Dimitris Platchias. Berkshire Encyclopedia of Extreme Sports. Editor: Douglas Booth & Holly Thorpe, Berkshire, 2007.
The ancient Greek word agon is the root of the English word agony, and it means a fight or a contest in physical, psychological, or ideological context. Agones were ancient Greek endurance contests in which combatants demonstrated their skill through strenuous competitive games or activities. Agonizomai or agonizesthai means “to struggle” or “to strive.” For the Greeks agon was a never-ending struggle to perceive clearly and judge the things around us. The Greeks used the word agon to refer to the war between the Greeks and the Persians, to a trial for justice, and even to the life of married partners. Soldiers strive to attain victory in warfare, athletes strive to attain victory in athletic games, and all of us are in a perpetual struggle between two sides in sport, morality, learning, fighting, and so forth. For the Greeks, in pretty much all aspects of life, whereas victory was the goal, the essence was the struggle.
Usage of Agon
In a collection of essays published in 1968, Jean-Pierre Vernant, Marcel Detiene, and Jacqueline de Romilly spoke of Greek warfare as an agon, a contest like a tournament with ceremonies and rules. However, according to the story of the mantis—the Greek word for prophet or seer—Tisamenos, it is unlikely that the term agon was in general use for “battle” before the Persian invasions. When Tisamenos asked the Delphic oracle about a child, Pythia predicted that he would win five agones. Thus, he trained for the pentathlon and almost won at the Olympics. In fact, he had lost only in wrestling. The Lacedaemonians (Spartans) then realized that the oracle meant five battles and persuaded Tisamenos to become their seer. He then helped the Lacedaemonians win five victories, beginning with the battle of Plataia in 479 BCE. W. K. Pritchett claims that the extension of the word agon from agora (a place of congregation, marketplace) in Homer to either an athletic or a military contest seems to have developed more or less simultaneously. According to Peter Krentz, the earliest text to use the term agon in the sense of “battle,” Aeschylus’s Eumenides, dates to 458 BCE.
The usage of agon is by no means restricted to athletic or physical activities. Isocrates, for instance, uses agon and agonizesthai when he discusses his educational principles. In a speech to Nicocles written about 370 BCE, Isocrates writes: “no athlete is so called upon to train his body as is a king to train his soul; for not all the public festivals in the world offer a prize (epathlon) comparable to those for which you who are kings strive (agonizesthai) every day of your lives” (Norlin, 1980 $§II). The Socratic dialectic is also said to have been in essence a competitive practice. According to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato’s Socrates invented another type of agon, a new contest that was a mental form of wrestling or fighting. Further, in ancient Greece even poetry was an agonistic event. The ancient Greek poet Hesiod is reputed to have traveled around Greece winning prizes for his hymns. And according to many commentators, the Pythian Games at Delphi started out as poetry competitions, and athletic competitions followed. Finally, in ancient Greek drama (both in comedy and tragedy), agon refers to a formal debate (contest) that takes place between two characters, usually with the chorus acting as the judge. The typical agon in Greek tragedy consisted of two set speeches, each followed by two—rarely three—lines from the chorus. However, according to some commentators, it is an exaggeration to say that this kind of agon was a traditional part of the drama with fixed rules. Tragedy began as a choral dance, and any such kind of agon was not likely until the introduction of the second actor.
Historical Background: Early Period
In Paul and the Agon Motif, Victor Pfitzner talks interchangeably about the “agon motif” and the “agon image” or “athletic imagery.” According to most commentators, the concept of agon originated in ancient Greece. The idea of developed competitive contests is typically Greek. According to Pfitzner, physical training in the sense of culture of the body played no important independent role in the other ancient cultures. Wherever such training was practiced it was primarily for military purposes. For the ancient Greeks the spirit of contention and competition was one of the major sources of impetus urging them on to activity and self-assertion. Pfitzner writes, “It is thus understandable why the word ‘agon,’ apart from being used to designate the agones [contests in athletics, riding, and music], found such a wide use in the thought and language of the Greeks. It was used not only for the united struggle of the people in war, but also for every kind of contest in civil life…not only in the field of athletics was the victor celebrated. Feats in every field of endeavor were acclaimed, so that the entire civic life of a Greek became, as it were, an Agon” (Pfitzner 1967, 16-17).
The oldest myths of Greek literature are about contests between the gods. Rivalry between the gods can be found both in the Homeric epics, especially in the Iliad, and in Hesiod. The latter pictures the contest for power between the god Zeus and the representative and champion of mortals, Prometheus, in the form of an agon. The athletic contests—agones—stood under the protection of a deity to whose honor and service the whole assembly was dedicated. The agones had a holy nature. Athletics, especially to the ancient Greeks, were far more than just games. They represented important ritual and one of the fundamental forces of civilization. Jakob Burckhardt (1963) introduced the term agon to describe the ancient Greek culture. Since then Greek athletics have been viewed as a natural fulfillment of the agon. They represent the need to compete and win acclaim as an individual. In line with Nietzsche, both Burckhardt and Poliakof (1988) have argued for the importance of agon to ancient Greek civilization.
Pfitzner says the Pre-Socratic philosophers mark the beginning of a philosophical picture of agon. In the writings of the Pre-Socratics, we find not only that wisdom alone is of value to the state but also that the emphasis is on the exercise of the soul over the exercise of the body. The Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus had already suggested the Cynic-Stoic picture of the agon of the sage in his struggle to subject his impulses to the law of reason. Democritus defines the struggle against the passions as a matter of exercise and discipline. Plato, in line with the Pre-Socratics, saw the athletic contests of his time reach an exaggerated importance and tried to lead sports to serve their original (according to him) purpose, that is, as a preparation for war. In the Platonic dialogue “Gorgias,” Socrates says that he seeks for the truth, trying to live and die as a virtuous man. He sees the whole life of a philosopher striving to live and die seeking for the truth as an agon. In both Platonic and Stoic thought, the word agon means a battle or a struggle between reason or the rational part of the soul and the desires and passions. A difference exists, however, as to what the end or the aim of such a struggle is. According to Plato, the soul struggles to gain a vision of the eternal ideas (universals) of justice and knowledge, whereas according to the Stoic tradition, the agon has as its end apatheia (freedom from the violent feelings) and ataraxia (freedom from disturbance). In other words, the goal according to the Stoic tradition is peacefulness of the mind.
Lastly, Aristotle makes frequent use of the athletic imagery in his Nichomachean Ethics. The goal of the agon of reason over the impulses and desires, according to Aristotle, is to achieve eudemonia or eudaimonia. Eudaimonia, for Aristotle, is the opposite of kakodaimonie (kako = bad, evil; daimon = soul). Eudaimonia (eu = good; daimon = soul) is the “truthful” happiness for a person. This state of mind is to be found between the extremes of exaggeration and ellepsis. As the expert in wrestling avoids overtraining or undertraining, the pursuit of eudemonia always aims at the middle ground between two extremes. Finally, sports, alongside art, philosophy, and music, were an integral aspect of the philosophy of kalokagathia, which was based on the ideals of beauty and value (kalós kai agathós = beautiful and good).
Later Period: The Moral Athlete
Plato and the Pre-Socratics saw the athletic contests of their time reach an exaggerated importance. In a similar spirit, the Cynic-Stoic tradition argued for the superiority of exercise of the soul against the exercise of the body. The Cynic-Stoic tradition first developed a complete picture of the agon of the sage or the philosopher. And according to Pfitzner, Paul was dependent on the Cynic-Stoic diatribe to elucidate his Christian concept of agon. The task of the philosopher is portrayed by the Cynic-Stoic tradition as an agon against pleasure and pain, and the ideal of kalokagathia receives a decidedly ethical interpretation. The wise man’s struggle for virtue while using his reason and self-control was the true agon (also found in Paul). The hero Hercules is used as a great example of a moral athlete. According to Epictetus, every person is to be used in the exercise of self-discipline, even the one who is reviled because he exercises “my dispassionateness, my gentleness.” The goal of the moral agon became peace of mind and satisfaction, which replaced glory. The sage wasn’t the object of adulation like the athlete.
Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenistic philosopher, proposes that the true agon of life that is of intrinsically holy nature is the struggle for virtue against passions and vices. Philo mocks the efforts of the athletes and all kinds of athletic activities. According to him, superior physical strength and prowess can be observed even in animals, and, further, physical injury, which is normally punishable, is rewarded in the arena. However, we must note that according to Norman Gardiner (1930), in ancient Greece, as opposed to the Roman Empire, contests were intimately related to the concept of arête (excellence, virtue, honor). Xenophon, for instance, writes that honor is the object of agonal effort “and herein precisely lies the difference between a man and other animals, in this outstretching after honor” (Morford and Clark 1976, 180).
Philo argues that whereas athletes are interested only in the improvement of the body, the philosopher is engaged in the agon of life or, in other words, in the agon of virtue. Philo uses both the athletic and the military imagery. Above all he was a faithful Jew. Pfitzner tells us that the agonist for Philo is a fighter for God. God has replaced in Philo the judges and the athlothetes (organizers of athletic competitions) of the ancient Olympic Games. God is the athlothetis, he is the one who prepared the world as an arena and the one who awards the prizes and crowns all toils.
Jewish and Christian religious authorities have used athletic metaphors and imagery to enhance their rhetorical devices. According to Paul, for instance, life is like a contest (agon), and the prize (epathlon) offered to the athlete of life is that he or she will go to heaven. The agon motif of this era finds its expression in Paul’s phrase “to fight as a soldier.” As soldiers must strive to attain victory in warfare, so the evangelist must strive to proclaim the gospel, notwithstanding the difficulty. As with Philo’s view of the agon, Paul’s fighter is an agonist of God who is ready to yield the honor to God and who has his epathlon granted by God rather than claiming it for himself (as opposed to what the Cynic-Stoic tradition held). When Paul was imprisoned, just before his execution, he wrote in his final letter: “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the course; I have kept the faith. From now on, there is stored up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day; and not to me only, but also to all those who have loved his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:7-8). However, we must note that the central characteristic of the concept of agon we find in both Philo and Paul, namely, that the agon is a pious one, is found also in the Cynics.
An underlying similarity clearly exists between the contemporary athlete and the moral athlete. The contemporary athlete, apart from the physical dimension of his or her agon, is a moral athlete. Athletes today are in a perpetual agon or struggle for virtue against passions and vices, too. The latter may refer to drugs, steroids, or to an unhealthy way of life in general. No one likes the athlete who fails to pass an antidoping test. Whether or not an athlete uses drugs is a serious matter, central to the discussions after a race or a game. We admire athletes who manage to win in this agon for virtue, and we have contempt for those who don’t.
An illustrative case is the 100-meter British Olympic medalist Linford Christie. In 1999 at the routine antidoping test at a meet in Dortmund, Germany, he was found guilty of using the banned drug nandrolone. A leak of the story to the news media resulted in the cancellation of the £100,000 contract with his sponsor, Puma. Although the British Athletic Federation found him to be not guilty, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) overruled and confirmed the suspension. Christie, who was once Britain’s favorite athlete and captain of the British Olympic team, was absent from the team in London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, even though he states he attempted to get involved. It appears that agon cannot be divorced from arête. Without arête agon may degenerate into shameless self-aggrandizement based on win-at-all-cost attitude. Above all, we want our athletes to be moral athletes. As Paul puts it in his final letter, we want them to fight the good fight.
Agon Motif, Play, and Education
Johan Huizinga (1950) contrasts agon and play. He notes that the ancient Greeks made a verbal distinction between contest (agon) and play. Most importantly, according to them, agon involved the element of “seriousness.” Contests of every description played an enormous part in ancient Greek culture, and “nonseriousness” was not a rule explicitly expressed in the word agon. Nevertheless, Huizinga suggests that we should group agon with play. The central claim of Huizinga’s influential Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture is that an underlying identity exists between play and contest or agon. Play, for Huizinga, is never synonymous with any single, isolated feature of play but rather is a notion that refers to a generic human propensity (hence the label “homo ludens”). He says the agon in ancient Greek life or the contest anywhere else in the world bears all the formal characteristics of play and, as to its function, belongs almost wholly to the sphere of the festival, which is playsphere. According to Huizinga, we cannot separate the contest as a cultural function from the complex “play-festival-rite.” He mentions that Plato uses paignion (play or game) for the armed ritual dances and says that the fact that the majority of Greek contests were fought out in deadly earnest is no reason for separating the agon from play or for denying the play character of the former. We can see this by contrasting the ancient Olympic Games (the playsphere festivals, according to Huizinga) to the institutionalized barbarism in the gladiator contests of the Roman Empire, which, according to Gardiner (1930), were brutalized events catering to the cravings of a detached society that found the ancient Greek events unappealing.
Play needs to be taken seriously. Huizinga observes that not only agon but also play involve the element of seriousness as well as rules and limitations. Huizinga says that seriousness is one of the most important characteristics of real play. Lastly, following Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man, he sees play as serving nothing other than itself—not any set of external needs or desires. According to him, both play and agon are largely devoid of purpose. That is, the action begins and ends in itself, and the outcome does not contribute to the necessary life processes of the group. To Huizinga the popular Dutch saying to the effect that “it is not the marbles that matter, but the game” expresses this notion clearly enough.
According to the sociologist Roger Caillois (1961), games are playful activities. Although influenced by Huizinga’s ideas, Caillois used the term agon in a more restricted sense to refer only to one of the four basic types of game. Agon applies to games based on skill as opposed to those based on chance (alea), imitation (mimicry), or vertigo (ilinx = whirlpool). The concept of alea appears to be unlike the concept of agon in that it represents an emphasis on destiny or fate and the denial of merit of skill as basis of a contest. However, as Caillois observes, an underlying similarity exists between agon and alea, namely, they both provide a kind of equality often denied in real life. In both cases players can escape the real world and enter an artificial world with the same rules for everyone; in the case of agon all players have the same possibility of proving their superiority, and in the case of alea all players have the same probability favored by chance. We might do well here to contrast alea and agon to ilinx. The latter refers to a condition that can be attained by whirling, dancing, tumbling, spinning, and so forth. We might say that this condition can also be attained by drinking or using drugs and other forms of self-destructive behavior. It is difficult to see how some of these activities can be classified as games because they are not subject to rules or limitations. As opposed to alea and agon, the pleasure in ilinx apparently comes from a refusal to acknowledge rules or limits on appropriate behavior.
It appears that ilinx is a feature of today’s extreme sports. The latter are celebrated for their adrenaline-pumping thrills. Snowboarders for instance, emphasize frequently the total sense of freedom they experience. Notwithstanding, extreme sports appear to be a special kind of activities which combine agon and ilinx. In the case of extreme sports, it appears that the athletes can achieve ilinx while being subjects to rules or limitations. Extreme sports involve an element of seriousness as well as rules and limitations but are based on skill (as opposed to based on chance). As for the moral dimension of agon, the same considerations apply to extreme sports athletes. Above all, we want them to be moral athletes.
Edward Kuhlman (1994) argues for the intimate relation between agon and arête and shows the significant role that the conception of ancient Greek agonistic spirit can play in contemporary education. According to Kuhlman, agon involves struggle, but it doesn’t imply raw aggression. One cannot define agonism solely in terms of its aggressive element as though it were bestial and barbaric. All life is a struggle, says Kuhlman. Technology attempts to deceive us that it is not. Agonism was central in the ancient Greek civilization, but today people have forgotten the basic truth and wisdom of this reality. Kuhlman says:
I received a revelation during my school-teaching days in the 1960s when the word “bored” was ever on students’ lips. I don’t recall my own pretechnology generation using that word very often. Boredom is a function of excess leisure. Too much time, especially time made available by technologies that eliminate time-consuming effort, creates unhealthy moods which cannot tolerate unscheduled time. When a culture alters the natural tempo and rhythm which nature prescribes, pathological dislocations occur. Alterations in biorhythmic patterns which cause metabolic distress, sleep deprivation, and other organic disorders have been documented. Psychological maladjustment results from disharmony with the natural order created by seasonal variations and survival tasks… Anyone from the hectic, time-driven West who has visited the pastoral peoples of East Africa, notably the Maasai, cannot help but envy their unhurried, uncluttered pace and the organicity of their relationships … Exercise and cardiovascular activity, which are normally undergone in the course of typical agonal survival, have been cavalierly brushed aside as machines now replace the natural modes of transportation and labor. Consequently, a generation of overweight, malnourished, and unconditioned, indulgent technocrats suffers from a host of diseases caused by a nonagonal culture. (Kuhlman 1994, 38-39)
Huizinga’s observation still provides the classic crystallization of the idea that the agon motif is the cornerstone on which the educational edifice must be built (Huizinga 1950, 63): “From the life of the child right up to the highest achievement of civilization one of the strongest incentives to perfection, both individual and social, is the desire to be praised and honored for one’s excellence. In praising another each praises himself. We want the satisfaction of having done something well. Doing something well means doing it better than others. In order to excel one must prove one’s excellence: in order to merit recognition, merit must be manifest. Competition serves to give proof of superiority.”