Philosopher Sartre On Boxing

[a.rihn]

My latest column over at The Pugilist discusses the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and his takes on boxing. In his last book, Critique of Dialectical Reasoning II, he examines the idea of "conflict" in society, and opens with a discussion of boxing.

One point he makes is that there are no neutral observers to violence - you either try to stop the violence or you are helping to make it happen. He goes on to lost ways the boxing audience participates in the fight - cheering or booing, for instance. "No witnesses to violence, only participants," says Sartre.

I am considering writing up a longer piece on Sartre's take on boxing. So I'm curious - have you seen this before? Or know of other philosophers who have discussed boxing? Interested to hear your thoughts.

[a.rihn]

Related: The Fight City recently posted a piece on novelist Vladimir Nabokov's take on boxing, giving us this beautiful passage:

And so the match came to an end, and when we had all emptied out onto the street, into the frosty blueness of a snowy night, I was certain, that in the flabbiest family man, in the humblest youth, in the souls and muscles of all the crowd, which tomorrow, early in the morning would disperse to offices, to shops, to factories, there existed one and the same beautiful feeling, for the sake of which it was worth bringing together two great boxers, — a feeling of dauntless, flaring strength, vitality, manliness, inspired by the play in boxing. And this playful feeling is, perhaps, more valuable and purer than many so-called “elevated pleasures.