Dan2016 said:
The Hegelian said:
yaco said:
Dan2016 said:
Are we all complicit in this continuing charade that is pro cycling?
We're still watching it, buying stuff and all that crap.
Just throwing the question out there, so to speak.
I feel sorry for you - Sport has been corrupt from day one - Have you just realised this situation after so many years? IT is what it is.
Yeah - and it's good because it is what it is.
Pro-cycling needs institutional corruption, hyper capitalism, financial anarchy-chaos + whatever chemicals get thrown into the mix to earn the victory salutes. That
is the sport! Always has been. That's it's beauty, madness, virtue and vice. That's the aesthetics of it. And that's what we as consumers, consume.
Procycling has always been manic-capitalist-chess on wheels; brutal, dirty, uncouth. Trying to extract some pure and noble essence from it is like to extract the lemon flavour from a lemon, desiring something orange flavoured. i.e. cycling's dirty, brutal, ignoble aspect
is its essence.
I'm not sure Hegel. I like the 'manic-capitalist-chess on wheels' though, nice description.
I never really understand 'it is what it is' arguments. If we apply that to all aspects of life it doesn't get us very far, other than somehow finding virtue in the worst excesses and corruption. Yes there is a beauty in the brutal and ruthless aspects, I agree completely. That applies to all road racing at any decent level of course, not just pro. But these passive observations ignore the realities for the individual 'factory workers' at the pro level. It's a fixed deck for them (if that's the right expression?). The very drive and ambition that gets them in the game makes their choice to dope inevitable. Is it really a choice? I would argue the choice is so constricted as to be rendered almost meaningless, and they are being exploited for corporate advertising via our entertainment. The exploitation is cemented by the dangling carrot of big personal financial gain. The grand illusion is the workers think the choice is theirs and the public decry them for it, but the existing model fixed the choice from the outset. The sham ritual sacrifices are made, the 'bad apples' ousted, and the merry-go-round goes on. (There are a tiny fraction of outliers in this equation, the Basson's, Gilles Delion's etc).
I don't accept 'it is what it is', and I don't see much beauty in this model, other than a nihilistic beauty (and I really like a bit of nihilism). There can be another model for pro cycling, just as there can for anything else. Maybe there never will be, but there can be. 'It is what it is' is a bit meaningless really isn't it, a tautology if you like? We are consuming pro cycling like we consume everything else; passively. A mass of recepticals endlessly consuming without engaging. (okay maybe that's a bit hyperbolic).
Solutions? God knows. Maybe one solution as a start could be to legalise doping. Not as contradictory as it seems, though it obviously isn't addressing the existing 'manic-capitalist' or hyper-capitalist model. But it could maybe at least go some ways to protecting the riders health.
Maybe limit corporate stake? Reduce the demand on the riders, shorter stage lengths etc? Instill an ethic counter to the current 'win at all costs' (aka 'profit is God')? etc. I don't know, just making stuff up now, solutions would need a lot of thought.
Maybe, ultimately, it's a fantasy.
Anyone here with ideas on realistic solutions, a different model for pro cycling?
(Just out of curiosity, 'it is what it is' isn't very Hegelian is it? Does his philosophy, dialectic etc., not influence your thinking on this? Would it not be something like: Thesis - Clean cycling; Antithesis - Beautiful ruthless manic-capitalist doped cycling; Synthesis - Co-Operative capital non-exploitative cycling?)
An Insider-Outsider model, would say, it is not a dialectic. It is legal(allowed) to dope. The peloton are quite accepting, because it is a selective sample. Those who do not wish to dope, have been filtered out in the feeder levels. How many have criticised Armstrong? Not the Ricco type criticism, the 'bad apples' criticism. Jan Ullrich's aphorism 'if you can't add two and two together, I can't help you' is the most enlightening. Lance comes back in 2010, the peloton embraces him, and 7 riders on Astana embraced him and moved against Contador on the squad.
The only thing that potentially complicates this, is motors.
I still think the peloton sees motors, in much the same way it sees pharmaceutical enhancement(s).
So, doping is legal.
The WADA thresholds affirm this, they still provide an IQ piss test for you to pass. and parse. parse the metabolites.
The only disconnect I can discern, is the Outsider ignorance. They cannot see what the reality is. But this is like most things in reality, I would love to be able to speak to a political journalist in the press gallery in the capital of a Nation, and the things which never go to press. And I don't merely mean, which MP is sleeping with his staffers/assistant. Deep State, or Michael Glennon's Double Government. but that was not what I meant, I meant, on the elected gov't level, speaking to the press corps, for the stuff that does not go to press.
So, I actually think the Outsider-Insider is a settling at an equilibrium. You may say this is the synthesis. Well, I think this analogy is not that precise, but I have not studied Hegel's work.
I had a conversation with Professor Julian Savulescu, an Australian philosopher who holds a chair of ethics at Oxford. He promotes legalising PEDs, and follows the Shleck brothers on twitter.
again, I have not read his work in the academy, but I told him I had a lay agreement with his view to have PEDs legal. But I corrected him on Armstrong. I first said, I agree, and without being able to define what sport was(me, unable to offer a cogent definition), I explained to Prof Savulescu Armstrong> see below:
It was and was not, PEDs. It was the resources (of which PEDs, is but one), tilted in LA's favour.
- primarily economic resources
- cancer brand, and Thom Wiesel, brought resources to July(Tour de France) which rendered most competition impotent
- see for eg: Raimondas Rumsas, for Lampre, neutralised for TTT, beats Beloki, into second, in Tour de France. * have I just contradicted myself, since he was on the logistics and jiffy bag of Edita Rumsas? no, I have not, he still put 3 minutes or so, w/o the TTT, into Rumsas. Give Rumsas the resources backing Lance, the logistics, the focus on July, Ferrari, the intra-TdF doctors, Rumsas puts the 3 minutes into Lance
- Armstrong being a unit for corporate American, the manifestation of the brand of cancer, was his greatest 'sporting(cycling)' talent.*
*ofcourse this was not a talent, well, only in the most abstract way, where his financial resources are talents. which they aren't. i made my point...
- Lance's power bought Heras to ride for him. And it bought Verbruggen, and to
sick* the UCI President on to Iban Mayo. *
sick, in the western definition of getting a
dog to
attack someone. 'sick the dog onto him'.
- Lance had Sarkozy on speeddial.
- Lance tested positive to epo at Tour de Suisse in 2001, and got the Aigle hq to cover it up.
- Lance had Wiesel and Stapleton support the infancy of the project, and Nike had funded the bribe Gorski has paid Verbruggen in the hotel room in 1999 cortisone positive.* so, how they to know Lance had the time split from Passage de Gois and could beat the Swiss rider Alex Zulle? they did not. Which is why this furore surrounding Trump is also BS, because it is re-engineering history, DT did not even win popular vote*.
*popular vote ceteris paribus, so what was the unpopular vote then, sans Russian interference. you get the point. It is liberal media beat-up.
- Lance was raising the money men on VC from Wiesel contacts, to buy the ASO from Madame Amaury around 2010.
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