Public opinion and sport : a study of the transformation of Olympic values

Public opinion and sport : a study of the transformation of Olympic values

 

Summary : The study is based on the results of the international World Values ​​Survey which offers a series of questions measuring the relationship between the public and the values ​​at the center of the Olympic ideal conveyed by sport. The aim is to analyze the relationship between the fact of joining a sports organization and the societal values ​​of individuals to show how the Olympic values ​​have undergone an evolution marked more by a search for personal fulfillment and autonomy than taste for performance.

 

Summary : By analyzing the results of international survey s World Values ​​Survey measuring the social values ​​of individuals from different societies , it is possible to determine the relations of the citizens towards the values ​​promoted by the Olympic ideal. There is a specific relationship between the membership of a sport organization and the social values ​​showing that Olympic values ​​are more influenced by the privilege of self-expre ssion in sports than the seek of performance.

 

 

Introduction

 

The Olympic values ​​bring together all the fundamental principles which govern the behavior of individuals in their sporting practices. We can consider that these values ​​are illustrated not only during the Olympics , but also within the usual sports practices and more generally of the attitude of the individuals towards sport. As Article 1 of the Olympic Charter recalls, “ Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of the body, the will and the spirit. Combining sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a lifestyle based on joy in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles ”  [1] . In other words, if the Olympic values are celebrated during the Olympics , they are supposed to permeate sporting behavior based on dignity and ethics. The Olympic movement's mission is, moreover, to ensure the dissemination of these values ​​as well as their sustainability. There is no major international statistical survey focused specifically on Olympic values, certainly because such a survey would induce certain biases, since the respondents would be conditioned by a desirability of Olympic values. However, we have to a series of surveys on the attitudes of citizens vis-à-vis major social issues - including sport - illustrating the evolution of public opinion vis-à-vis values Olympic . We consider that the Olympics participated in a form of globalization of sport [2] and made it possible to create specific values ​​common to all nations. As much as there are surveys focused on athlete attitudes or satisfaction surveys[3] among the public present at the Olympic Games, it is as difficult to measure the attitudes of citizens and the evolution of their behavior with regard to the practice of sport. The surveys carried out by the World Values ​​Survey are among the few cross-cultural surveys with complete data on the attitudes and values ​​of citizens whatever their socio-economic level, with a series of questions relating to sports practices.

It is precisely from the results of these surveys that we would like to show the relationship between the responses of the people questioned and the meaning of their sport practice when it exists . It is not a question of determining an objective expression of these values , but of analyzing the liveliness of the ethical principles at the heart of the Olympic values . Does the practice of sport have an impact on other social attitudes ? Does it relate to competition or personal expression ? The professionalisation of sport has -t she upstaged the art Olympic values relating to the taste of eff ort and teamwork ? We will discuss the relationship between the Olympics and the historical development of physical education then analyze the empirical results of the relationship between Olympic values ​​and sports practices before studying the way in which these values ​​are confronted with the emergence of values. post-materialists focused on personal development and the primacy of quality of life.  

 

1) The Lympic Games and physical education    

 

The Lympic Olympics were instituted with a universal perspective of education in the fraternity of peoples through sport. It was about cultivating a taste for effort and making sport even more accessible to the public. The Olympic Charter is a document inscribing these fundamental values ​​for participation not only in the Games but in the Olympic spirit. By the time the first Olympiads were held in 1896, only thirteen nations were competing with 285 participants and 42 events.[4] . The Olympic Games then arose when sport remained mostly confined to the military sphere. Indeed, in the late 19 th century sports policies aimed military discipline. In France, the first physical education programs were then intended for soldiers to improve their physical resistance.[5] . A hygiene discourse, making sport the determining element of good bodily hygiene, then spread in European societies.

The Olympics were used to illustrate the prowess and capabilities of a nation. The journalist Georges Rozet had accompanied the French delegation to the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912 and dreamed of " cities which, as an example for the training of a whole people, would be organized, by bias, in schools of hygiene and sport. "  [6] . Other promoters of Pierre de Coubertin's Olympic ideal, such as Carl Diem in Germany, emphasized the educational virtues of the Olympic Games and the need to adapt national education programs to these values.[7] . Pierre de Coubertin was even very attached to the promotion of a sports amateurism allowing all individuals, whatever their origin and their social condition, to practice sport and to rise to a form of universality.[8] . This rise was both sporting and artistic since the Olympic Games have never been dissociated from the pleasure of the spectators .[9] . Olympic events contribute to the dissemination of the Olympic values ​​through the shows offered and the presentation of a variety of disciplines.

To measure the internalization of these values ​​within the practice of sport, it is necessary to refer to the statistical surveys allowing to cross the report of the respondents to the practice of sport with their personal values. In the late 1970s, Roman Czula had studied the responses of athletes to a questionnaire to analyze their relationship to Olympic idealism. It turned out that there was no relation between the athlete's practice and the Olympic ideal ; in other words, the athletes were able to refer to the Olympic values ​​without them being at the center of their sports practices [10] . He thus highlighted a disjunction between the Olympic ideal and the functioning of sports structures involving excessive professionalization. Pierre Bourdieu denounced the effects of the " globalization of the Olympic spectacle ". According to him, the media spectacle of these Games led to " the appearance of a sports policy of the States oriented towards international success, the symbolic and economic exploitation of victories and the industrialization of sports production which implies the use of doping and authoritarian forms of training ”    [11] . Criticism of the gap between the Olympic ideal and the evolution of organizations serving this ideal does not date from the 1990s since in 1959, George Orwell declared that international sport was marred by jealousy and disrespect between nations. , the Olympic Games becoming a " war without shooting "  [12] . Bluntly accused of racism (Berlin Games in 1936)[13] and neocolonialism in the 1960s (with the idea of ​​standardizing rules and codes specific to Western countries), the conduct of the Olympic Games has often been the object of the most severe criticisms[14] . We can even consider with Jeffrey O. Segrave that the Olympism is part of the post-modern repertoire where individuals are aware of the way in which the Olympic structures operate while adhering to the values ​​promoted by the Olympic Charter.[15] .

While it is important to understand the attitude of the public towards the Olympic values , it is important to distinguish between their attitude towards the ritual of the Games and their attitude towards the values. The difficulty of this posture is due to a reality : the taste for effort and the surpassing of oneself involve a very difficult preparation of the athlete and accentuate a logic of professionalization while the attitude of the public is motivated not by research competition but through pleasure in sporting activity and often amateurism. When we examine the ideas propagated by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, we see that he was not only influenced by the elitist tradition of British physical education, but that there was a real philosophy of life. addressed to all and not only centered on the idea of ​​competition. Sport was seen as belonging to popular culture : Pierre de Coubertin thought that it would support the evolution of society by bringing values ​​of peaceful coexistence, tolerance and social or moral education.  [16] . The Olympic values ​​promoted by Pierre de Coubertin show how an aristocratic imagination (centered on the code of honor) and a democratic imagination (respect for others, tolerance, participation of all) are united. The values ​​participate in what Cornelius Castoriadis calls " imaginary social meanings "  [17] , that is to say the ideas linked to affects / representations / intentions. An imaginary social meaning is not demonstrated, it is not part of rationality, but designates the set of collective beliefs which make sense in the eyes of individuals coming from the same social set : it is embodied in representations social underlying the actions and feelings of individuals. It can be said in a way that the Olympic values ​​coexist ancient imaginary meanings based on the code of honor, respect for traditions and modern imaginary meanings based on a demand for civic participation. If the Olympic values ​​are part of the cultural history of Western societies  [18] , it is not so much their resurgence that surprises as their trans- cultural adaptation . It then becomes necessary to empirically analyze the reception of these values ​​in current sports practices.