Sport and the culture of narcissism : a critique of the integration of work and play

The culture of narcissism is the contemporary stage of mass culture and has developed as a result of the particular work practices that are common to an age of bureaucratic capitalism. People now look to leisure pursuits, and in particular the practice of sport to find the enjoyment that they no longer find in work. At the same time, activities such as sport, that are essentially activities to be enjoyed in themselves have been corrupted as they become an extension of the market and a means to further instrumental ends. Sport has became an integrated part of capitalist rationalization.

Christopher Lasch has argued that the solution to the corruption of sport is to integrate work and play, qua sport, in a manner that will bring about the socialization of the means of production. His solution has to be rejected on the basis that the formal logics of work and sport show the two activities to have mutually exclusive ends that cannot be integrated in a manner that makes any sense.

The separation of work and sport along the lines of the separation of liberal institutions can provide a solution to the corruption of sport and also limit the corrupting influence of the market.