Just finished reading Sophie Hannah’s brilliant new book The Telling Error. There is an interesting question in the book:
Why is sports doping worse than stoned writers?
It is true that athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs are disqualified and vilified while artists who do the same thing never are even marginally criticized.
My answer is that so very little is required of professional athletes in return for enormous amounts of money they get that people feel cheated when even that turns out to be fake. Artists, on the other hand, give so much that nobody really cares how they arrive at creating their gift.
What do you think?
Clarissa's Blog 
competition versus creativity.
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Unlike sports, art is not a competition, especially not one with strictly determined terms.
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There’s also a desire among many (ime mostly men though I’m sure some women share this) to think of sports as being carried out for sports’ sake and improvement of character through participation. If you grow up in or near the southern US as a boy, you hear a _lot_ about the character improving aspects of athletic competition.
Therefore ‘cheating’ by taking ‘shortcuts’ to gain an ‘unfair advantage’ is seen as morally corrupt in a way that doping yourself up to get at or release you inner demons is not.
In other words, drugged out artists are (in theory) trying to discover themselves and their surroundings – a type of character improvement while doping is a corruption of the same process.
My guess.
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‘Thereโs also a desire among many (ime mostly men though Iโm sure some women share this) to think of sports as being carried out for sportsโ sake and improvement of character through participation. If you grow up in or near the southern US as a boy, you hear a _lot_ about the character improving aspects of athletic competition.”
– This is a VERY interesting explanation. I’ve never heard about it in my life but considering my circle of acquaintances this tells us exactly nothing. ๐
“In other words, drugged out artists are (in theory) trying to discover themselves and their surroundings โ a type of character improvement while doping is a corruption of the same process.”
– This is a brilliant explanation, thank you.
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Sports is supposedly about checking the limits of healthy (not drugged, among other things) human body. Certain drugs are known to improve performance, thus for competition to be fair, everybody must be or drugged or not drugged.
As for stoned writers, most writers aren’t stoned and you can’t say “use drugs to become a better writer.” ๐ I would guess that drugs would harm most writers rather than helping them. And, of course. as Stille said “art is not a competition”.
The post’s title sounds very strange and I didn’t even know how to answer since nothing could be further than sports and writing, in my eyes. Sports turns to primitive (don’t mean in a bad way, just descriptive) impulses of human soul, serves as a safe object for redirection of natural human/animal aggression,
Art is about thinking, trying to understand human nature and rise as above animal impulses as possible. Imo, best art is inherently humanistic rather than courting aggression.
Competition, ritual war, following rules of forbidden/allowed “war” tactics, staying within limits (of the game)
VS
Cooperation (using and enriching cultural heritage), attempting to trascend and rise above (your time, what has been said before, etc), ideally no rules. Who cares what a writer uses as long as he doesn’t harm others?
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“As for stoned writers, most writers arenโt stoned and you canโt say โuse drugs to become a better writer.โ”
– Actually, the proportion of alcoholics, drug addicts and pill-takers is extremely high among artists. Scarily high. And many have been very honest about alcohol and drugs being crucial to their artistic production.
“Sports turns to primitive (donโt mean in a bad way, just descriptive) impulses of human soul, serves as a safe object for redirection of natural human/animal aggression,”
– This thread is bringing out brilliance in people. ๐ Sophie Hannah is really a great author if she manages to do this.
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Athletes are looked up to as role models and superior human beings who get lots of endorsement and scholarship money and have lots of people informally bet money on them. An athlete’s performance can be quantified; and the best athletes in the most popular sports make a lot of money from endorsements.
Artists, on the other hand are not viewed as role models, are considered morally degenerate, and their performance is difficult to quantify. Indeed, everyone thinks that artists should be fine with starving. The best artists are not necessarily the most commercially successful. (See: Van Gogh).
I wonder how people would react to someone like
Roberto Bolle doping. Roberto Bolle is a ballet dancer who also makes money from endorsements. Most of his endorsements are for the Italian market, although I’ve seen him in Gap ads.
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// Athletes are looked up to as role models and superior human beings
Clarissa, is it true for Russia too? Never heard that idea there or in Israel. It seems to be, to a large extent, American thing rather than international.
// Artists, on the other hand are not viewed as role models, are considered morally degenerate,
Depends which artists. F.e., Russians officially adore their classical writers, and I think it’s true for other nations too, f.e. Shakespear.
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“Clarissa, is it true for Russia too? Never heard that idea there or in Israel. It seems to be, to a large extent, American thing rather than international.”
– It is very new to me, as well.
“Depends which artists. F.e., Russians officially adore their classical writers, and I think itโs true for other nations too, f.e. Shakespear.”
– I know everybody is sick to death of this but veneration of the canonical artists is an integral part of a nation-building process. Veneration of athletes is not but emotional identification with sports teams is.
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This is a very interesting question about the ballet dancer. I think people see him more as an artist than an athlete. I don’t and I never go to see ballet precisely because I never manage to see the artistic component about it.
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Based on your recommendations I finally found and read a Sophie Hannah novel (The Other Half Lives) and while there was definitely a lot to like about it (and parts are pretty horrifying in an all too realistic way) I couldn’t help but feel it was about a fourth to a third too long, which I maybe attribute to publisher demands since writers are expected to produce book-like bricks instead of letting stories tell themselves.
I have another one I haven’t gotten to yet (Little face) I’ll probably read that on my next trip (on the lovely black sea coast) and see what I think about it.
I just started Jar City (in Polish translation) by the Icelandic author Arnaldur Indriรฐason and it’s pretty good so far.
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Little Face was the first in the series and the writing was still a little uneven there. But it’s still good.
I’m envious of all these vacations you are getting! I feel like I won’t have one until maybe next summer. But have fun, nonetheless!
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Well two of my trips this year (Lithuania and Croatia) were work related (with a little socializing thrown in to the latter). But one thing I like in Europe is being able to visit very different places with different languages and cultures that are pretty close by geographically.
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“Well two of my trips this year (Lithuania and Croatia) were work related (with a little socializing thrown in to the latter).”
– And I remember a certain trip to Turkey!
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// โSports turns to primitive (donโt mean in a bad way, just descriptive) impulses of human soul, serves as a safe object for redirection of natural human/animal aggression,โ
– This thread is bringing out brilliance in people. ๐
Not at all. Konrad Lorenz wrote it in his book “On aggression”. I always loved reading books about animals, and he refers to people too in that book Here is an excerpt in English
Click to access Lorenz,%20On%20Aggression.pdf
Entire (very interesting) book in Russian:
ะะณัะตััะธั (ัะฐะบ ะฝะฐะทัะฒะฐะตะผะพะต ยซะทะปะพยป)
http://lib.ru/PSIHO/LORENC/agressiya.txt
Parts 13. ะกะต ัะตะปะพะฒะตะบ… 233 14. ะะฐะดะตััั ะธ ะฒะตัั… 257 are about people
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The physical differences between the two sets of drugs are important too. The effects on performance are really apples and oranges.
There don’t exist any drugs that necessarily make an artist better at their craft. Psychoactive drugs have strong effects but there’s not the direct improvement in performance, where steroids dramatically boost muscle mass.
Athletes often hear ‘if you don’t roid/dope/etc you have no chance of winning’, (and it’s true) because these drugs so dramatically and directly improve athletic performance. You would never tell an aspiring artist, ‘ah well you aren’t on LSD, you have no chance of writing a good book’.
Psychoactive drugs have much milder effects on ability in comparison.
Many are mentioning the competition, but that isn’t all of it because the winner of a poetry competition would face 0 ire for using drugs.
Interestingly, many actors use steroids to bulk up for movie parts, but no one seems to care about that.
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“You would never tell an aspiring artist, โah well you arenโt on LSD, you have no chance of writing a good bookโ.”
– I heard from an actual writer in Russia that he kept hearing this all the time about alcohol. But again, that’s Russia. (And Ukraine is, sadly, the same in that regard.)
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I don’t think it’s limited to Russia and Ukraine, many ‘western’ creative writers have been positively renowned for their alcohol intake – Hemingway, Dylan Thomas and Djuna Barnes to name but three. They each were part of a group where drinking was an expected par of daily activity. I’m not certain what it did for their creativity. I’m a writer and I know I don’t write well on alcohol, however caffeine is essential.
There were quite a few official experiments with the effects of LSD – and millions of unofficial ones – I don’t know what conclusions were reached about its effects on creativity, but some highly creative people have been more or less destroyed by acid.
And doping has been endemic in the sport of cycling for decades. Lance Armstrong was merely the arrogant tip of a huge iceberg and if anyone thinks it has now all stopped they are probably kidding themselves. Personally I don’t see the problem, if athletes want to risk their health for a temporary enhancement it’s usually their choice. Sport is their job, plenty of other people have jobs which include a risk to health. But then maybe I don’t understand sport.
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