SPORT AND ANTISPORT

1. To distinguish objective sport from subjective sport on the basis of bi-directional competition from uni-directional competition, the former arguably female and the latter male.

2. To further distinguish noumenal sport (upper class) from phenomenal sport (lower class) on the basis of individualistic bi- and/or uni-directional competition from collectivistic bi- and/or uni-directional competition, either of which can be objective or subjective.

3. Hence to conceive of bi-directional individualistic competition as noumenally objective and bi-directional collectivistic competition as phenomenally objective in relation to upper- and lower-class manifestations, respectively, of female sport, but to conceive, by contrast, of uni-directional collectivistic competition as phenomenally subjective and uni-directional individualistic competition as noumenally subjective in relation to lower- and upper-class manifestations, respectively, of male sport.

4. Contrasted to sport, of whichever gender and class orientation, I shall posit the concept of antisport, which would likewise be divisible, in general terms, between bi-directional objectivity (female) and uni-directional subjectivity (male) on both a noumenal (upper) and a phenomenal (lower) basis.

5. I hold that whereas sport is generally positive and naturalistic, antisport, by contrast, will generally be negative and artificial, standing closer to inorganic primacy than to organic supremacy, and thus having more of a heathenistic than a Christian connotation.

6. Where, exactly, the 'natural' ends and the 'artificial' takes over ... is not always easy to decide, but, by and large, antisport will be demonstrably more mechanistic than humanistic, making use of machines and advanced technology to the ends of furthering objective and/or subjective competition.

7. The twentieth century - and the late-twentieth century in particular - was an age of which it could be said that, despite the general prevalence of sport, antisport was more characteristic of what was truly modern or contemporary, being, to all intents and purposes, a reflection of heathenistic primacy on both noumenal and phenomenal planes.

8. In view of the female bias of the modern age, the age par excellence of both 'Britannia' and the 'Liberty Belle', it can come as no surprise that objectivity tends to take precedence, in sporting terms, over subjectivity, and that not only are objective sports generally more popular and pervasive than subjective ones, but that primacy is generally more popular and pervasive than supremacy, making for a situation in which mechanistic negativity is hegemonic over humanistic positivity.

9. Even sport becomes influenced by and to some extent undergoes modification in the direction of antisport, as primacy strengthens its grasp on contemporary Western society at the expense of supremacist traditions, both objective and, especially, subjective.

10. Although much of what was humanistically 'good' would seem to have gone, in typically late-twentieth-century fashion, to the mechanistic 'dogs', whether directly or indirectly, it has to be admitted that antisport has not and is not having it 'all its own way', since there are, besides what could be termed paganistic subsport, growing indications of what I shall term Superchristian supersport, as and when the 'artificial' is synthetically transmuted towards a much more interactive context, in which the human element is once again of paramount interest, if on comparatively Superchristian terms.

11. Doubtless the synthetic transmutation of the 'artificial', be it paganistic or mechanistic, will be of crucial significance to the twenty-first century, in which, hopefully, supersport will gain the ascendancy over antisport, and thus take over from both sport and subsport the role of representing supremacy in the face of primal opposition.

12. In this respect, I do not doubt that the use of certain drugs with which to interact, on the plane of synthetic transmutation, will become both more widespread and, no less significantly, more accessible, as superhumanist criteria supersede both humanist and subhumanist criteria in the advance of supremacy at primacy's mechanistic expense.