스포츠문화의 사회철학적 기초에 대한 고찰

Abstract

This research is to study the essence of sport culture in terms of cultural and social philosophies. If sport is one of the cultural phenomena which reveal the desire of movement, there must be a significance to daily sport activities in explaining human existence. To approach sport philosophically, it is a fundamental work to understand the principles beneath the superficial phenomena which tend to be recognized as sport itself. This paper adopts a new method to clarify the essence of sport culture, focusing on two aspects : functionalism and conflict theory. Arguments in the functionalism aspect focus on the roles of sport which strengthen social integration. Meanwhile, the approach of conflict theory is based on the understanding that sport conceals unequal structure of class and suppressive daily life. Certainly, opportunities for engaging in sport activity have expanded, bringing with it an increase of freedom and equality, and the increase and expansion of participation in sport reflects the evolutionary change of rationality. But, sport has another side that cannot be explained by positive function. Concealed ideological effects such as compulsion of hegemony, fetishistic religion, and the creation of predominant social value as defined by the power of politics and mass media break the common idea that sport is pure. These directly-opposed interpretations of sport reveal that sport is one of the fields of popular culture in which individuals with various desires for movement and the control of class and power conflict with each other. In conclusion, sport is one of the productive labors which reveals human creativity, and ultimately, ontological enhancement. Sport is not a blind movement at all, but the structural expression of the desire of human movement, like other cultural features such as visual arts, dance, and music.