not the ones creating the trends themselves. They are waiting for the trend to be created by haute couture or luxury companies and, once they have the basics (colours, form, material, …), they can ‘copy’ and produce a fashionable item extremely quickly. This supply chain and way of producing and creating clothes allows for more reactivity and that is why fast fashion companies are able to produce far more clothing than others. By skipping the creation stage, they have more time to produce. Plus, the production cycle is cheap. Thanks to this way of producing, items enter the market with a low price. And, as everyone knows, new and cheap is the winning combination for pushing consumers to buy more and more products.

Fast fashion allows for greater choice for customer as well as lower prices. These two positive aspects are not the only ones. In fact, the trend is rendered profitable for companies too since fast fashion allows for a quicker answer to the market demands.

Case Study: Zara

In order to better understand these advantages, let’s focus on Zara:

Zara is a fashion retail chain of Inditex Group, owned by the Spanish businessman, Amancio Ortega, who also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, Oysho, Uterqüe, Stradivarius and Bershka. Zara is a fast fashion retailer because it needs just two weeks to develop a new product and get it into stores, compared to two-month industry average. Unlike similar apparel retailers, Zara controls most of the steps on the supply chain: it designs, produces and distributes all its own goods. Zara is a fashion imitator and focuses its attention on understanding the current fashion trends, which is what customers want, and then delivering it, rather than promoting predicted season’s trends via fashion shows and similar channels of influence, as traditionally done by the fashion industry.

Consequences

The first and biggest issue caused by fast fashion is damage to the environment. The textiles business is the second most polluting in the world, after that of oil.

As I said previously, fast fashion is about consuming more garments, which means higher textile consumption as well. This consumption key in causing pollution: it requires more transport, higher use of raw material and massive consumption of water. For example, producing a pair of jeans consumes hundreds of litres of water, pesticides, detergent, transport – it will be travelling thousands of kilometres before being in any shop. Concerning water, the production is not the only cause of pollution. Washing your jeans will release chemical products, and so cause further water pollution.

Furthermore, most garments end up in in the bin: very few are donated or recycled. For example, Americans donate or recycle only around 15% of their unwanted clothes.

For more details and numbers about the environmental impact of fast fashion, feel free to watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrzLsoNzWCQ

The second biggest issue regarding fast fashion concerns human wellbeing. Fast fashion producers are absolutely unconcerned with the machines they are using since cost efficiency is their focus. They do not really care about the health of their employees or about the risks and consequences that the use of these kinds of products will cause.

For example, to complete the production of a pair of jeans, two chemicals are often cited as potential health risks: potassium permanganate and sodium metabisulphate. The first one is a powerful oxidizing agent. The second one is another bleaching agent, which is used as a neutralizer to turn those brown areas caused by the first product closer to a shade of white. It can irritate or burn your skin or eyes if you come into direct contact with it. Plus, it can irritate your respiratory tract, causing asthma-like symptoms. Ingesting it may cause nausea, diarrhoea, and other gastrointestinal problems while contact with the skin can cause redness, pain and itching. The lack of proper ventilation systems, protective gear (such as goggles, masks, and gloves) and adequate procedural training for factory workers makes the use of these chemicals extremely harmful for their short-term and long-term health.

Solutions?

So, how can we avoid exacerbating the problem of engaging in fast fashion? Here’s some info about how to do so:

Despite fast fashion being a new phenomenon, a lot of people have already found solutions to fight the process.

One example of it is to create new events. Events in the fashion industry are really important because they have a massive impact into consumers’ minds and are hugely promoted and followed in the social medias. Smart Fashion Week in Paris promotes the idea that it is possible to buy ethical products for a low price. This event is a big success since 2016.

However, daily life consumption is what really matters. That is why you need to know how to choose the materials of your clothes. Always look at the label of your clothes!

The materials to avoid are:
Polyester – which is produced with a lot of petroleum
Viscose – treated with chemical solvents
Conventional cotton – which uses a lot of water and pesticides to be made.

In order to avoid these, try researching independent designers. Most of them are really careful about the “made in” label. Obviously, organic materials are the best concerning the environment and human impact. The prices are little bit higher but still reasonable compared to high-priced fast fashion retailers.

And how to find them? I advise you to have a look at the Sustainable clothing action plan (SCAP); many designers are signing on to make a change. 300 retailers, such as ASOS, Arcadia, F&F, George, M&S, Debenhams, and so on… have signed up to be part of the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan, which includes producing, selling and disposing of waste without damaging the environment and working with countries with strict labour regulations. The SCAP is a collaborative framework and voluntary commitment to deliver industry-let targets for reducing the use of resources in the clothing industry.

Figures released in 2015 show that retailers, brands and organisations from across the clothing supply chain have reduced water impacts by 12.5% per tonne of clothing, against a 15% reduction target by 2020. They are also making progress to cut carbon impacts, having achieved a 3.5% reductionper tonne of clothing against a 15% reduction target.

In case you still need more convincing for engaging with ethical fashion, listen to Clara Vuletich, a sustainability strategist and designer : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXOd4qh3JKk

 

THE FORCE MAKING OF SPORT

The folk-games of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were vastly different from the sports we play today in numerous aspects of their structure, style etc. One of the shifts observed by Guttmann (1979) and others has been the secularisation of sport. One significant feature of folk-pastimes was their link to the ecclesiastical calendar and religious events. Malcolmson (1973) notes that the principal games of folk-football often took place on Shrove Tuesday, Good Friday and Christmas Day. However scheduling of sport in contemporary times is generally unrelated to the church or religious events.

Furthermore folk-pastimes were very simple in their organisational and administrative structure. As Malcolmson (1973) points out, often games began spontaneously with the venue being the environment the individuals were in, such as the streets of a town. Thus during these times bureaucratic structures did not exist. Organisation of activities lay in the hands of the participants and to a degree this was reflected in a more ludic sport form. In contemporary times a definite bureaucratisation of sport has occurred with networks of governing and overseeing organisations operating in every competitive sport, examples include soccer's FA, UEFA and FIFA. Government intervention is also significant in present times.

Generally folk-pastimes saw little specialisation. Games involved large numbers and specified positions and differentiated tasks did not exist. As Phillips (1996) states:.
" there was room for everybody and a sharply defined role for no-one."".
Furthermore, distinction between participants and spectators was not clearly defined and individuals could switch at will. In modern elite-sport specialisation can be observed to a very large degree. Even up to the 1960s numerous examples of individuals, e.g. Dennis Compton, representing their nation at two different sports existed. Only a matter of decades later individuals such as Bo Jackson, who played elite level baseball and American football in the US, are exceptional cases.

In American Football, for example, specialisation by position has been taken almost to the extreme with separate offensive and defensive units and over fifty differentiated playing-positions.
A shift towards increased equality of opportunity has also been observed. This includes increased regulation as well as a move away from exclusion on grounds of position in various social-strata. Folk games involved large numbers of participants which more often than not would result in uneven numbers and generally, as Malcolmson (1973) highlights, the rules governing them gave the players a great deal of discretion with regard to levels of violence. Furthermore, women generally were not involved, as Malcolmson (1973) notes, games involved significant proportions of the able-bodied males in a town or parish.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

Today efforts are made to ensure equality of opportunity and, in modern soccer for example, rules governing violent conduct exist to ensure meritocracy on grounds of skill-level. Thus, smaller players such as Michael Owen are able to demonstrate their truly unique skills. Weight categories have been implemented in sports such as boxing and attempts are made to prevent the use of ergogenic aids deemed unfair' or unethical. Also, legislation such as Title IX (1972) in the US and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) in the UK has been implemented to prevent discrimination on gender grounds. With regard to the disabled, increasingly competitions and leagues are developing, the most focal being the Paralympics founded in 1952.

Prior to the industrial revolution no real attempts were made to rationalise or academicise performance enhancement. Contrast this to the situation in contemporary sport where sports-science support and research in fields such as physiology and biomechanics is common place, with the field also being incorporated into education at all levels. This rationalisation can also be associated with an increased level of civility and a decreased level of violence within sport.

MODERN INDUSTRIALIZATION

In modern times statistics relating to a players contribution in a game have become increasingly significant and distances, times and heights form the foundation of sports such as athletics and motor-racing. The pursuit of various records has become key to achievement sports as highlighted during the 2001 World Athletics Championships where the IAAF offered a prize of $100,000 for any individual that could break a world-record. The Faster, Higher, Stronger' motto of the Olympics, is also indicative of this ideology.

A number of varying theories have been put forward in an attempt to explain the making of modern sport. Industrial-Society/Modernisation theory states that, in period 1750-1830, industrialisation and urbanisation related societal changes forced sport to change accommodatingly. Guttmann (1979) suggests that with industrialisation came an expansion of the scientific world view' and, as Gruneau (1988) suggests, scientific attempts to understand the natural world more rationally helped to undermine religion and ritual. Guttmann also suggests that as society took a systematic approach to maximising productivity, the same ethic was applied to sporting participation. 

The development of more regulation, systematic performance enhancement and specialisation likely stems from this. With industrialisation came less discretionary time and control over working hours, lower incomes, higher living costs and little access to open spaces. According to the theory people willingly accepted and made changes and modifications. As time progressed the situation facing the working-classes improved, entrepreneurs began to succeed and a bourgeoisification of society took place. Each class strived to emulate their betters and thus the activities of the upper-classes filtered down. It is widely accepted that entrepreneurs and the church provided opportunities for sporting participation, for example Aston Villa originated as a church team, and according to this theory, these provisions were made for philanthropic reasons.

Advances in communication and transport also led to developments within sport and leisure, the advent of the steam train making possible the development of seaside resorts such as Bournemouth.
The overriding criticism of the theory is that it neglects any conflictual nature of the transformation and assumes willing modification of popular recreation, with little struggle. The need to implement new laws, such as the Riot Act of 1715 preventing large public gatherings, may suggest otherwise. Furthermore the theory may focus too greatly on the actions of the ruling and upper-classes. Lastly the theory largely ignores gender relations and the differing impacts of males and females.

Marxist theory however, addresses the impact of industrialisation with regard to how new forms were shaped out of various class-cultural conflicts from 1750/80 to the 1840's. It focuses on the assumption that at the time of industrialisation, certain empowered social groups shaped and controlled the sporting cultures of the masses to suit their own motives. Whilst once the masses defined their own working schedules and were motivated by survival, in the factories the workers' motivation was different and maximum productivity was no longer their objective. Thus the motivations of the agent, the worker, and the principle, the entrepreneur, were at odds. 

Therefore the power-elite required a tool with which to instil a work discipline and control and motivate workers. Similarly in these industrial areas, large sums had been invested into commercial ventures and with the high population density, raucous behaviour posed the threat of capital damage. Consequently the power-elite felt the need to control such behaviours and events of the French revolution likely did nothing to settle their concerns. The church played its own coercive part in this process as it too was concerned with the excesses and church absenteeism associated with popular recreation.

THE CONCEPT OF COOL

In today's society people use the term "cool" to describe many different things. You can ask someone about an idea and they might reply, "That's cool". Someone may see something they really like and they would say it was cool. There are so many different ways to use this term and that is why it is hard to define cool. This is because cool is something different for everyone. .

The question that needs to be asked is are there things that society as a whole finds to be cool, and what are they. In the youth society it would seem that cool is defined by the type of clothes you wear. Then from here different groups of teens have different ideas cool as far as clothes. There are the kids that are cool because they wear such brands as Abercrombie and Fitch, American Eagle or the gap. There is also a new form of cool that teens are starting to move in on. This would be the skateboarding clothing. These teens wear such things as DC Shoes, Element, Hurley and other things. 

Even though these two types of clothing are different what makes them the same. This would be that all of them are overpriced and are purchased in the mall. So this means that the mall is quite possibly the Mecca of cool for today's teens. If you want the look of cool you go to the mall and you are surrounded in cool. Another up and coming "cool" among teens is modifications to their vehicles. Teens nowadays define a car as being cool if it has a loud stereo with lots of bass. Or also shiny rims and fiberglass after market bumpers called body kits. Teens also desire the newest and fastest cars so they can look cool in front of their friends. When you look at these two things that are cool to teens, it would seem that cool is the product of a price tag. Cool is associated with monetary value.

It is very easy to see how much the concept of what is cool among youth has changed over the years because they are usually the biggest group of "cool seekers".

You could go back about five or six years and see that something that was considered uncool, suddenly became cool. This something is skateboarding. A few years ago skateboarding was something that was looked down upon. If you were a skateboarder you were thought to be a loser or troublemaker. Then with the influence of a few people skateboarding blew up into the new cool. One of these people was Tony Hawk. He brought skateboarding out of hiding and introduced America to its next big fad. Now you can turn on you r T.V. and find such things as the X-Games, and Gravity Games. And the idea of being a skater is now popular among the youth. You"re cool if you skateboard or wear skateboarding apparel. With such a drastic change such as this one wonders if the concept of cool changes over time.

When you are looking back in time in American culture you can see that the concept of cool does in fact change. In the 50's you were cool if you had a Muscle Car and were rough and tough. Leather was in and so were poodle skirts. From here in came the beat generation. It was al about freeing your mind and being you. Poetry and coffee shops were what was cool. When you move on to the next decade cool was music and drugs and protesting "the man" and war. The 70's was the era of peace and love. Then came the 80's, a time when pop music blew up, monster ballads and hair metal was in. It was after this that we reached the 90's and cool took on many new faces that had never been seen and constantly changed from year to year.

All these aspects of cool discussed above are what society deemed to be cool, but there is still another side to what is cool. This is what does an individual define as cool. What I mean by this is everyone has something or someone that they think is cool outside of society's general mold. When you talk to a person on a personal level they may reveal that they have hobbies or other things of personal interest.