I feel like the kid running to a pick-up game already in progress: Hey guys! Can I play too?
Hernando, do you think sport is less than art?
Maybe the belief in discrete boundaries (like I do) is foolish. It's certainly not necessary. Science, sport, nature, art - none have a monopoly on creativity, emotion, beauty, excitement - and we're better for it.
I do have sympathy with your plaint, ImaginaryPogue, in the sense that distinctions/boundaries/demarcations are used not only to mark a difference in
qualities, but often to impose a table of
quality, of greater/lesser, a hierarchy of value. In this the postmodern/deconstructionist analysis is cogent, IMO.
Like Michel Foucault, I snort and laugh every time I read this bit of Borgesian fancy:
These ambiguities, redundancies, and deficiencies recall those attributed by Dr. Franz Kuhn to a certain Chinese encyclopedia called the Heavenly Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge. In its distant pages it is written that animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the emperor; (b) embalmed ones; (c) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) those that are included in this classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel's-hair brush; (l) etcetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; 
those that at a distance resemble flies.
In his "The Order of Things", Foucault goes on to comment:
This book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of thought—our thought, the thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography—breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old definitions between the Same and the Other.
But while I accept Foucault's theme that distinctions can be arbitrary and often reflect the ends of the creator, which is the starting point of the great intellectual attack on racism, sexism and a host of other "isms" of the past half-century, this seminal idea has been distorted and radicalized to assert that no distinctions are meaningful, and that all values are meaningless and subjective. Like Gaia in her angry spite, this has given birth to that hundred-armed monster, Political Correctness, in whose suffocating embrace we now uncomfortably chafe.
It seems to me that Foucault's deeper point is not that distinctions and values are not possible, but that there is often a logical disconnect between distinctions and value. I believe that Foucault would agree that while the Emperor's classification is amusing, the Linnaean system is still safe. My fond fantasy is that, were Foucault still alive, he would disavow these would-be devotees (who, in their eager rush to inherit his mantle, are oblivious to the fact that they are trampling and soiling it) with yet another satirical parable.
Having taken the long way round
, I'm with you that I have yet to see a persuasive argument valuing art over sport. In line with this, I also agree that art does not have a monopoly on beauty (and certainly not on creativity, emotion, or excitement; anyone who's ever watched a classic World Series game 7 knows this). A citizen of classical Athens (who knew a little something about art) would never have said this. In fact, a good deal of classical art is
about sport.
But I and the old Athenian joe (I respectfully include you in their number, joesitz
), and, I'd like to think, Foucault as well, would find common ground in the notion that a distinction between sport and art is meaningful. I suggest that the key difference is that sport is about the pursuit of a defined, physically measurable objective (whether it be time, a height, a length, a touchdown, a basket, a run in baseball), in which the excellence in this pursuit will, as a consequence, frequently engender a recognition of some or all of the qualities, and the emotional responses, that you describe. But in the philosophy of sport as sport, beauty is a byproduct, not the ostensible objective itself (thinking otherwise is known as "showboating"; a player trying a 360-degree-triple-juke-pump-fake to the basket may excite as entertainment, but God help him if he misses. Coaches/players/viewers would be yelling in unison: "stop ****ing around!!! Play the damn game!!!!!")
Art, on the other hand, is essentially about human communication. The
objective of art, and the intention of the artist, is to elicit emotion, to evoke a sense of beauty, not as a byproduct in the pursuit of a more fundamental goal, but as the end itself. I've often thought that much of the art/sport controversies in skating have to do with the attempt to applying sporting measuring sticks to the aesthetic aspect for which they are not fitted.
I also agree with you that there is a lot of beauty without art. Incredible technical feats can indeed be beautiful. And, not all art is pleasant and beautiful (as Serious Business mentioned.)
I still think that figure skating is best described as a blend of sport and art. There is an expressive/interpretive component, and there is the technical. Competitive figure skating, I contend, should put the sport before the art, although one should demand a minimum of both from the champions and heroes.
I agree with you, prettykeys. To me, figure skating is like Chinese hot and sour soup; it's not exclusively hot, nor solely sour, which may be maddening for partisans who prefer exclusively the one or the other. But for people like me, the fact that the flavor is a singular, not easily separable "hotsour" is the source of its charm.
Your second comment (referring to Serious Business' words) reminds me of the Modernist critic Clement Greenberg:
"All profoundly original art looks ugly at first."
As the Greeks first speculated with great intuition, "beauty" can be viewed as another avatar of "truth", and truth is not always pretty. My rearrangement of these thoughts (which is what I think you are getting at) is: great art is always beautiful, but not always immediately recognized as such, and often unsettling.
I think skaters are very good athletes and are extremely well conditioned.
Thinking of Bolt, we do see competitions about how fast skaters are and how good their endurance is. But that is speed skating.
Figure skating is something much different. The best sprinters are the one's who can run the fastest. Form does not count and no interpretation or choreograpghy is necessary to win a race.
I agree with you, too, Hernando. As you can see, my comments are in some ways an expansion of your sentiment.
Get into the sport and get rid of the music which so few can follow and feel. :
