Philosophy of Olympism by Duci Simonovic

[This is an excerpt from my very dear friend Simonovic's recently published book. Still difficult to find--like those Scotty Moncrieff translations of Proust--but well worth the hunt. Simonovic, who lives in Belgrade, is the most engaged and enraged philosopher I know. And he's got critically serious game. --mc]



P H I L O S O P H Y O F O L Y M P I S M


INTRODUCTION


The twentieth century is behind us. If we tried to determine the distinctive phenomena of that historical period, sport would surely take a prominent place. It acquired the same significance that religion had in the Middle Ages: the Olympic Games became the most important festivity of the modern world and the Olympic idea its "humanistic" gospel. Modern Olympic paganism is the form in which capitalism wiped out Christianity (as well as other religions) and became the chief ideological instrument for integrating people into the spiritual orbit of capitalism. The calendar of leading sports manifestations assumed the role of religious calendars and became a spiritual pivot, while the stadium became the most important cult venue of the modern world. Sport is not only an "ideological curtain concealing the real evil" (Adorno), it is the bourgeois means of erasing the cultural traces of mankind and destroying the emancipatory heritage of civil society. The basic aim of modern olympism is not to transform the world into a cultural community of nations, but to turn it into a "civilized" menagerie. Stadiums have become modern concentration camps in which the hope of a better world is being destroyed and modern hordes of barbarians are being generated. Sport is not only the "opium for a socially structured defect" and thus "one of the chief ways of escaping" from reality (Fromm), but also a way of degenerating man: a sports spectacle is a ritual through which the capitalist "holy spirit" inseminates people turning them into capitalistically transmuted animals.
The myth of modern olympism falls into the circle of myths by which the ideologues of West-European colonial metropoles try to obtain the "civilizing" legitimacy of their colonization of the world. It ranks with the myths of the "exploratory" character of the voyages of Columbus and the "civilizing" nature of the Catholic "missions". At the same time, the creation of the Olympic myth creates a mythological conscious and a mythological relation to the fundamental principles of capitalism: bellum omnium contra omnes and the absolutized principle of performance (Leistung) as expressed by the maxim citius, altius, fortius. The Olympic Games are a "festivity of youth" (Coubertin) - and that means flourishing of the vital force of capitalism and a revived faith in its "eternal" values. Hence the significance attached to the "holy rhythm" of the Games (every four years), which by no means must be interrupted. Modern olympism is one of the most aggressive totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, which tends to destroy man's dignified liberating spirit and "reconcile" (Comte) him to the existing world of injustice. It is one of the supporting pillars of the spiritual firmament of the 20th century and thus the chief political tool for achieving one of the main goals of monopolistic capitalism: to do away with democratic institutions and establish direct control over the working class. Coubertin's precept that direct "control in heads" must first be established in order to establish successful control in institutions, intended by the Nazis to help them to create a "new order", serves as the guiding principle of the advocates of the present "new world order". The increasing number of increasingly bloody sports manifestations is meant to divert people's attention from fundamental existential issues and weaken their capacity for judgment: sport has become the "cheapest spiritual food for the masses" (Coubertin).
The criticism of olympism should be seen in the context of capitalism becoming a global totalitarian order governed by the most powerful capitalist concerns. They have set up supranational institutions (NATO, IMF,...) that serve as "substitutes" for the institutions based on the sovereignty of citizens and nations, and form the fence of a global concentration camp within which the capitalist centers of power endeavor to enclose mankind. The so-called "international sports associations" act as the "Trojan horse" of the ruling political groups and multinational concerns, and with their authoritarian structure and "supranational" regulations were the first to have questioned national and civil sovereignty. They are the most important tool of the "new world order" for destroying national cultures and integrating people into the spiritual orbit of capitalism - at the level of slaves. Olympism is the crown of a "mondialistic" ideology which seeks to remove all normative (customary, moral, legal and religious) boundaries that could get in the way of establishing a global capitalist totalitarianism. Sport imposes rules contrary to the elementary human and civil rights modern legislation is based upon: sex segregation; right to inflict serious bodily injuries and kill; monstrous abuse of children; turning sportsmen into modern slaves; drug abuse and using sportsmen as experimental specimens; antidemocratic character of the so-called "international sports associations", particularly the IOC as an authoritarian organization which through the national Olympic Committees dictates the rules of conduct. . . . All these "details" indicate that sport is a "pure" embodiment of the social-darwinist and progressivistic spirit of capitalism and thus the basic instrument for producing a global positive one-mindedness: olympism is the cult of the existing world and the philosophy of positive life.
From this mythological relation to olympism arose a mythological relation to its founder, Pierre de Coubertin. We can say without exaggeration that the ideologues of the "free world", largely assisted by their colleagues from "real socialism", turned Coubertin into a "new Messiah", whose Olympic gospel reveals the true purpose of man's existence. "Feeling" that Coubertin belongs to the circle of "the chosen", his most devoted followers declared him to be the "divine baron" and wrote the legendary biography which affirms his messianic character and describes his messianic (Olympic) path. Coubertin himself greatly contributed to the creation of his "divine" aureole. In the modern Olympic movement he saw the "Church", in the members of the IOC he saw the "commissioners of the Olympic idea", peculiar apostles of olympism, while for himself, the "spiritual father" of the Olympic movement, he envisaged the role of the "high priest" of modern Olympic paganism. The head office of the IOC became the new Vatican. In view of Coubertin's aspirations to turn olympism into the dominant (religious, philosophical and scientific) thought of the modern era, which will supply people with a new purpose of life, we are clearly dealing with a peculiar messianic mission. What distinguishes Coubertin is the fact that he appears as the "renovator" ("renovateur") of the ancient Olympic Games - meaning a messenger of the gods of Olympus and thus the organic link between Hellenic and modern civilizations. Basing himself on the view that the Greeks "little devoted themselves to thinking, and even less to books", Coubertin wished to create a positive man and build a positive society. However, being a scribomaniac (he published over 600 books, essays and speeches), he obviously disregarded the very principle he established as one of the foundations of positive life. Coubertin should not be taken at his word. The analysis of his writings clearly shows that they were not intended to prompt the reader to consider the crucial existential questions, but to make him fanatical and induce him to follow the interests of the parasitic ruling classes. Coubertin's Olympic writings are a synthesis of political pamphlets and "truths" that seek to assume a biblical character. They do not develop a critical-liberatorian, but an apologetic-submissive conscious, and thus correspond to the "practical" philosophy they represent.
The myth of Coubertin is based on the assertion that he devoted his life to the creation of a "better world" governed by "peace" and "cooperation between nations", and that it was the reason why he "renovated" the ancient Olympic Games and inspired them with a "new" spirit. If that is so, the question is: why are the works of Pierre de Coubertin - whose written legacy amounts to over 60 000 pages - unknown to the public? How is it possible that in most countries, in which the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympic Games was pompously celebrated, not a single line from Coubertin's writings has been published? To make things even more bizarre, the main censors of Coubertin's work are the official "guardians" of his Olympic idea. The major reason for the Olympic gentlemen to assume such an attitude towards the "divine baron" lies in the fact that in his main works Coubertin appears as a militant representative of the European bourgeoisie, who elabourates the strategy and tactics of dealing with working "masses", women and "lower races". Coubertin's political writings are political instructions to rulers of the world how to efficiently deal, by means of sport and physical drill, with the struggle for liberation of the oppressed and establish a global supremacy. It is one of the main reasons why, even six decades after his death, the gentlemen from the IOC, together with those from the national Olympic Committees, do not consider publishing Coubertin's collected works, presenting instead to the public excerpts from his writings in the form of "Selected texts" ("Textes choisis"), from which almost everything indicative of the true nature of his Olympic doctrine has been omitted. Since Coubertin openly stated that capitalism was an unjust order - something that the bourgeois ideologues attempt to hide at all costs - it is quite clear why the bourgeois theory systematically "ignores" Coubertin's work.
As far as the popular thesis about the "apolitical character of sport" is concerned, even those who glorify olympism and its "founder" think that Coubertin's real "greatness" lies not in his contribution to the development of sport, but in making sport the "means of establishing bridges of cooperation between nations". Coubertin's Olympic engagement became the symbol of a "policy of peace", and Coubertin himself - a "politician of peace". It is therefore quite understandable why the last decade of his life, during which Coubertin openly appeared as a promoter of the Nazi regime, was not included in his biography, and why one of the leading interpreters and propagators of Coubertin’s olympism Yves Pierre Boulongne, trying to "explain" Coubertin's blind devotion to the Nazis and admiration of Hitler, proclaimed him a "schizophrenic". The preservation of the myth of a "peace-loving Coubertin" - who was in reality a fanatic advocate of authoritarianism and colonialism - stands before the ideologues of olympism as an impossible task. Thus, one of the main concerns of coubertenologists is how to protect the Olympic myth from the "father" of the modern Olympic Games: in order to preserve the "credibility" of the copy, the "followers" must destroy the original.

According to the same criteria by which Coubertin was pronounced the "divine baron" and "one of the greatest humanists of the 20th century", the Nazis should also be regarded as "humanists" and "peacemakers". Were the Berlin Olympics not held as a "symbol of peace" and "international cooperation"? Was it not Hitler who at the Berlin Olympics said the "famous" words: "May the Olympic flame never be extinguished!"? Were the Nazis not those who completed the archaeological excavations of ancient Olympia, with Hitler's generous contribution of 300 000 Reichsmarks? Was it not Hitler who instructed his architect Albert Speer to design plans for the largest Olympic stadium in the world with a capacity of 400 000 people? Were the Nazis not the first to have organized the carrying of the "Olympic torch" from "holy" Olympia to Berlin, which symbolized the organic closeness of Hellenic civilization and fascist Germany and was to become one of the most significant symbols of the Olympics? Was it not Coubertin who declared that the Nazi Olympics, which according to him were "illuminated with Hitler's strength and discipline", should serve as a model for the subsequent Games, and that Hitler was "one of the greatest constructors of the modern era"? Was it not Coubertin, together with the gentlemen from the IOC, who fervently supported the Nazis, and bequeathed to them his written legacy, with an appeal to protect his Olympic idea from distortion and a "mission" to bury his heart in ancient Olympia?
Trying to obtain a "humanistic" legitimacy for olympism, the bourgeois theorists use the terms denoting universal human values, recognized throughout the world as man's greatest challenge: "peace", "international cooperation", "youth", "health", "progress", "beauty"... The prevalence of humanistic ideals in the Olympic rhetoric suggests that the Olympic Games are not a value-neutral phenomenon and thus beyond good and evil. On the contrary, everything is being done to make olympism a synonym for humanism. Thus, war between nations on a sports field becomes "peaceful cooperation", while the most zealous proponents of war and fascist criminals clothing in the Olympic robe become "peacemakers": Olympic mythology is a mirror in which the greatest evil assumes an angelic air. Instead of striving for peace, olympism strives to pacify the oppressed and stop their struggle against an order based on the tyranny of the rich "elite". In the guise of "international cooperation", people's discontent, arising from their humiliating social position, is on the sports field systematically directed against other nations, and thus a "national integration" is achieved by which the class division of society is "overcome" and class exploitation concealed. The club sport has the same role: leagues have become an institutionalized war between people deprived of their rights and thus a controlled way of their pacification (depolitisation). At the same time, the introduction of the highest human ideals into the Olympic rhetoric prevents them from being used as the starting point for a criticism of the idea and practice of olympism. Following the "ancient tradition", the Olympic Games have become a symbol of "peace", although the proponents of the thesis are quite aware of the fact that the ancient Olympic Games were a "holy truce" and a spiritual preparation for the continuation of war - and that was the most important objective that Coubertin set to "his" Olympic Games. Interestingly, the bourgeois theorists "fail to notice" that Coubertin's Olympic "humanism" lacks the ideas without which modern society can hardly be imagined: freedom, equality, brotherhood. Coubertin, that "great French patriot", does not find a place for the French "tricolour" among the Olympic symbols, which should only tell us that modern olympism is fighting against the emancipatory heritage of modern society.
As for Coubertin's fanatic endeavor to protect the "pureness" of sport, as an idealized embodiment of the original principles of capitalism, from the disastrous influence of commercialism, it has been clear from the very birth of the Olympic Games that it is a lost battle. From its beginnings, sport has been part of the capitalist system of production and a means of integrating man into the capitalist order. Jean-Marie Brohm says about that: "Historically, sport followed the development of industrial capitalism. From the very beginning it has been closely connected to the mechanisms of investment, circulation and reproduction of capital. The institution of sport immediately came into the hands of trading capital and was used as a source of profit. The sale of sports spectacles and betting did not emerge together with sports professionalism, but with the first forms of the institutionalized organization of sports competitions." As capitalism entered the final stage of its development ("consumer society"), sport has become entirely commercialized: instead of displaying national banners, the Olympic Games are becoming increasingly dominated by the symbols of capitalist companies; instead of religio athletae, reigns the spirit of money; instead of a "Church", the Olympic Games are becoming a "fairground"; instead of embodying the "sanctity" of the Olympic ideals, sportsmen have become "circus gladiators"; instead of being the honourable "guardians of the Olympic spirit", the gentlemen from the IOC have become unscrupulous merchants who turned the Olympic Games into a dirty "business" worth billions of dollars.

It is interesting to note that the bourgeois theory has not devoted much space to the discussion of sport and olympism. A lack of serious analyses of olympism, which would create possibilities of its demythologization, does not indicate a philosophical and sociological "unserious ness" of the Olympic doctrine, but a paramount importance of sport to the preservation of the existing order. The bourgeois theorists do not try to hide that. For a leading American sociologist of sport, Allen Guttmann, "representational sport is a basic element of social reality" and "it is quite impossible to imagine how we might get along without it". Proceeding from the ever more somber reality of the German society, Christian von Krockow, one of the most serious German theorists of sports, asks the following question: "But, what can our civilization, apart from sports games and competitions, really offer to young people - if not drugs or violence?" Little wonder then that the bourgeois theorists treat the critics of olympism so harshly. Thus, for Paul Veyne, the criticism of olympism is "the matter of extremists, of cynical philosophers, who want to reduce humanism to a natural, even animal, simplicity."
The bourgeois theorists treat Coubertin's Olympic philosophy separately from his social (political) theory trying to turn his ideas into suprahistorical "humanistic" principles. They do the same with sport: by removing it from its historical and social context ("sport has nothing to do with politics") and reducing it to a phenomenon sui generis, they prevent sport from being demythologized as a concrete historical (social) phenomenon. Paul Hoch says on this matter: "Thus, if Johan Huizinga or Paul Weiss are writing about the philosophy of sports, they concentrate on the language or general principles of games used by different societies, at different times, under different conditions; and they almost entirely ignore any effects these social conditions could have had. We are left, then, with a "philosophy" of sports that stands outside history and outside society, and hence is almost entirely worthless." The "development of sport" has put an end to the bourgeois theory and invalidated the arguments by which it founds, justifies and idealizes sport. Capitalism has made both liberal criticism of sport and moralistic and "socialist" theory of sport meaningless. All attempts to set up a "second path" (‘’Der Zweite Weg’’) in the development of sport, based on Habermas and Plessner's criticism of sport as the "reflection of the industrial working process", have failed. Capitalism has also "overcome" the traditional bourgeois anthropology replacing it by a "philosophy of performance" (Leistungsphilosophie). Man is no longer an "animal", but a "self-destructive being" striving for a higher result (record) at all costs. Man's "nature" becomes the embodiment of the destructive nature of capitalism. It should be noted that philosophical considerations of sport are burdened by misconceptions and bias, so that even such thinkers as Jager, Bloch, Sartre and Horkheimer fail to grasp the essence of sport as a concrete historical phenomenon: Jager reduces sport to the ancient agon; Bloch maintains the illusion that sport is an value-neutral phenomenon and that there exist "good" and "bad" sports depending on whether they are "left" or "right"; Sartre sees in sport a way of leading man to being; Horkheimer, who laments the plight of philosophy, appeals to sport to save the most important values of capitalism - from capitalism itself. It has turned out that fighting for philosophy and supporting sport as the chief means of the capitalist way of dealing with the mind is not only a hopeless, but also a disastrous business.
The fundamental idea used in this paper as the starting point for a criticism of capitalism is not Marx's "alienation" (Entfremdung), but the idea of destruction. Starting from Marx's most important methodological postulate, that the "anatomy of man is the key to understanding the anatomy of monkey", it is justified to establish the starting point for a criticism of monopolistic capitalism at its final "consumer" stage of development, in which the contradictions of capitalism as a destructive order dramatically threatening the survival of mankind have been fully developed. The fact that capitalism has evolved into a destructive system not only discredits bourgeois thought, but throws a new light on Marx's criticism of capitalism, questioning its foundations and current relevance. Unlike the bourgeois theorists who think that capitalism is the end of history, and thereby sterilize its transforming potentialities, Marx thinks that the true value of capitalism lies in the possibilities, created "under its wing", of entering a new society, the one in which the highest aspirations of mankind formulated in the basic principles of the French Revolution: Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, will be realised. Marx was a follower of Hegel's dialectic of history: history is the road to man's freedom, and man's liberation from nature, i.e., taking control over natural forces, is the basic condition of man's freedom. Hence such a significance of the development of the productive forces: "It never happens that a social formation fails before all productive forces it can accommodate have been developed, and it is never the case that new, higher relations of production set in before material conditions of their existence have already been born under the wing of the old society itself. That is why society sets to itself only those tasks that it is capable of solving ...". And he continues: "The productive forces developed under the wing of bourgeois society create material conditions of resolving" .... "the antagonism arising from the social life conditions of an individual". "That is why this social formation ends the prehistory of human society." The main difficulty in Marx's theory lies in its definition of the relation between the capitalist mode of developing the productive forces and nature. According to Marx, nature, as the "an organic body" of man, alienates itself from man through the “alienated labour”, which dispossesses him of the "object of his production". So long as the capitalist development of the productive forces involves not only "possessing" and "using" but also destroying nature, man is becoming increasingly dependent on what is left of nature. Instead of being a system that creates the conditions of "leaping from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom" (Engels), capitalism abolishes every possibility of man's freedom. Capitalism does not only mark the end of the "prehistory" of the human race, it marks the end of its existence. Marx subordinated the dialectic of capitalism to the dialectic of history and overlooked the specific character of the capitalist development of the productive forces, which leads not only to man being controlled (through technique) by capital and his alienation from nature, but also to a destruction of life. It follows that the relation of man to himself, other people and nature is not mediated only by the “alienated labour”, but also by the destructive nature of the capitalist mode of production. In the process of capitalist reproduction, man is not only "alienated" from himself and his "organic" nature, he is also degenerated and becomes an instrument of capital for destroying the world. Thus, mankind does not "set to itself only those tasks that it is capable of solving"; it is rather that capitalism sets before mankind the "tasks" which involve collaboration in the destruction of life. The dynamic and dramatic character of capitalist "progress" is conditioned by the fact that capitalism turns the consequences of the destruction of life into the sources of profit, transforming man's creative powers into the means of developing the destructive powers of capitalism and accelerating the process of destruction. That Marx was aware of this serious contradiction in his theory can be seen from his "overlooking" Fourier's warning, written in the beginning of the XIX century, which is an exceptionally fruitful starting point for a criticism of capitalism: "Thus our societies, in spite of the promoters and representatives of property, find themselves in a complex retro gradation, that is to say, in material retro gradation due to an ever bigger destruction of forests, plains, springs, climate ..." However, it is precisely Marx's theory that enables us to attain the idea of true progress and establish a critical distance from capitalism: only that mode of development of the productive forces can be accepted which leads to the liberation of man from his dependence on nature, and not such leading to its destruction. The development of the productive forces is indeed a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for progress. In the present circumstances, we consider progressive the order which is capable of stopping the capitalist machinery of death and preserving nature and mankind from destruction.
The ecocidal capitalist fury has given rise to a genocidal doctrine and practice that "overcome" both Malthus' theory and Nazi barbarism: destroying more and more people becomes the fundamental condition of the survival of fewer and fewer people. Just as the Nazi Olympics were a "pacifying" mask behind which the hasty preparations to exterminate the Jews, Slavs and Gypsies were being carried out, today's international sport is a "peacekeeping" smoke screen concealing the intention of a "new world order" to destroy the largest part of the mankind and ensure the survival of the "golden billion" from the most developed capitalist countries in the West which mercilessly destroy life on earth. At the same time, as mankind is more and more dramatically confronted with a strong possibility of the final destruction of life, to find possible democratic alternatives becomes highly unlikely. The creation of a "new world order", by which the multinational concerns seek to destroy the institutional structure of states, which enables citizens to express their sovereign political will and defend their existential interests, is conditioned by capitalist destruction. The development of a totalitarian mind goes hand in hand with the destruction of life: capitalism destroys the democratic institutions and the embryo of a novum created in civil society and establishes a global fascism based on an ecocidal terrorism.
The work applies the same method used in Marx's criticism of religion; however, his criticism of religion is the "criticism of the valley of tears", whose fantastic aureole is religion, while the criticism of modern Olympic paganism is the criticism of the capitalist valley of death, whose spectacular aureole is olympism. Sport is of vital importance as the starting point for a contemporary critical theory of society. The distinctive feature of criticism of olympism comes from the fact that capitalism is becoming a "pure" system of destruction, which throws a new light on sport as the embodiment of capitalist relationships and values as well as on olympism as their divine aureole. Sport has become the industry of death and the mirror reflecting the true face of capitalism. The absolutization of the social darwinist principle bellum omnium contra omnes, and the progressivistic principle, citius, altius, fortius has started the process of mankind's self-destruction. Sport brings the process of man's destruction to its end and thus represents the image of the capitalist relation to nature. Sportsmen are not only the labour force, as Habermas and Rigauer maintain in their criticism of sport, but also the tool and the object of labour, and sport is not only a form of decultivization, but also a form of man's denaturalization (robotization). A growing discrepancy between the biological possibilities of man and the requirements set to him by "progress", leads to an increasing oppression of man and a monstrous destruction of his body and mind: the sportsman becomes the capitalist surrogate of man. Olympism, as the political theory of sport, is not just a form of creating a civilization without culture, but the ideology of death. The "development of sport" in the most obvious way confirms the truth that there is not a single mechanism in capitalism that can deflect the established "progress" from its road to destruction, and that the bourgeois institutions and the normative firmament of bourgeois society have become the means of protection and development of capitalism. The bourgeois theory got the worse of it: the ideologues of capitalism have become the cleaners of its dirty trail and the gravediggers of humanity. Capitalism also "devours" its (spiritual) children.
Sport symbolizes the end of a civilization based on the social-Darwinist doctrine and the absolutized principle of performance: the principle of competition has become the principle of domination, while the principle of progress has become the principle of destruction. From the ideology of an emerging and developing capitalist society, olympism has turned into the ideology of a disintegrating capitalist society, whose accumulated destructive power threatens mankind with destruction. Sports fields are dominated not by a visionary, but by an apocalyptic spirit. Sport is the most efficient way of drawing man into the horrible whirl of self-destructive madness, created by the capitalist progress, similarly to the self-destructive mania of the ancient polis that led to the decline of the Hellenic world. It destroys not only conscious of the deadly consequences of the further development of capitalism, but also the conscious of the objective possibilities of its overcoming and of realizing the guiding principle of the French Revolution. In view of the horrible scale of world destruction, it can be said that olympism is the hood that the executioner has pulled over the head of mankind before applying his axe. The hour has struck: either mankind will destroy capitalism, or capitalism will destroy mankind.



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SPIRITUAL CLIMATE IN WHICH MODERN
OLYMPISM WAS BORN


Modern olympism appeared towards the end of the 20th century as a separate (but not an isolated) and relatively integrated spiritual movement. Its nature is conditioned by the nature of capitalist society, just as the nature of ancient olympism was conditioned by the nature of the Greek slave-owning society. Modern Olympic philosophy, the Olympic movement and the practice of modern olympism did not originate from Coubertin's Olympic thought: all essential elements of olympism had already been formed when Coubertin initiated the organization of the Olympic Games as an international sports competition and pronounced olympism the supreme and only true religion.
The Olympic movement did not spring up from the development of sport, but under the influence of the dominant spiritual climate in Western Europe in the second half of the 19th century, which was caused by several factors. The industrial revolution, which had begun in the 18th century and reached its climax towards the end of the 19th century, formed the basis for the myth of the "limitless possibilities of the development of science and technique", on which the Olympic "progress", whose essence is expressed in the famous maxim citius, altius, fortius, is founded. The second factor was the development of monopolistic capitalism and the institutionalization of new centers of economic and political power. They attacked the democratic institutions that arose as a result of the political struggle of progressive citizens and workers, and thus the creation of a new totalitarian mechanism of power, as the exclusive political tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie, became increasingly important. The new rich "elite" tends to create a universal and global ideology in accordance with the progressivistic spirit of the modern age. Their aim is to destroy the emancipatory heritage of ancient Greece, Christianity, the Renaissance, the Enlightement and the French Revolution, to "correct" the liberal doctrine, to eradicate the socialist (communist) idea and establish direct spiritual domination of the bourgeoisie over the increasingly numerous and class-conscious workers. Embodying the fundamental principles on which the capitalist society in its "pure" form is based (homo homini lupus est and bellum omnium contra omnes), sport has become the ideal means of the ruling class for militarizing and pacifying (depolitizing) workers and for their spiritual integration into the ruling order. In the end of the 19th century the institutionalization of sport created a mechanism which was to become the chief "ideological police force" (Hoch) of the bourgeoisie for establishing ''control in heads" (Coubertin) by destroying critical conscious and creating the character of a loyal and usable citizen.
In his strivings to "renovate the Olympic Games" Coubertin followed a doctrine that regards sport as an instrument of the ruling class for achieving its political and economic goals. The original intention of Coubertin's olympism (which is but one of a number of Olympic ideas that sprang up in the 19th century) was to use international sport as an instrument for introducing changes into the French education system (similarly to the ones introduced by Thomas Arnold into the English public schools), which would enable the formation of new falanges from the bourgeois youth and thus ensure France's colonial expansion. "Restore the colonial glory of France!" ("Rebronzer la France!") and "Get rich!" ("Enrichissez vous!") - those were the slogans from the Sorbonne speaking floor with which Coubertin urged the French bourgeoisie to embark on new colonial exploits. Originally, the Olympic idea involved the competition of France with "civilized nations", above all with England, which as the leading colonial power was for Coubertin an undisputable model. The ultimate end of a "peaceful" competition on the sports field was to be the spiritual integration of the most powerful West European countries, which was thought necessary for a successful colonial expansion. What enabled Coubertin's Olympic idea to become a global spiritual power was the fact that it appeared as an ideological crest of imperialism. International sport "fused" into the Olympic movement by way of a colonial ideology, and not by way of nations' strivings for international cooperation. Modern Olympic movement did not appear as a result of the engagement of the progressive people wishing to spiritually unite the world on a humanistic basis, but as a result of the engagement of the European aristocracy, leading capitalist and military circles striving to find access to new natural resources, cheap labour force and new markets. "Olympic internationalism" originally stemmed from the interests of European capitalism, the European colonial expansion being the driving force of Coubertin's olympism. It was and still is one of the pillars of capitalist globalism, which in various forms and with different protagonists appears in modern epoch. Olympic "missioners" should accomplish the task that the Catholic church, as the dominant spiritual power of the West, has not been able to fullfil: to carry out a spiritual colonization of the world. Olympism is the first spiritual movement in history with a global dimension, and a precursor of a global capitalist totalitarianism. It is one of the supporting pillars of today's (American) "new world order", or a new colonial order which, towards the end of the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th centuries, Coubertin sought to establish. Using Hoch's formulation, we could say that olympism is the global ideological police force of the proponents of a "new world order", while the Olympic movement is a peculiar "International" of capital and leading political powers, embodied in the IOC and other so-called "international sports associations", which tend to destroy international law and establish a global totalitarianism. The analysis of olympism points to the following conclusion: those who rule the world - rule the Olympic movement. With regard to that, the maxim "it is important to take part" (ascribed to Coubertin) means that it is important to play according to the rules dictated by the masters of the world and give up fighting for freedom. Let the strongest rule, and the weaker subject to them - that is the essence of the Olympic epistle.
Modern olympism did not originate from a particular religion or culture; it embodies a "mondialistic" spirit of imperialist capitalism in its "pure" form, and thus breaks with traditional religions, national cultures, spirit of freedom, critical conscious and reason. It is no accident that the International Olympic Commettee is not the meeting place of liberal artists and philosophers, but of landowners, officers, bankars, industrialists and bureaucrats, and that its leading figures are the members or open sympathisers of fascist parties and movements. Coubertin's appealing to a destorted and idealized Hellenic culture is but a mask for obtaining "cultural" legitimacy of the socio-darwinistic and progressivistic principles on which capitalist society is based, and which are embodied in sport. The idea of "renovating the ancient tradition" fell on fertile ground, and a large number of members of the European humanistic intelligentsia, disappointed by the dominant spiritual climate, turned to antiquity, hoping that in the idealised picture of Hellenic civilisation they could find a spiritual refreshment and a support for their humanistic aspirations. It is one of the main reasons why Coubertin's mythological and Procrustean relation to ancient Greece has not been met by resistance in bourgeois philosophical and historiographic thought. At the same time, turning to ancient Greece becomes a way of dealing with the conception of future developed on the basis of Marx's criticism of capitalism and his socialist (communist) doctrine. The classicistic defence of humanism has proved to be the defence of the established order. In addition to that, the "struggle to renovate" the ancient spiritual heritage becomes part of the struggle between the most developed European countries to prove themselves as legitimate heirs of Hellenic culture - the spiritual cradle of modern European civilization - in order to ensure spiritual leadership. Conflicts between the most powerful colonial metropoles over the share of the colonial loot and the struggle for domination over the European territory (in that context, the defeat of France in the war with Prussia) additionally motivated Coubertin to insist on using sport in the development of a competitive spirit in the young French bourgeoisie. Accepting the socio-darwinistic laws as an undisputable foundation of the development of society, Coubertin rejects pacifism as a foundation on which the relationship between nations (races) should be established and declares war to be an inevitable (and welcome) destiny of mankind. The modern Olympic Games are not intended to be a "festivity dedicated to peace", but a "holy truce" (la treve sacree) during which the warring sides will temporarely put away their weapons only to express total submission to the belligerant spirit that governs the world.
Coubertin found a "cultural" inspiration for his olympism at the world industrial exibitions (such as the one held in Paris in 1889), in which he saw a spectacular expression of the globalization of capitalism and which were to become the origin of the Olympic spectacle, as well as at millitaristic ceremonies and other pompous manifestations of the ruling "elite". Military parades, welcoming speeches of the highest representatives of government and a manifestation held under their auspices - all these details were to become the essential features of the Olympic ceremony. They clearly confirm the truth that the Olympic Games are designed as a spectacular way of glorifying the established order, i.e. as a par excellence political manifestation. In addition to that, Coubertin was greatly impressed by Brookes' competitions on the "Olympic fields" in Shropshire. The "solemnity" of the competitions (the hymn, messages, banners, the crowning of the victor, awards for poetry etc.) was to become the essential feature of the Olympic Games. To this should be added the importance of the "English gentleman" who, due to the English spiritual influence in Europe and America, became the prototype of an "international" sportsman and the symbolic incarnation of aristocratic ideals in the developed capitalism, and thus the symbol of fair-play, which was to become the international code of a "civilized conduct" in sport.
Judging by the extracts from Coubertin's writings, we can say with certainty that his thought was influenced by Hyppolite Taine, Jules Simon, Jules Fabvre, Adolf Thiers, Herbert Spencer, abot Didon, and Jesuits. In view of the extensive scope of Coubertin's writings and his inclination to adopt other people's ideas without citing the source, we are quite justified in claiming that the circle of thinkers who influenced the formulation of his Olympic philosophy is much wider, and that, judging by the ideas and terms used by Coubertin, it includes Victor Duruy, Auguste Comte, Josef Gobineau, Friedrich Nietzsche etc. Coubertin himself claimed that the decisive influence on the formation of his thought was exerted by Thomas Arnold and Frederik Le Play. These two men are the representatives of the philosophical doctrine that makes the corner stone of Coubertin's Olympic idea: social Darwinism and positivism. In a broader sense, Coubertin's Olympic doctrine represents one branch of a tree rooted in utilitarian philosophy.


OLYMPISM AND SOCIAL DARWINISM


Absolutizing the principle "might is right "


Like many other members of the wealty youth in France in the second half of the 19th century, Piere de Coubertin regarded England as an undisputable model. What made him so enthusiastic was not the English parlamentarism or the emancipatory ideas which originated in England as the cradle of capitalism and the most powerful capitalist country, but its imperialist might. Coubertin went to England to uncover the secret of their colonial expansion and incite them to enter upon new colonial exploits. In his public appearances prior to the Olympic games Coubertin speaks as a fervent nationalist. His political pamphlets end with a slogan: "Vive la France!". Coubertin's fanatism was stirred not only by a complex caused by the humiliating defeat of France in the war with Prussia (1870); it sprang from a desire to enable the ruling "elite" to increase its material wealth in which Coubertin saw the foundations of the social power and stability of the ruling order. Wandering through England in an attempt to find the original spring of the colonial power of the British Empire, Coubertin came across a book entitled "Tom Brown's Schooldays", in which Thomas Huges, the disciple of the English reformer and Headmaster of the school in Rugby Thomas Arnold, outlined in his own way the pedagogical doctrine of his teacher. Coubertin concluded not only that Thomas Arnold, with his pedagogical reform that spread throughout England, "laid the foundations of the British Empire", but also that he was the founder of a new philosophy that fully embodied the socio-darwinistic and expansionist spirit, which, according to Coubertin, dominated the English society and, as the integrative spiritual power of the British imperialist "elite", presented a challenge to the ruling "elite" of the European colonial metropoles. Coubertin: "If we begin to study the history of our century we are struck by the moral disorder produced by the discoveries of industrial science. Life suffers an upheaval, people feel the ground tremble continually under their feet. They have nothing to hold on to, because everything around them is shifting and changing: and in their confusion, as though seeking some counterpoise to the material powers which rise like Cyclopean ramparts about them, they grope for whatever elements of moral strength lie scattered about the world. I think this is the philosophic origin of the striking physical renaissance in the XIXth century.(...) Then came Thomas Arnold, the greatest educator of modern times, who more than any other is responsible for the present prosperity and the prodigious expansion of his country. With him athletics penetrated a great public school and transformed it; and from the day on which the first generation fashioned by his hands was launched on the world, the British Empire had a new look. There is perhaps no other equally striking example of the truth that a handful of good men can transform a whole society."
Coubertin departs from the view that modern age has deprived life of meaning. However, he does not search for a solution of the "moral confusion" and for the "counterbalance to material forces" in the sphere of mind, but in the sphere of a mindless imperialist-opressive activism, which integrates also the industry and science, and removes the very need for raising the question on the purpose of life. By building a myth about Arnold, Coubertin seeks to establish a spiritual movement which should reject the emancipatory heritage of the European culture and modern society and mark a "new" beginning in the development of European society and civilisation in general. Coubertin's Procrustean relation to Arnold suggests that he was not interested in the whole of Arnold's thought, but in the points that could help establish a new ruling ideology in accordance with the progressivistic spirit of the New Age and the expansionist aspirations of European capitalism which does not tolerate any (reasonable or moral) constraints. He takes Arnold's pedagogy, according to which the strong have the right to submit the weak by means of sheer force, to the extreme, and turns it into the universal principle of social life. Coubertin is not interested in the ultimate goal of Arnold's pedagogy, which is to create "muscular Christians", but in how sport, which embodies the unbridled effects of socio-darwinistic laws, can be used to create a new "master race". That race he entrusts with the assignment to create a "new (positive) society" in which a totalitarian domination of the rich over the working "masses", "lower races" and women will be established.
Talking about Coubertin's relation to Arnold, Yves Piere Boulongne comes to the following conclusion: "Coubertin so openly accepted Arnold's theories because at that time his social environment was striving to stir within itself the aspirations to power. To strenghten one's muscles, to be able to will, to be daring, to expose oneself to danger - those were the main topics in French political and military circles, but partly it was the expression of a desire, an aspiration to carry out a patrician reform of nature. It was precisely this atmosphere of rigidity and exertion of muscles and will that Coubertin found at Rugby, Cambridge and Eton, and that elitism he adopted completely." According to Boulongne, Arnold's view that "it is not necessary to have three hundred, one hundred, not even fifty students, but it is necessary for them to be Christian-gentlemen", Coubertin interpreted in the following way: "You always have in mind the elite, the contribution of an excellent and small falanga being uncomparably greater that that of a multitude of people with avarage abilities; thus, all institutions seek to provide for those who already possess, as is written in the New Testament." Boulongne proceeds as follows: "This utilitarian philosophy tends to build self-centred individuals, and about that Coubertin had no illusions, since he himself said that "practical sense of an English student often verges on egoism". However, Coubertin "accepts the responsibility for adopting this philosophy", expressing it in the following way: "For a shy, weak, apathetic man, life proves to be unbearable ...Never is a selection so ruthless as it is in school. There exist two different kinds of people: those who look other people straight in the eyes, people with strong muscles, their bearing conveying self-confidence, and the kind of sickly people with a resigned and humble expression on the face, who bear themselves as defeated soldiers. Well, in the college it is the same as in the world: the weak are eliminated; this type of education benefits only those who are strong."
Arnold's conception represents the "taming" of social darwinism by way of Christian moralism; for Christianity Coubertin substitutes olympism, which becomes the deification of social darwinism: modern Olympic agon lacks both the struggle between the good and the evil and the struggle for freedom. However, Coubertin destorted even so reduced social darwinism, and adjusted it to fit his political concept. He "overlooked" that natural selection, namely, the evolution of the living world to which he was constantly appealing, involves the struggle of animals to survive and consequently the opposition of the weaker to the stronger - which constitutes the foundation of a "cosmic justice" consisting in the right of every being to fight for its survival. It is precisely the opposition of the weak that Coubertin, with his "utilitarian pedagogy", seeks to eliminate. Coubertin's progressivistic evolutionism is not opposed only to the dialectic of history, but also to the dialectic of nature. The basic reason for Coubertin's contradictory stand, as assessed according to the criteria of his own conception, lies in a new quality of the "oppressed": the ability and willingness to unite and thus become a power capable not only of opposing the ruling "elite", but also of creating a new world. By eliminating from society the fight for freedom, Coubertin eliminated from nature the struggle of the weak to survive. The undisputable submission of the weak to the strong, which stands in direct contradiction to the logic of bellum omnium contra omnes predominant in the "state of nature", is the alpha and omega of Coubertin's Olympic "pacifism". On account of this, Coubertin is against any forms of syndical or political organising of the workers. This fear of the unified forces of the oppressed is the original source of his fanatism and the basis of his political strategy. Coubertin uses the socio-darwinistic doctrine as a means of justifying the tyranny of the strong over the weak, and at the same time tries to protect the unudisputable supremacy of the aristocratic and bourgeois "elite" from the effects of socio-darwinistic laws. Coubertin actually strives to ensure a privileged position of the rich oligarhy relative to the "natural laws" on which its power is founded. Struggle for freedom can no longer jeopardize the dominant position of the ruling class (race), it can only affirm it. To put it more precisely, the power of the bourgeois "elite" is a "fact" representing the final result of socio-darwinistic laws. Accordingly, olympism is not an instrument for globalizing the principle bellum omnium contra omnes, but an instrument of the ruling "elite" for "teaching" the subjects how to conform to the order based on the principle "might is right". The Olympic "enlightement" proves to be the creation of a submissive character and a racially inferior conscious. At the same time, the competition between the "natives" and their masters on the sports field is meant to compensate for the ''natives'' renouncement of the struggle for freedom.
Coubertin operates with two anthropological models based on the position of man relative to the means of production, and on the race and gender, respectively: the anthropological features of the white rich bourgeois "elite" differ from those of the workers, "coloured races" and women. The highest human virtue - "the passionate desire to rule and possess" is, according to Coubertin, the exclusive anthropological feature of the (white) plutocracy. He emphasises that one of the most important aims of his "utilitarian pedagogy" is to develop the animal nature of the bourgeois, since by his nature he is a "lazy beast". Therefore, the basic role of sport is to enable the bourgeois to "overcome" the limitations of his originally animalistic nature, to become a super-animal and thus reach the highest stage in the development of the animal world. The highest virtue of workers, women and "lower races" is "goodness", namely, an undisputable submission to the capitalists, to the pater familias and colonial masters. Unlike Aristotle, who holds that "opposition" to slavery exists even in people who are "in their nature disposed to submit", Coubertin removes it from his anthropological conception for practical reasons. Similarly to Comte, Couberten thinks that the oppressed are endowed with moral "superiority" which enables them to arouse compassion in their masters. "Goodness" of the oppressed takes the role of a "soother" of the ruthless and limitless greed of the ruling "elite", and their "moral" actions become the chief (compensational) form of their social activity. Coubertin's preachering is not inspired by Christian moralism, but by practical political motives: it is aimed at allaying the anger of the workers and eliminating them from the political arena in order to establish social peace. The survival of the parasitic classes corresponds to the state of nature which is not subject to any moral reasoning. Just as the devouring of sheep by a wolf is not a moral issue but a "fact" of the state of nature, so is the oppression of "the weak" (poor) by "the strong" (rich) a natural law against which it is "useless to protest". Hobbes says on this topic: "In the war of every man against every man nothing can be proclaimed unjust. In such a state the notions of just and unjust are out of place."
Speaking about the origin of the "doctrine of might is right" in ancient Greece, Milos Djuric indirectly refers to the nature of de Coubertin's doctrine: "That doctrine had two roots: philosophical theory and political practice as an aristocratico-reactionary revolution from above. An extensive philosophical argument of that doctrine was given by Callicles from Aharna, Georgia's disciple, who is known to us from Plato's Republic. While Protagoras held that justice was necessary to maintain social life, Callicles, together with the sophist and orator Trasymachus in Plato's Republic, defends with radical pathos the conceptions according to which justice is unworhy of a free man, while injustice appears as a sign of strenght and power. Individual self-willingness, strenght and power, to put it shortly, the ethics of power, unscroupulous energy - these things correspond to the morality of the master, while justice and moral laws in general belong to the morality of slaves, which was invented by the weak as their weapon to frighten the masters, the strong and the powerful." He proceeds as follows: "The consequences of such teachings in the historical life of Athens are obvious. From it, the vain and ambitious demagogues obtained food for their imperialist policy, which is best reflected in their cruel destruction of the city of Melos and the fatal invasion of Syracuse. With the voluntarism of a lion, but also with the hedonism of a swine, Callicles appears as the earliest precursor of Machiavelli's "The Prince" and Nietzsche's "Overman".'' In spite of giving exceptional importance to material wealth, Coubertin is not in favour of hedonism. Not to relish the acquired wealth, but to fight to acquire it, and in particular, to defend the established (looting) order - that is the main task of the ruling class. Starting from the painful historical experiences of the rich "elite", Coubertin attacks its members for their aspirations to leasure. He regards sport primarily as a means of developing their conquering spirit and of improving the combat readiness of the bourgeoisie at the time of the expansion of the liberating working movement. The affirmation of the status of the ''master race'', in the guise of a "fight for freedom", should be the basic source of content of the rich and the limit of their egoism.
Coubertin is congenial to Machiavelli's doctrine, yet their conceptions show considerable differences. Thus, Machiavelli claims that "there are two ways of contending, one in accordance with the laws, the other by force; the first of which is proper of man, the second to beasts. But since the first method is often ineffectual, it becomes necessary to resort to the second. A Prince should, therefore, understand how to use well both the man and the beast." Basing himself on a rigid social darwinism, Coubertin repudiates social norms and declares the "right of the strong" to be the undisputable basis of social integration. Coubertin comes close to Machiavelli's view that "all armed prophets have been victorious, while those unarmed have failed". However, in addition to "courage", "destiny" and "fortune" are also important for a ruler's success. At the same time, in laws that apply to natural phenomena Machiavelli finds an analogy that confirms the inevitability of social events, which is contrary to Coubertin's class voluntarism. Speaking of a "criminal or unscrupulous road" to power, Machiavelli concludes: "Indeed, we cannot regard as a virtue murdering your citizens, betraying a friend, failing to keep a promise, an absence of compassion and faith. All these can bring man to power, but cannot bring him honour." "Humanity", which is eliminated from Coubertin's olympism, is for Machiavelli one of the most important conditions to "count the Prince among excellent men". Concluding in his "Appeal to Italy to wake up and set itself free from foreigners" that "everybody is fed up with foreign domination", Machiavelli calles on Lorenco de Medichi to carry the banner of freedom "with the same enthusiasm and hope with which man goes to just wars", and this is in opposition to Coubertin's Olympic doctrine, which absolutizes the principle "might is right" and denies the oppressed the right to freedom.
Antiemancipatory nature of Coubertin's Olympic doctrine can also be seen if we compare his doctrine with the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, on which Coubertin appearantly bases himself. Hobbes claims that man is an egoistical being that struggles to survive and consequently to submit the others. It follows that the lust for power is a constant feature of human nature. The identical conceptions are found in Coubertin. However, Hobbes claims that nature created men equal in terms of their bodily and spiritual abilities. From the assumed natural equality of people Hobbes derives their natural animosity: being equal, people strive for the same things which they cannot share. The creation of the state ends the "state of nature" in which "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes) rules and social peace is established through "state sovereignty". To the "state of nature" Hobbes opposes the "civil state" in which the state keeps its citizens in constant fear from sanctions and thus compels them to obey "natural laws". In addition to that, there are moral postulates: justice, modesty, charity. They do not derive from human nature, but from reason which discovers them as the necessary conditions of communal life. The establishment of a state is based on a particular agreement or contract between citizens, by which they partly renounce their rights for the sake of the common good consisting in a peaceful and safe life of everybody. The state appears as an institutionalized protection of the basic interests of citizens from self-willingness of groups and individuals, and thus as the "sword of justice". In Hobbes, the "common interest" is the form in which the emerging citizens are confronted with the self-willingness of the aristocracy as the ruling class. It is oppossed to the principle "might is right" since it gives a "natural" legitimacy to the authority, making it independent of human will and eternal. However, his ideas belong to a political concept which is not struggling to abolish class domination as such, but to abolish the privileged superiority of the aristocracy. Coubertin does not depart from the conflicting interests of egoistical individuals, but from the class (and racial) interest. For him, it is not the citizen who is the constituent part of society, but the power of the ruling (bourgeois) class to hold the working ''masses" in submission by force. For Coubertin, egoism of an individual in the period of the formation of bourgeois society and liberalism becomes in monopolistic capitalism the ruling egoism of the ruling class. Hence he does not need reason, from which the "common will" is derived, nor the institutions of compulsion ("state sovereignty") which are supposed to prevent the conflicting egoistical interests of groups and individuals from jeopardizing social existence. Not only does Coubertin's man not abandon the "state of nature", he does his best to preserve it. The constant oppression that the strong exert on the weak is, at the same time, the basic means of preserving the combat power of the bourgeoisie - and this is the basic assumption for preserving the established (oppressive) order. While Hobbes seeks to create an institutional framework so as to protect society from disastrous effects of the ruthless struggle between the citizens due to their private interests, Coubertin tries to integrate the bourgeoise as a class and militarize it so as to enable it to efficiently deal with the workers' movement and realize its "colonial mission". The principle "might is right", having a class, racial and patriarchal character, becomes the supreme principle of social "integration" and the foundation of "social peace". For Coubertin, the matter is settled by the bourgeoisie taking power in its own hands and acquiring the monopoly of power. What he wants to do is to make that power efficient, undisputable and eternal. Therefore, Coubertin abolishes civil society and "rule of law" and proclaims the bourgeoisie the direct carrier of the absolutized authority. In this way, Coubertin abolishes the private and public spheres and raises the partial (class) interest of the bourgeoisie to the level of an undisputable "interest of society". Hence the ideas and political movements that, according to Coubertin, restrain and threaten the legitimate egoistical interests of the bourgeoisie, at the same time threaten the "interests of society". The free development of the need of the rich to get richer represents the driving force of social "progress": greed (of the rich) is the highest human virtue.
The extent to which Coubertin deviates from the original emancipatory ideas of Hobbes' doctrine can be seen if we compare his olympism with Hobbes' conception of man's freedom as the basic "natural law", involving the right of every man to use "every means" and "every way" to defend himself. Also, in Hobbes, "every citizen has the right to decide for himself what is a good and what is a bad action", and "it is allowed to kill a tyrant", and that means that every man has the right to oppose injustice. For Coubertin, the ninth Hobbes' "natural law", stating that "all men are equal by nature", represents the worst blasphemy. Besides, Hobbes tries to supress egoism, with its disastrous effects on social organism, by way of Christian "humanism". "Love thy neighbours like yourself " becomes one of the most important principles of his "Leviathan", which is a peculiar Christian state. God is not merely the "creator of the whole nature", he "acts in the hearts of people". Scriptures become the origin of divine wisdom as the highest truth. What suggests the congeniality of Coubertin and Hobbes are not Hobbes' maxims bellum omnium contra omnes and homo homini lupus, which apply in the "state of nature", but the maxim auctoritas, non veritas facit legem which subordinates the pursuit of truth to the preservation of the existing order. However, this principle should be considered with respect to Hobbes' conception that the "welfare of people" is the ultimate goal of the establishment of the state, based on Cicero's maxim salus populi suprema lex, which is totally opposed to Coubertin's plutocratic conception.
Coubertin's philosophy is also oppossed to the emancipatory heritage of the philosophy of John Lock, who not only insists on "freedom, equality and independence" of man who, following his inalienable "natural rights", agrees with others to create a "Civil Society", namely, unite in the "Community" or "Government", but also that "he who attempts to get another Man into his Absolute Power, does thereby put himself into the State of War with him". The right to freedom and the right to defend it are the basis of man's inalienable right - as oppossed to Coubertin's "might is right" and "social peace" based on it. Considering the socio-economic and political situation in Europe in the second half of the XIX century, Lock's appeal to defend freedom could be interpreted as an appeal to workers to stand up to the tiranny of the ruling plutocratic "elite".


Olympism and paternalism


In order to deal with the human and civil rights won by man in modern society, Coubertin abolishes the citizen as a constituent part of society, substituting for him the family and the race (nation). In this way he abolishes civil society and reduces it to an abstract collectivity whose survival and development is conditioned by the effects of natural laws, and which represents a continuous development of the animal world. Actually, Coubertin abolishes society as a human community and reduces it to an animal (biological) community, a peculiar "civilized" herd.
On the basis of his "naturalistic" conception, Coubertin proclaimes the patriarchal family, in which women and children are subjected to the undisputable authority of pater familias, the "basic cell of society". The family appears as the primary form of social structuring which immediately and spontaneously originates from the state of nature and thus represents the foundation of social organizing. The family hierarchy is founded on biologico-reproductive roles and on the "right of might" as the foundation of social formation. The family is not only the biological cell of society, but first and foremost a "natural" and therefore undisputable foundation of a hierarchical and authoritarian structuring of society. The family creates and developes a sense of "cooperation", which is the basic assumption of sociality, that is to say, of a "social consensus". Comte says on that: "Undoubtedly, no natural economy deserves more admiration than this happy spontaneous subordination which, having also constituted the human family, becomes then the necessary type of a reasonable social coordination". It is therefore no accident that women's struggle for emancipation is for Coubertin the worst of crimes: the disintegration of the patriarchal family involves the destruction of the authoritarian foundation (derived from the natural order) of capitalist society, and that means the destruction of the hierarchy of power on which the social order is founded. Defending the family as a "sacred institution", Coubertin attacks the ideas of the "equality of sexes", and of marriage as a "free community", calling them the most "subversive of theories" that propound a system of relationships not only contrary to logic, but also to the "order of things".
According to her "natural" position within the family, Coubertan proclaims the woman a physically and intellectually "inferior" being, who is thus the symbol of "weakness". He strongly condemns the participation of women at the Olympic Games. In his view, public sports competitions in which women take part "assume something monstruous". In his message to the participants of the IX Olympics, held in Amsterdam in 1928, Coubertin categorically states: "As to the admission of women to the Games, I remain strongly against it. It was against my will that they were admitted to a growing number of competitions." In his interview for the German Radio in August of 1935, dedicated to the Nazi Olympics of 1936, Coubertin says: "It follows from what I have said that the true Olympic hero is in my view the adult male individual." Speaking about the Olympic winners, Coubertin repeats: "The only true hero, as I have always repeated, is an adult male. So, it is neither a female nor team sports." Reducing collective competitions to "secondary" sports, Coubertin concludes: "Women could also take part here if it is judged necessary. I personally do not approve of the participation of women in public competitions, which is not to say that they must abstain from practising a great number of sports, provided they do not make a public spectacle of themselves. In the Olympic Games, as in the contests of former times, their primary role should be to crown the victors." In Coubertin's doctrine sport is the bulwark of a primitive and ruthless sexism, and olympism is its "humanistic" flag.
During his whole "Olympic" life Coubertin fanatically fought against women's human and civil rights, as well as against their participation in public life. Coubertin uses offensive names for women who fight for equality and reduces them to "feminists". He goes as far as to deny them the capability of making reasonable decisions: "A woman who is guided by reason rather then by emotions is not only abnormal, she is monstruous" - says Coubertin, the "great humanist". He declares the home to be the place of the woman's "freedom" ("home economy"), reducing it to a particular geto. The basic aim in girls' upbringing is their physical and spiritual preparation for motherhood, for caring about children and pater familias, and for doing the housework.
Coubertin has crippled man most by depriving him of the ability and right to love and be loved. True friendship between people is impossible. The wife's "love" for her husband is reduced to a masochistic submission to his authority. The same applies to the relationship between father and children. The relationship of a pater familias to his wife and children is determened by his role of the economic pillar and support of the family, as well as by the nature of family as the foundation of the hierarchical structuring of social power: pater familias is the basic carrier of the authoritarian constitution of society. The relations between people are determined by the nature of the ruling order and the roles people play in it. Since it is not man who is a constitutive part of society, but the race and family, the roles and, accordingly, obligations that people have as members of a race and gender, represent the basis and the framework of their relations. Pater familias does not treat his wife as a human being, nor does he cherish love for her. Sexual relations between men and women are determined by the nature of their biological (reproductive) functions, and correspond to the relations between males and females. What distinguishes people from animals is the fact that, as members of a race (nation), they have a "social duty" to ensure the biological reproduction of the race, the woman being reduced to the tool for racial reproduction, or a peculiar racial (national) incubator. The duty of a husband is to inseminate his wife and support the family, while the duty of a wife is to give birth to children and raise them. Marriage is not the community of emancipated human beings, but an institutionalized bondage of reproductive organs united by duty to a nation (race). Love motives and erotic temptations are excluded from a sexual relationship. The woman is not entitled to sexual satisfaction in marriage, particularly not outside marriage, and she turns the sexual need into the love for children. On the other hand, not only is pater familias entitled to sexual satisfaction outside marriage, but the wife has to accept his "adventures" "with tears in her eyes" and, like a trained dog, play up to him by "always being on her proper place".
It is amasing how easily the bourgeois interpretors of Coubertin's work pass over his utterly humiliating relationship towards women. Thus, Boulongne says that Coubertin was an "incorrigible misogynist", only to proclaim him a little further a "great humanist". Considering the fact that Coubertin reduced the "coloured peoples" to "lower races", and European workers to "masses" of primitives, it means that in Coubertin's "great heart" there was place only for the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and, of course, the Nazis. It is to them that Coubertin entrusted a special Olympic mission to be carried out after his death: to take his heart out of his corpse and bury it in ancient Olympia. The Nazis did not let him down: they accomplished the given task skillfuly and enthusiastically.


Olympism and racism


Racism is one of the corner stones of modern olympism. The idea of "racial superiority and its predetermination" which, according to Coubertin, originated in ancient Greece, is the alpha and omega of the Olympic doctrine. Speaking about Coubertin's colonialism and racism, Boulongne says: "The conquering of new colonies is, in his view, based on the principle of the divine right, that is to say, on the conviction that human races are different with respect to their value and that to the white race, which is by nature above other races, all other races should be subordinated." And he continues: "Claiming that no one has the right to undertake the europeanization of other peoples, that etnical religions are equal in value to the Christian religion, that the member of the black or yellow race differs from the white man, but that as a man he is of the same value - these are all", says Coubertin, "nice sophisms, the validity of which is defended in smoking parlours, but of no value whatsoever, nor efficacy: they represent a paradox associated with a decadence, and they can for an instant bring a smile on our face, but they should never be adopted as a rule of conduct." It is not the "devine", but the "natural law", based on the "might is right", which is the basis of Coubertin's racism. Keeping to socio-darwinistic evolutionism, Coubertin comes to the conclusion that in its fight for survival the white race has become "the purest, the strongest and the most intelligent" race, which means that "lower races" are by virtue of their genetic (physical and intellectual) properties predetermined to submit to the white "dominant race". It follows that members of the "coloured races" originally do not have any civil or human rights: their "rights" originate from the interests of colonial metropoles and self-willedness of their masters. Coubertin does not try to hide that: "The theory proposing that all human races have equal rights leads to a line of policy which hinders any progress in the colonies. Without debasing itself, surely, by imposing slavery, or even a lighter form of serfdom, the superior race is fully entitled to deny the lower race certain privileges of civilized life". The relation of Coubertin to South-African slave-owning and racist regime shows the extent of Coubertin's respect for human and civil rights of the "lower races". Wishing to justify the inhuman exploitation of the African natives by the white minority, Coubertin writes: "Do not forget the regime under which the South-African mines developed. (...) There is nothing that approaches slavery more than the institution there? But it does not hurt human dignity at all, being English, of course!"
Coubertin is strongly opposed to the white people mixing with "lower races", since, according to him, it leads to their degeneration. "The fight for the pureness of (the white) race remains the basic aim of its members"- Coubertin points out. Racial "pureness" of the Hellenic race is its most important feature and it constitutes the origin of the racial power and persistence of the Hellenes. Coubertin follows in Chemberlain's footsteps: "Human races are, in fact, different in regard to their character, properties, and above all, their individual capabilities, in the same way as a greyhound, bulldog, poodle and the dog of the New Land differ. - Does not every race have its brilliant and incomparable physiognomy? How could Hellenic art have arisen without the Hellenes? ...There is nothing so convincing as the awareness of the quality of a race. A man belonging to a pure and definite race, will never lose the awareness of it. The guarding angel of its tree is always on his side, supporting him whenever he loses his balance, warning him whenever he is in danger of getting lost, compelling him to obediance and making him perform feats he would otherwise never have dared to undertake, since he considers them impossible. The race raises man above itself; it arms him with extraordinary - even unnatural - powers. That the quality of a race is of vital importance - it is the fact of immediate experience." Coubertin, like Gobineau and Chamberlain, call upon the whites not to allow their blood to be polluted by the blood of the "lower races", including the Jews whom Coubertin proclaimed the "Asians". The importance Coubertin attaches to racial blood is best seen from his commentary on the Jewesh people in his "General history": "Some authors, on the other hand, note that we should not speak about the Jewesh race, since the Jews, dispersed in the course of eighteen centuries all over the world, have mixed with other peoples so much that they have lost the properties that make a race. It is a wrong view. It is true that through faith as well as through propaganda many ethnic elements are connected with the Izraeli religion. But the original strenght of Jewesh blood is so great that several drops will suffice to conquer the home." With respect to Coubertin's previous claims that the Jews "deep in their hearts remained the Asians", that they are "cruel and persistant as regards acquiring," "clever and shrewd in business" and that their role in history is "insignificant" - it is clear that mixing with them would lead to the degeneration of the white race. Here we should note that Coubertin had published these lines some ten years before the Nazis passed their "Racial laws" (15. September 1935) banning marriages between the Germans and the Jews.
Unlike the Nazis, Coubertin does not call on eliminating the "lower races", but from his conception of the "natural selection" it follows that the "master race" has a "natural right" to do everything in its interest, including the genocide over other peoples and races. Just as the right of people to life is subordinated to the right of the ruling order to a stable development, so is the right of the "lower races" to life subordinated to the right of the "superior race" to survival. Conquering the "life space" is the legitimate right of the white race based on the dominant order in the animal world - of which the human society is just a part. It is one of the reasons why Coubertin does not criticize the British Empire for its genocidal practice in North America, Australia, China, Africa and India, nor the Nazis who do not hide that the extermination of the Jews, Slavs and Gypsies and conquering the "life space" (Lebensraum) is for the "Aryan over-race" their most important task.
If Coubertin's theory of evolution is correct, which means that the white race in its fight for survival has become the "purest, the most intelligent and the strongest", than the victory of the representatives of the "lower races" over the best representatives of the "master race" on a sports field is not possible. The Olympic Games which allow the participation of the "lower races" can only be a demonstration of the "racial superiority" of the whites. The events on sports fields, even during Coubertin's life, have convincingly demonstrated the unsoundness of Coubertin's racial conception and his socio-Darwinistic theory. For, in addition to physical (muscular) strenght of those who have "come from the jungle" and therefore represent "unfair competition" (Hitler), what is important is the will to win, the main ingrediant of the "will to power", which, according to Coubertin, is the exclusive feature of the white bourgeois ''elite''. The maxim mens sana in corpore sano, especially Coubertin's maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso, speak in favour of the "fact" that the "blacks" have a stronger spirit and personality then the whites. We should not forget that for Coubertin boxing embodies the fundamental principle of capitalist society - "struggle for life" - and is thus the chief means for upbringing the bourgeois youth. However, it is precisely in boxing - which for Coubertin is a "fine manly sport", where the main characteristics of the "master race": will to win, quick decision making, "steel agility" (Hitler), persistance and courage are most expressed - that undisputable domination of "black" sportsmen has been established.
If the "facts" from the sports field are analyzed according to Coubertin's eugenetic conception, which even in Coubertin's time clearly suggested the trends in the development of sport, we come to the following conclusions: first, the development of civilization according to the principle of natural selection has not led to a physical "superiority" of the white race over the "coloured" races, but opposite; second, the "pureness" of the white race has not led to its improvement, but to its degeneration; and third, mixing between the whites and the blacks leads to the improvement of the genetic properties of the whites and to the weakening of the genetic properties of the blacks. Bearing in mind that for Coubertin the Olympic winners represent the "elite" of mankind, and are thus the representatives of religio athletae, which is a symbolic expression of the dominant spirit of capitalism embodied in the white "master race", the paradox is complete: the representatives of the "lower races" become the carriers of the "victorious spirit" by which the "superiority" of the white race is proved! If we add that for Coubertin the "improvement" of the white race is the basic sign of "progress", it is clear that Coubertin's theory of evolutionary progressism definately comes to nothing. In his racial theory, the constant conflict in Coubertin's theory between evolutionism, which gives rise to apriorism, and positivism, which insists on "respecting the facts", reaches its climax.
One of the largest inconsistances in Coubertin's racial conception lies in his proclaiming the struggle for survival, dominant in the animal world, the pattern of behaviour which should be predominant in human society, while at the same time he denies the "lower races" the right to fight for survival: by Coubertin's racial theory the "universal" fight for survival is transformed into the privilage of the white race to dominate the "coloured races" for ever. Here also Coubertin applied a model used in determining the social position of the bourgeoisie and workers (women): in the course of evolution, the white race has acquired the qualities of a beast, while the "coloured races" acquired the qualities of a ruminant. From there follows that the natural right of a wolf is to devour the sheep, while the natural "obligation" of the sheep is not to oppose the wolf.
Coubertin did not strive to include the "coloured races" through sport into the struggle for domination, but to use sport as a means of their undisputable integration into the "world (colonial) order" in which the supremacy of the "higher (white) race" is permanently established. He is not in favour of giving the right to the representatives of other races to participate, on an equal basis, with the representatives of the white race, but in favour of the dominant white "elite" giving the right to the "lower races" to participate on the sports field with their masters. It is the act of "mercy" (la charite) of the "master race" which, eventually, should discourage the submitted peoples from their liberative struggle and preserve the colonial order. Coubertin claims that sport is an "efficient" means for colonizing the "lower races" - giving as a model the British colonial domination in India. Speaking about the need to spread sport among the "natives", Coubertin concludes: "Sport is on the whole a powerful instrument for disciplining. It produces all types of positive social qualities, health, hygiene, tidiness, self-control." Sport becomes the means of creating a submissive conscious in colonialized peoples and the way of their integration into the spiritual orbit of their master at the level of "cultivated" slaves. It is no accident that Coubertin finds in Catholic "missions" the model for a spiritual colonisation of "lower races". Efficiant subordination of the workers and "lower races", and not "love of sport", is the fundamental principle of Coubertin's Olympic philosophy. The Olympic "pacifism" means that colonialized peoples have for ever renounced both the struggle for liberating themselves from colonial domination, and the struggle against the white race, namely, that the struggle between the "master" (white) and "lower races" is transfered onto the sports field, where it takes on the form of the "equality of chances", by which the established "world order" is not changed but strenghtened. It marks the end of evolution, based on the struggle between races, and starts a new era in the development of mankind, which consists in its "perfectioning" and is based on "peace" and "cooperation between races". The newly-established "Olympic counting of time" points to the "fact" that the white race has definately conquered the world and that presents both the end of history and the end of imagening the future in which all people, regardless of their racial and social origin, will be free and equal. Coubertin supports the Nazi regime because he sees in it the strenght capable of creating a complete and final domination of the white (European) race over "lower races" and establishing "eternal peace". De Coubertin is congenial to Hitler's "pacifistic" view from " Mein Kampf ". "Indeed, the pacifistic-humanistic idea can be good only when a virtuous man conquers the world and submits it to such an extent that he becomes the only master of the globe." The Nazis went even further than Coubertin: their proclaimed goal was not only to establish "eternal peace", but to establish an order in which "all peoples in the world will be happy"!
The contradiction of Coubertin's conception is that "educating" the subjects to respect the order ruled by the strong assumes that the winners on the sports field are the whites, and not the representatives of "lower races", or else sport becomes the means of dispelling the myth about the white race being the "master race" and the instrument for developing the conscious of resistance in people deprived of their rights. That Coubertin is aware of this danger is clearly seen from his warning the colonial authorities to allow the "natives" only those sports which do not contribute to the development of national conscious and jeopardize the authority of the colonial power. Bearing in mind that propagating sport among "lower races" and giving them the opportunity to compete with their masters on the sports field is but a part of the colonial strategy of the "master race", it is clear that Coubertin does not advocate the spreading of sport among "lower races" at all costs, but only if the "superior race" can use it to secure its dominant position. Accepting the defeat on the sports field is a neccessary evil - as long as sport contributes to the persistence of the colonial power. It is a necessary tactical move in order to achieve the strategic aim: to destroy the liberatorian conscious of "lower races" and integrate them into the global colonial order. That it is a temporary move can be seen from Coubertin's eugenetic theory. Giving the "right" to "lower races" to participate on the sports field with the "superior (white) race" does not lead to the "perfectioning" of the "master race", but to its weakening. Was Coubertin not actually striving for Hitler's model of the Olympic Games, where only the representatives of the "higher race" would be allowed to compete? Considering Coubertin's original Olympic idea, according to which the Olympic Games are a contest between "civilized nations", as well as the fact that in the ancient racist Olympic Games he saw an undisputable model for "his" Olympic Games, it is clear that Coubertin's wish that the Nazis should be the executors of his Olympic legacy and the guardians of his Olympic ideal has a more profound sense.



Olympism and pacifism



The myth of a "pacifistic character of olympism" is a widely accepted starting point in presenting Coubertin's doctrine. Coubertin is repeatedly credited with the "peacemaking" maxim that "it is important to take part", while the fact that he soared towards the Olympic heights with nationalistic (racist) slogans: "Rebronzer la France!" and "Enrichissez vous!" is never mentioned. It is understandable with regard to the fact that from the Sorbonne speaking floor Coubertin actually called upon the French bourgeoisie to set out on slaughtering and looting the African and Asian peoples. An international competition on the sports field, in the guise of a "revival of the ancient Olympic Games", was supposed to set into motion a wave of nationalism which would make changes in the French education system and develop in the French youth a desire to conquer and repress. Originally, the modern olympism appears as an integrative spiritual power of the bourgeois class which should enable its militarization and urge it to embark on new colonial exploits: "waging a war" is a privilege of the ruling "elite". Not only does Coubertin want a strong army, but he strives to militarize the whole bourgeois class (similarly to the aristocracy from the Homeric period), that is to say, to develop in the bourgeoisie a belligerent spirit, which is manifested in their decisive and uncompromising fight against the proletariat and the colonized peoples. That is why Coubertin wants to organize the Olympic Games in the form of a peculiar knight tournament, and thus institutionalize war between "civilized nations" on the sports field. The modern Olympic Games were meant to spiritually unite the European colonial metropoles in their colonial campaign, the aim of which was to submit the "lower races" and globalize capitalism. Coubertin had as a model the Hellenic world divided into polis-es, which fought for domination among themselves, but also fought against the "barbarians", which was the basic way of providing the labour force of slaves on which the ancient civilization relied. Like Aristotle, Coubertin sees in (colonial) war a "natural skill of acquiring", but, unlike Aristotle, who attaches primary importance to hunting the "barbarians", Coubertin attaches primary importance to conquering new territories and globalizing European capitalism. Urlike Prokop rightly notes the following: "Therefore, the effects that Coubertin expected from sport, which is based on rivalry, have nothing to do - as it is constantly claimed today - with international peace. 'The ideal of equality' includes no more than a formal equality of chances. Coubertin was not more of a pacifist than the Greek dominant stratum, which founded the Olympic Games and for which acquiring power through sport was the condition of surviving in their fight with neighbouring peoples, as well as (the condition) of securing the submission of numerous slaves." The following words of the Nazi ideologue Ernest Krieck fully express Coubertin's view, as well as the dominant view of the European imperialist circles: "We live no longer in the age of education, culture, humanity, and pure spirit, but in the necessity for struggle, for political visions of reality, for soldiery, national discipline, for the national honour and future. It is, therefore, not the idealist but the heroic attitude which is demanded of men as the task and need of life in this epoch". Even in the beginning of his olympic path (1894.) Coubertin's guiding principle was the "fact" that in the existing world the "domination of spirit has not been established". Ten years later Coubertin pointed out that "fighting for life" is not only characteristic of today's world, and ''it will surely be dominant in tomorrow's world as well in spite of all the nice projects for social organization and collectivistic harmony". His advocation of the principle of "natural selection" and his cynical mocking of the pacifistic ideas of socialists, lead to the conclusion that, for Coubertin, war is not only an inevitable, but a welcome destiny of mankind. A striking similarity between Coubertin's and Nazi doctrines can be found in Hitler's programmatic text written in August of 1927, in which he propounds the fundamental principles of Nazi philosophy: "The survival and future of the people on earth lie: 1. In their own racial value; 2. In the significance they attach to personality; 3. In the knowledge that the entire life in this universe is a struggle. The downfall of today's epoch I see precisely in the denial of these three laws, and not in minor unsuccessful actions of our present political leadership. Instead of national and racial values, millions of members of our nation bow today to the idea of internationalism. Starting from the stupid democracy, instead of strenght and geniality a majority of number is imposed resulting in weakness and stupidity. And instead of realizing and accepting the necessity of struggle, a theory of pacifism is being preached, of friendship between peoples and of eternal peace in the world." It is interesting that Hitler proclaims pacifism, friendship between peoples and eternal peace the "crimes" of marxism, a "spiritual plague" that "pervaded almost the whole of our (German) people". Coubertin calls Hitler "one of the greatest constructors of modern age", and regards him as the symbol of a totalitarian power of the "master race", which, governed by the principle "might is right", managed to "efficiently" deal with the democratic institutions and the liberatorian working movement; which is capable of initiating a "new beginning" in the development of civilization that will enable the realisation of the idea of a positive society; and which will conquer the world. The basic aims of fascism: "to organize monopolistic production", "to destroy the socialist opposition" and "to resume imperialist expansionism" are the corner stones of the modern Olympic doctrine. It is obvious that the maxim si vis pacem para bellum, which in Coubertin appears under the slogan of the "armed peace" (la paix armee), totally contradicts the socio-Darwinistic doctrine his Olympic doctrine is based on. Colonial aspirations and the struggle between the most powerful countries over the share of the colonial loot indicate the inevitability of wars and the need for developing a combatant and militaristic spirit in the (bourgeois) youth, which represents the most important concrete spring of the socio-Darwinistic doctrine and militarism. Coubertin's "anthropological argument" supports this view: "If we tried to make the young people grow affection for peace, we would experience a serious pedagogical disappointment. (...) International peace is the offspring of self-restraint and tolerance, and these virtues are strange to normal youth. The young are eager to fight, and that they must be." Coubertin regards war as the highest test of a "man's maturity" and the purest form in which "natural selection ("the weak are eliminated") - on which the "perfectioning" of mankind is based - is realised. Fighting for freedom is an obstacle to "evolution" and "progress" and thus the worst of crimes. All this makes Coubertin's endeavour to differentiate between "belligerent" and "combatant" youth meaningless. A pacifistic education of the bourgeois youth is excluded from Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy".
The furthest the modern Olympic "pacifism" reaches is its endeavor to make the modern Olympic Games, similarly to the ancient Games, a "sacred truce" (la treve sacree) during which the weapons will be laid down so that the warring sides – that is to say the representatives of "civilized nations" who fight over the share of the colonial loot - could bow to the highest divinities of today's world. Coubertin: "In regular, to that purpose exactly determened, intervals the quarells and fights would be stopped, and differences forgotten. People are not angels and I do not think that mankind would gain something if most of them were. But a really strong individual is the man whose will is so strong that he can make himself and his community completely forget for a while their interests or their passionate desire to dominate or possess, no matter how justified they otherwise may be. As for myself, I would not mind seeng how in the middle of a war the conflicting armies cease their war operations showing respect for the sports games organized during a truce which would be inspired by an honest and knightly spirit." However, we have seen that Coubertin's olympism, like the Nazi one, opens the possibility of establishing "eternal peace" only after the entire colonization of the world by the European colonial metropoles and the sharing of colonies have been completed. In such conditions the Olympic Games should serve the same purpose as the original ancient Olympic Games and the middle-age tournaments: they should be the means of increasing the alertness of the ruling ("master'') class.
According to Coubertin, man's commitment to struggle and war (particularly colonization) is the most valuable human quality and he speaks of it with the highest esthetic exaltation. For him, boxing is a "fine man's sport", and contact with arms, on which a child's education is based, represents a "wonderful tradition". Coubertin is particularly inspired by France's colonial invasions. He describes them in the following terms: "magnificant feat", "brilliant expedition", "the most wonderful of all colonial epopees" ...Coubertin is fascinated by the Nazi Olympic Games: they had a "tremendous success" and "wonderfully served the Olympic idea". He sees in them the symbol of "beauty", "courage", "hope" and above all the "advancing work of construction". Most importantly, they were "illuminated by Hitler's strenght and discipline" and because they were so "fortunately organized" they should serve as a model for future Olympic Games.
In the speech made in June of 1914. at the Sorbonne in the presence of the French President Raymond Poencare (entitled "Sport and Modern Society"), which marked the twentieth anniversary of the modern Olympic Games, Coubertin repeated the thesis which represents one of the foundations of his "pacifistic" Olympic doctrine and sports pedagogy: "Sport is an important factor in the colonial expansion because colonization without good sports preparations represents dangerous unmindfulness. Many historical failures and many successes can be explained by the fact that such a preparation existed in one case, and was missing in others." In February of 1918, in the last year of the First World War, in which more than thirty millions of people had been killed and crippled, Coubertin made a speech in Lozana, in which, among other things, he said that in the previous forty years history had enabled France to record "the most wonderful of colonial epopees" and " to lead the young people away from the danger of some kind of pacifism and extreme liberty", and that the mobilisation in August of 1914 "will remain one of the most fascinating spectacles democracy has given to the world". Bearing in mind that, for Coubertin, the view that the "battle at Waterloo was won on the sports fields of Eton College" (ascribed to Wellington) was one of the most important starting points for the formation of his Olympic philosophy, we are clearly not dealing with an anachronism. Speaking of Coubertin, his spiritus rector and close friend Carl Diem, one of the leading ideologues of the Nazy olympism and an undisputable authority in the dominant pedagogical thought of contemporary Germany, says: "In the modern age this militaristic spirit of the Games has been revived. Coubertin, their renovator, had military blood in his veins. He abhored pacifism and all those nebulous utopias on peace. His pedagogical, historical and political works suggest a fearless character, the one of a true warrior".
Trying to present Coubertin in a pacifistic light, liberal-minded ideologues of olympism (like MacAloon and Boulongne) claim that Coubertin rejected violence as a legitimate means of social changes, but do not mention that Coubertin considered violence a legal and legitimate means of the bourgeousie for preventing the democratic social changes and preserving the established order. Throughout his Olympic life Coubertin advocated domination of the rich "elite" over the working "masses", all the means by which the order should be protected being allowed and justified. Boulongne's view that Coubertin was against violence because "violence generates violence" - which is supposed to justify his attitude to the Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution - is completely opposed to Coubertin's Olympic doctrine, based on social Darwinism: the natural selection based on the principle "might is right" is the undisputable foundation of social order. A limitless economic, military, political, spiritual and sexual violence of the bourgeoisie over the working "masses", colonized peoples and women is the basis of Coubertin's Olympic doctrine. Coubertin speaks enthusiastically about Thiers' massacre of the Parisian proletariat after the fall of the Commune; he praises the "magnificent achievements" of the colonial falanges which by fire and sword conquered a new "life space" to the European capital; he mercilessly attacks both the Russian revolutionists, who were trying to save the country from the butchery of the First World War created by the capitalist monopolies, in which millions of Russian workers and peasents were killed, and the antifascists, who called on the boycot of the Nazy Olympics and condemned the Nazy barbarism. If there is something that Coubertin was consistently in favour of then it is violence as a legitimate means of the bourgeosie for achieving their interests and denying the oppressed any right to oppose tyranny. Marx writes about that the following: "...today's bourgeois considers himself the legitimate heir of the former feudal lord, who considered justified any weapon in his hand pointed at the plebian, while any weapon in the hands of the plebian immediately meant crime". It should be noted that Coubertin was not only against the armed resistence of the oppressed, but also against any kind of political struggle of workers, "lower races" and women for achieving their human, civil, national and syndical rights.
The fact that Coubertin was against violence does not mean that he, like Nietzsche, advocated sheer force as the exclusive means for holding the working "masses" in submission. Instead of opting for domination carried out with the sword, Coubertin, as a "good Catholic", opts for a spiritual submission of the oppressed - as the chief socio-prophylactic measure for their exploitation. As a political realist, Coubertin recognizes that making the oppressed "voluntarily" accept the existing order is far more profitable for the ruling "elite" that insisting on a constant repression, which leads to their resistence and forces them to organise and fight against tyranny. Therefore, he proclaims the principle of "control in heads" of the oppressed the highest principle of his "utilitarian pedagogy". Unlike the leading bourgeoise ideology, Coubertin departs from the "fact" that capitalism is an irreparably unjust order and calls on the people deprived of their rights to reconcile to the "inevitable" injustice and give up hope of creating a better world. According to Coubertin, "to teach the workers to respect the order ruled by the strong" - that is the main reason for the ruling "elite" to "allow" the workers to engage in sport. Sport become the most important political instrument for destroying resistance to injustice and for "reconciling" the oppressed to the existing order, and that is the most important condition of establishing the positive society. Coubertin is fascinated by the "Nazy olympism" because, before and during the Berlin Olympics, the Nazis managed to "win over" almost the entire German population and integrate them spiritually into the established order. For Coubertin, "Hitler's strenght and discipline" symbolize what a "handful of good people" can do by means of sport and olympism in developing a militant nationalism and racism, which means in destroying the liberatorian (class) conscious of the oppressed and turning them into the instrument for achieving the interests of the ruling "elite".
A defending war and an anticolonial struggle are excluded from Coubertin's theory of war. Coubertin refers to ancient Greece but "overlooks" the fact that in ancient Greece the distinction between conquering and defending (liberatorian) wars was clearly drawn. Analysing Homer's attitude to war, Milos Djuric says: "The repulsion that the poet feels to war is also seen in his creating in Hector the character of a combatant with a high moral dignity and humanism. Hector's principal moral value is seen from the fact that he does not fight, like his opponents, from revenge, from lust to plunge, from belligerence and spirit of adventure, but to defend his homeland and family." Athens got the primacy and, more importantly, was respected in the Hellenic world as the standard-bearer of the fight against the Persian invaders. Pericles' real importance lies in his becoming the symbol of the Hellenic struggle for freedom, unlike Alcibiades, who became the symbol of greediness and decline of imperialist Athens. It is no accident that this was the period when Greece spiritually reached the highest level: the struggle for freedom awakened the most creative powers in the Greek people.
Coubertin's agon has an antiliberatorian character. It is reduced to the struggle between peoples, races and nations, to conquerings, knight fights, duels, to the oppression by the strong - excluding the struggle of the oppressed for freedom. Coubertin is aware of the "fact" that the historical struggle between the rich "elite" and the working "masses" has entered its final stage and that the workers are capable not only of throwing the bourgeoisie from power, but also of abolishing the class order. To that truly new historical beginning Coubertin opposes his "new beginning", which comes down to the destruction of the emancipatory heritage of civil society, and to the establishment of the same social relations that existed in ancient Greece during the absolutistic rule of the clan aristocracy. This is what conditions the militant character of Coubertin's conception and gives a dramatic character to his Olympic doctrine and practice. Confronted with an ever deeper crisis of capitalism and its institutions, Coubertin sees in sport the fateful force that can save capitalism from disaster by destroying the liberatorian dignity of the people deprived of their rights.
Consistently trying to deal with civil society and the citizen as a constitutive part of society, Coubertin rejects olympism as a competition between people as emancipated citizens and reduces it to the struggle between nations (races) for domination, the sportsmen being the representatives of their nations and thus a symbolic embodiment of the dominant spirit, which through the Olympic ceremony acquires a divine aureole. Man is subjected, on irrational grounds, to a pseudo-collectivity in which his individuality is lost. In that sense, Coubertin rejects the idea of personal achievement, which is one of the greatest contributions of modern society to man's emancipation. International sport serves to stir a war psychosis in "times of peace", to create the feeling of "national endangerment" and start nationalistic hysteria in order to conceal class antagonism and direct the dissatisfaction of the working ''masses'' against other nations. By formally joining the Olympic movement, a country declares that it is at war with other countries. With every nation, reduced to the "rival", a special war account is open, while "settling the accounts" and stirring the spirit of revenge becomes one of the main tasks of national teams.
As for the relation between modern and ancient Olympic Games, the ancient Games were originally a "sacred truce" (ekheheiria) and as such a temporary cessation of the armed fight so that the participants, as representatives of a polis, could bow to Zeus, the supreme deity of the ancient Greeks and the god of war, and thus express their racial affiliation, superiority and coherence and win the favour of gods in the struggle for domination between the polis-es. Similarly to the ancient Games, the modern Olympic Games are not a cessesion of hostilities between nations (races) and the establishment of peace; they are a peculiar tournament in which nations (races) fight not with their weapons (which are only temporarily put away), but with the bodies of sportsmen and are thus a ritual expressing submission to the belligerent spirit that governs the world. The fact that arms are not used does not exclude the right to inflict bodily injuries, nor does it exclude a life-and-death fight - which was also characteristic of the ancient Olympic Games. Hence the importance of symbolism attached to muscularity: instead of arms, the "national (combatant) strenght" appears in the form of the muscular bodies of sportsmen and in their combatant character expressed in the "strenght" of their posture, disciplined behaviour, "determined" look in the eyes and a readiness to give their life for "national interests". The Olympic ceremony clearly suggests war between nations. The parade of the participants, flags, uniforms, marching, salutation, the army orchestra - all these things acquire a symbolic character within a militaristic Olympic ceremony the purpose of which is to deal with the pacifistic mind. The taking of the "Olympic oath" (serment olimpiques) is a typical militaristic ritual: sportsmen swear to fight with honour for the glory of their country|team - which means that they will obey the fixed rules which are the condition of survival of an order based on the principle "might is right" and on the natural selection. The very preparation for the Games, which lasts for several years and to which Coubertin attaches special importance, becomes the preparation for war not only of sportsmen, but of the whole nation. The public is systematically fanaticized, and nationalistic hysteria reaches its climax during the Games. The aim of the modern Olympic Games is not to incite armed conflicts, but to create a war psychosis which is meant to incessantly provoke war in people's heads and destroy the pacifistic mind.
The modern olympism contains an ambiguity, being at the same time a form of militarisation of the bourgeoisie and a form of pacification of the oppressed, but not as a phenomenon sui generis. In both cases it is an exclusive political instrument of the bourgeoisie for preserving the established order. This ambiguity in Coubertin's conception is the source of constant disputes. Coubertin's advocates repeat his "peacemaking" phrases "forgetting" that he, like the Nazis, addresses them to the "young of all the world" while at the same time supports the use of sport as the most important means of developing a combatant character in the ruling "elite". For Coubertin, international sport, in its original sense, is a war for domination between the "civilized" nations and a way of their spiritual integration to colonize the world. In that context, the Olympic Games are a "sacred truce" which should give the oppossing sides an opportunity to bow to the gods that rule the world in an attempt to win their favour. Departing from the British colonial experience, Coubertin gives to sport the character of a universal and global political tool for pacifying (depolitising) the colonized peoples. Coubertin's "Ode to Sport" is a typical example of this "pacifiying" character of olympism. Coubertin writes: "Oh Sport, you are Peace! You forge happy bonds between the peoples by drawing them together in reverence for strength which is controlled, organised and self-disciplined. Through you the young of all the world learn to respect one another, and thus the diversity of national traits becomes a source of generous and peaceful emulation." Analysing the effects of the popularisation of sport among the "natives", Coubertin comes to the conclusion that sport can play an "intelligent and efficient role in colonization", since it drives the "natives" away from their fight for freedom and teaches them to respect the social order ruled by the strong. Guided by that logic, particularly in the turbulent Europe after the First World War, Coubertin is in favour of introducing sport (as well as physical exercises) among the workers so as to drive them away from the political (class) battlefield to the field of sports competitions and thus establish "social peace". Sport, as a symbol of an order based on the rule of the strong, becomes a mechanism by which the "hatred that the poor have for the rich" (Coubertin) turns into respect for the ruling class on the part of the oppressed - who thus lose their class distinction. "That is the price we have to pay", says Coubertin, who is aware that sport as war opens the possibilities for the poor to develop a sense of group affiliation, group strenght, combatant (victorious) will, which means to use sport as an institution for a class organization and class struggle against the bourgeoisie. The Olympic Games, as a sports competition in which the members of colonized peoples and the "lower social classes" can participate, are the result of the balance of power between the ruling "elite" and the oppressed and is thus a forced move with a purely political, and not a humanistic or cosmopolitan dimension. If Coubertin finds something strange, it is the order in which the established rules equally apply to everybody. The "sports republic" makes sense for Coubertin only if the ruling class can use it to submit the working "masses".
The acceptance of international sport as the main form of "joining the international community" includes the acceptance of an order of relations and values which in sport obtain their "pure" form: the so called ''fair-play'' is not founded on the respect of man, but on the respect of the ruling order. It involves the "right" to inflict serious bodily injuries and kill; institutionalised degradation of women to "second rate" beings; unscrupulous rivalry between children and the destruction of the feeling of solidarity; the destruction of man's erotic being and a dehumanized and denaturalized physical drill as the basis of "physical culture"; ultimately, it involves an undisputable acceptance of a life which corresponds to a socio-darwinistic and progressivistic world order. Hence the risk of death becomes a constituent part of a "sports competition", while the right to kill becomes a legal and legitimate constituent of a "sports play": man's right to life is subjected to the right of capitalism to survival. That is why Coubertin insists on "knightly traditions": the life and death duel is a ritual form of offering sacrifice to the ruling power and a way of expressing total submission to the order. For Coubertin, similarly to Plato and Huizinga, man is only a "gods' toy" and as such an extended hand of an order which through a duel (war) affirms its right to decide upon life and death of its subjects. The aristocratic ambition and craving for power, which should confirm that they belong to the ruling "elite" and express undisputable loyalty to the established order, becomes a way of dealing with humanism and love of freedom. Coubertin despises man's love for other men ("brotherhood is not for man but for angels"), and glorifies man's love of arms which symbolizes the ruling (murderous) power and man's unconditional submission to that power. What is the cross for a Christian, for Coubertin is the sward. That it is not an exaggeration can be seen from Coubertin's "pacifistic" view published in the official "Revue olympique" in 1913: "Contact with arms turns a young man into an adult. The wonderful tradition introduced by the Germans, out of which all chivalry springs". The ability and readiness to kill a man - that is the highest human virtue! This expresses the essence of Coubertin's "pacifistic" pedagogy and Olympic "humanism".
Coubertin is also congenial to Heraclitus' thesis that "war is both father and king of all" and that "it has revealed some to be gods, some human; it has made some slaves and some free". However, Heraclitus' thesis that "war is a common thing", and that "everything is born from fight and necessity", together with his panta rei which is founded on the dialectic of nature, questions the "eternal peace", for which Coubertin argues and which symbolizes the positive civilisation in which a complete and definite power of the bourgeoisie over the working "masses", women and "lower races" is established. For Coubertin, war is not a universal and eternal principle of life to which man is hopelessly subjected, but a tool of the strong for pursuing their strategic interests. Coubertin does not depart from the ancient or Christian, but from the capitalistic universe and he does not hesitate to see in the natural forces and the divine power the means for achieving the political and economic goals of the ruling "elite". The selfwillingness of the bourgeoisie, based on the development of science and technique, which are alienated from man and which are the instruments for his submission, becomes a totalizing power turning the real and imaginary forces into the levers of "progress".


Coubertin and Nietzsche's "will to power"



Nietzsche's influence on Coubertin is beyond doubt, although it is difficult to determine to what extent Nitzche's thought contributed to the formation and development of Coubertin's Olympic idea, especially because it is hardly likely that Coubertin had direct contact with Nietzsche's work. Most importantly, both conceptions are based on the "philosophy of will", which tends to deal with the ideas of reason and freedom, and both propound the establishment of a direct and totalitarian power of the parasitic classes over the working people. Zarathustra's question of all questions: "Who will be the master of the earth?" - is an undisputable guiding principle of Coubertin's Olympic doctrine.
For Nietzsche, just as for Coubertin, "might is right" is the basis of social integration, although it is not based on evolution of the living world and on "progress", but on the aristocratic heritage: the aristocracy is an incarnation of the cosmic order and an undisputable bearer of the "will to power". Nietzsche is critical of Darwin's conception and consequently of Coubertin's theory of "progress". "What surprises me most when I survey the broad destinies of man is that I always see before me the opposite of that which Darwin and his school see or want to see today: selection in favor of the stronger, better-constituted, and the progress of the species. Precisely the opposite is palpable: the elimination of the lucky strokes, the uselessness of the more highly developed types, the inevitable dominion of the average, even the sub-average types. If we are not shown why man should be an exception among creatures, I incline to the prejudice that the school of Darwin has been deluded everywhere. That will to power in which I recognize the ultimate ground and character of all change provides us with the reason why selection is not in favor of the exceptions and lucky strokes: the strongest and most fortunate are weak when opposed by organized herd instincts, by the timidity of the weak, by the vast majority. My general view of the world of values shows that it is not the lucky strokes, the select types, that have the upper hand in the supreme values that are today placed over mankind; rather it is the decadent types - perhaps there is nothing in the world more interesting than this unwelcome spectacle. And he continues: "One counts on the struggle for existence, the death of the weaker creatures and the survival of the most robust and gifted; consequently one imagines a continual growth in perfection. We have convinced ourselves, conversely, that in the struggle for existence chance serves the weak as well as the strong; that cunning often prevails over strength; that the fruitfulness of the species stands in a notable relation to its chances of destruction..." In Nietzsche, the relation between man and nature is not mediated by the animal world; there is a direct link between nature and man on the level of the "organic" dominated not by dialectical relations but by mechanicistic naturalism (big-small). In his "overman" (Ubermensch) Nietzsche does not see a super-animal, but a being that "evades" the evolution of the living world and returns to the level of the organic, which is not ruled by the principle of competition that results from the current balance of powers and has a relative character, but by the principle of domination, which is the expression of the "accumulation of force" and has an absolute character. Unlike Coubertin, who insists on the established balance of powers between "elite" and "masses" resulting from the struggle for survival, Nietzsche insists on an order in which the domination of the "elite" corresponds to a cosmic order governed by the principle according to which the bigger devour the smaller, and to the basic existential principle of monopolistic capitalism according to which "the bigh fish devour the small fish". Instead of an evolutionary, Nietzsche offers a cosmological model of the "will to power" which has a mechanicistic character: "Every living thing reaches out as far from itself with its force as it can, and overwhelms what is weaker; thus it takes pleasure in itself." And he continues: "Life, as the form of being most familiar to us, is specifically a will to the accumulation of force; all the processes of life depend on this: nothing wants to preserve itself, everything is to be added and accumulated."
For Nietzsche, what supports the "will to power" (Wille zur Macht) is the cosmic energy and man's affective nature; in Coubertin, it is the expansionist power of monopolistic capitalism and man's combative character. As a pragmatist, Coubertin seeks to (ab)use the cosmic powers in the form of an instrumentalised science and technique, in order to impose a social (class) order which corresponds to the relations of domination established in the animal world. In the development of man's creative powers he does not see the means of man's liberation from his dependence on nature and the abolishment of the power of one man over another man, but the means of man's complete submission to the laws of evolution and the ensurance of undisputable domination of the parasitic classes over the "herd". His "will to power" represents a transformation of the economic, scientific and technical forces of monopolistic capitalism into a totalitarian political power of the ruling "elite". Instead of advocating a totalization of the world by way of man's creative and liberatorian practice, Coubertin advocates a totalisation of the world through the oppressive practice of the parasitic classes. For Nietzche, science and technique are the forces that conquered nature and thus, in the name of "progress", dealt with man's natural being and consequently with the cosmic (natural) source of his "will to power". Drawing on the ancient model, Nietzsche tries to return man to his cosmic being by way of art, which should develop in him the Dionysian life forces. At the same time, Nietzsche recognizes in technique the productivistic force of the "herd" as the driving force of progress. By means of that force the undisputable power of cosmos, and thus the power of the aristocracy which is its exclusive bearer, is dethroned, and the "animals in the herd" become superior, in the existential sense, to the parasitic classes. Hence it is no accident that Nietzche devalues the productivistic practice of the workers and proclaims war the basic existential activity of the "over-man". Nietzsche: " I recommend to you not work, but battle. I recommend to you not peace, but victory. Let your work be a battle, let your peace be a victory!" According to Nietzsche's existentialist intention, work represents the most important and the most valuable human activity. Nietzsche's "overman" is, in the existential sense, in the worse position than the members of the despised "herd". In spite of the aristocracy appearing as the incarnation of the cosmic power, its biological survival is ensured neither by art or philosophy nor by the sword or cross, but by the labour of the oppressed and despised "herd". Nietzsche's "overman" is an existential cripple. However, Nietzsche gives priority to the ownership of the means of production over work and tries to prove that the survival of the "weak" depends on the "strong", from which follows that the "herd" is a burden that the aristocracy should get rid of without mercy. Nietzsche: "The weaker presses to the stronger from a need for nourishment; it wants to get under it, if possible to become one with it." This Nietzsche's "discovery" completely corresponds to Coubertin's theory according to which the "oppressed have always expected from their masters to provide the means of life". Coubertin despises work, but he does not hesitate to appropriate from the workers certain productive forces that appear in the forms of science and technique (as well as the natural forces embodied in techniques) and to turn them into the means of developing the conquering-oppressive powers of the bourgeoisie and of exploiting nature - proclaiming the rich elite the bearers of "progress".
In spite of insisting on art and philosophy, Nietzsche does not expect from his followers to take up the bow and the quill, but the whip and the sword: ability and readiness to kill a man represents the highest challenge both for Nitzsche's "overman" and Coubertin's "new man". Nietzsche does not rely on those who are the most clever and the most creative, but on the richest and the most unscrupulous. Like Coubertin, he thinks that the biggest obstacle to revolutions and socialism lies in "those who have possessions", who are "of one mind on one article of faith". To justify their insatiable greedeness, Nietzsche uses the basest demagogy which he calls the "morality of development": "One must possess something in order to be something". I should add, ‘’one must want to have more than one has in order to become more’’.(....) For this is the doctrine preached by life itself to all that has life: the morality of development". Nietzsche does not criticise the bourgeois because he does not practice art but because he "agreed" to transfer his oppressive power onto the social institutions and "progress" and thus offered to the "herd" the possibility of abolishing the class order. He calls on the rich to decisively cast off all the norms and institutions that hinder their power and reestablish a direct tyrannical power over the ever more numerous and politically conscious workers. Nietzsche attacks the "pallid hypocrisy..." with "mandarins at the top" of Comte's type. "The barbarian in each od us is affirmed; also the wild beast. Precisely for that reason philosophers have a future." This Nietzsche's criticism only partly refers to Comte's follower Coubertin, since it refers to the "second phase" of Comte's work when he demonstrated an "altruistic" enthusiasm which Coubertin rejected with disgust.
In Nietzsche, there is no fight between races and between classes. The "will to power" is the exclusive quality of the "overman", and it manifests itself as the oppressive power over the "herd". In addition, "the will to power can manifest itself only against resistances; therefore it seeks that which resists it..." The existance of the "herd", which constantly multiplies and which represents a constant threat to the "superman", is the "resistance" that should enable the rich elite to keep oppressively fit. Carried away by his oppressive enthusiasm Nietzsche writes: "A declaration of war on the masses by higher men is needed! Everywhere the mediocre are combining in order to make themselves master! Everything that makes soft and effeminate, that serves the ends of the "people" or the "feminine", works in favor of suffrage universal, i.e., the dominion of inferior men. But we should take reprisal and bring this whole affair (which in Europe commenced with Christianity) to light and to the bar of judgment." Nietzsche goes as far as to calling on the "...annihilation of millions of failures..." who " have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher man". As a political realist, Coubertin does not share Nietzsche's oppressive enthusiasm and is close to Comte's idea of the need for a "reconciliation" between the ruling classes and the working "masses" as the ground on which "social peace" should be established. Coubertin realizes that the parasitic classes can only lose in an open conflict with the increasingly numerous and organized proletariat, and therefore seeks to pacify the oppressed and integrate them into the spiritual orbit of capitalism. However, it cannot be achieved by weakening the oppressive forces of the bourgeoisie and strenghtening the defensive forces of the oppressed, but by the weaker masochistically flattering the stronger expecting to be rewarded by their "mercy": dissatisfaction of the working "masses" turns into submission. Nietzsche speaks as a social surgeon; Coubertin speaks as a social prophylactic.
Nietzsche insists on the order of privileges and on the exclusiveness of the aristocratic spiritual sphere. He seeks to create not merely a master race whose sole task is to rule, but a race with its own sphere of life, with an "excess of strength for beauty, bravery, culture, manners to the highest peak of the spirit; an affirming race that may grant itself every great luxury..." Hence the power of the aristocracy is not mediated by any forms of mental manipulation with the oppressed which include their integration into the spiritual orbit of the aristocracy. Nietzsche seeks to educate the aristocracy by way of imitation, and create an exclusive organic community; Coubertin, like Spencer, tries to create from society a conflictless community which functions as an organism. He follows the "universalistic" spirit of the bourgeoisie which seeks to include the "herd" into its spiritual orbit and thus "reconcile" it to the existing order of injustice. Gramsci: "The previous ruling classes were essentially conservative in that they did not strive to build an organic linkage with other classes, namely, to extend, "techniqually" and ideologically their class sphere; it is the conception of a closed casta. The bourgeois class posits itself as an organism which is in a constant flux, capable of absorbing the whole of society, adapting it to its cultural and economic level." Guided by that logic, Coubertin creates a pedagogy for the "herd". However, unlike Comte, he does not use only the "objective" scientific knowledge to create his positive one-mindedness, but strives to make use of the agonic physical activism for a complete (character and spiritual) integration of the oppressed into the existing order. In his "sports republic" those deprived of rights learn how to accept an order ruled by the stronger, and at the same time, through the principle of "greater effort" suppress their real needs and develop a masochistic character: through sport and physical drill man does not become only an enemy to others but also to oneself. Coubertin's "education" of masses does not have an enlightening character, but seeks to combat the critical reason, and thus create from people a spiritual "herd": "control in heads" of the oppressed is the alpha and omega of his "utilitarian pedagogy". Instead of a Christian paradise and man's "equality before God", he offers a sports "spectacle" and men's "equality" in his "sports republic" based on the "objective" quantitative criteria. Like Christianity, olympism becomes a global and universal religion which draws the oppressed into the spiritual orbit of capitalism through their irational agonal physical activism: the fight on the sports field should compensate for their renouncement of the fight for freedom. As for the victory of the oppressed over their masters, it should teach the oppressed how to respect the stronger, and thus strenghten the social order based on the principle "might is right". The "sports republic" is an exclusive political tool of the parasitic classes, a peculiar ideological cudgel and not a means for man's emancipation. For Nietzsche, a competition between the members of the "new nobility" and the "herd" according to the rules that apply to all, is unthinkable. Only such competition which is the privilege of the aristocracy is acceptable and that means the struggle for victory which is not mediated by the progressivistic principle citus, altius, fortius. In other words, the ancient Olympic Games and the ancient gymnastics are acceptable for Nietzsche, but not the modern Games (sport) governed by the principle of "equality of chances", where the fight between the contestants is mediated by "progress" reduced to a quantitative comparation.
Nietzsche anticipated the destructive nature of capitalist "progress". He sees in "progress" not only a paralel process of existence, but a process oppossed to the cosmic laws and thus to the biological survival of man: "progress" occurs outside man, since man loses its life power. In the development of the productive forces Nietzsche does not see a possibility of man's liberation from his dependance on nature, as is the case in Marx, but the destruction of man's natural being. He greatly contributed to the recognition of the antibiological (entiexistential) character of the "Western civilisation" born at the moment when Socrates created from reason a tool with which he questioned the unity of ancient man with the universe. Nietzsche also opens the possibility of man's disappearance, but it does not happen through a technical but through an organic sphere, which becomes the form in which man turns into his original (energetical) cosmic prebeing. Nietzsche's glorification of the body in relation to the spirit ultimately serves to prove man's worthlessness in relation to the "organic". "Put briefly: perhaps the entire evolution of the spirit is a question of the body; it is the history of the development of a higher body that emerges into our sensibility. The organic is rising to yet higher levels. Our lust for knowledge of nature is a means through which the body desires to perfect itself. (...) In the long run, it is not a question of man at all: he is to be overcome." According to Nietzsche, in human body, ‘’the most distant and most recent past of all organic development again becomes living and corporeal." Through and over and beyond the human body "a tremendous inaudible stream seems to flow....". The body is a specific form of the existence of cosmic energy and a direct form of the activity of cosmic laws. It is similar in Coubertin: his "new man" embodies the expansionist power of capitalism and thus is the manifestation of "progress". Here we should say that Nietzsche's reducing man to the organic level and his returning to the cosmic origin render the question of the apocalyptic nature of Christianity and capitalism meaningless: essentially, Nietzsche's cosmological conception is also fatalistic.
In the "desire for freedom" Nietzsche sees a "concealed form of the will to power", which means deception by which the "herd" tries to defeat the ruling class. Like Coubertin, Nietzsche rejects the guiding principles of the French Revolution: man is not born free, but as the master or the slave depending on the class he belongs to. For Nietzsche, freedom is not the right of man, but the privilege of the aristocracy and it is possible only if the "overman's" affective nature gets rid of the traces of civilisation, which means that in him the cosmic laws can freely operate. The climax of the "over-man's" freedom is the abolishment of the last restraints that inhibit his affective nature and his complete unification with the cosmic being. The basic form in which the freedom of the parasitic classes is realized is a ruthless oppression of the "herd", and the development of their tyrannical power becomes the measure of their freedom: the development of the "overman's" "will to power" turns into the struggle with the will to freedom of the oppressed. Nietzsche does not hide that. For him "slavery" and "many degrees of bondage" are "a precondition of every higher culture...", and that means of art which liberates man's affective nature and enables a free pulsation of the cosmic energy in man. That is why Nietzsche mercilessly deals with the historical struggle of the oppressed against tyranny: "Disobedience - that is the nobility of slaves.’’ The fight of the oppressed for freedom becomes the confirmation of their slavery and not of their liberatorian nature: those who fight to change their social position do not deserve to be called ‘’men’’. At the same time, the fight for freedom against the aristocratic tiranny represents the fight against the cosmic order embodied in the aristocracy. It is the same in Coubertin: the fight of the oppressed for freedom against the rich "elite" has an antievolutionary and antiexistential character, since the bourgeoisie is the embodiment of "progress" without which mankind is doomed. However, it is in Nietzsche that the spirit of rebellion against the existing world is present and it is the most valuable part in his philosophy. Following that intention, Bloch sees in "Nietzsche's Dionysius" "rebellion" and "dawning", and brings him in "close relation" with Prometeus "who stole the light", while in his philosophy he sees a "glow, serenity and lightness" and a road to a "new, lightner mankind". The contradiction of Nietzsche's conception lies in the fact that the strenght of the "elite" can be tested and proved only if the oppressed strive for freedom. If the oppressed voluntarily renounce such strivings and readily accept their social position, in the way Nietzsche's expects them to do, than the order is not grounded on the oppressive "will to power" of the "elite" any more, but on the will of the oppressed not to oppose tiranny. Just as in Huizinga the unfortunate masses serve to create an emotional tension in his picture of the Middle Ages and depict the "colourfullness" of the human, so for Nietzsche the workers deprived of rights serve to prove and strenghten the "will to power" of his "overman". Only in this way a "passionate" submission, oppression and destruction become possible. As for Coubertin, he clearly states that, with a complete supremacy of the bourgeoisie in the world and a definite (literal) destruction of the wish for freedom and the hope of a just social order, the world will be dominated by "eternal peace" - but the fight for a place under the Sun will not cease.
Unlike Marx, Nietzsche does not depart from man as a universal creative being of freedom, but from the idealised model of an aristocrat-tyrant. Hence in Nietzsche the dominant instinct is not liberatorian but oppressive. Nietzsche's "overman" personifies the apsolutized power of( the "elite" over the "masses", which is executed directly and which by no means can be questioned. By appealing to the "eternal recurrence of the same events" (ewige Wiederkunft) he does not appeal to the oppressed to abolish a tyrannical order, but to the parasitic classes to combat the democratic institutions and establish an order governed by a "new nobility", similarly to the one in ancient Greece before the appearance of demos on the political arena. Like Nietzsche, Coubertin understands the "will to power" as the will of the "elite" to oppress the "masses", and not the will to move the masses to achieve certain political, economical, national or racial goals. In that sense, nacism, which insists on a "mobilisation of masses" is opposed to Nietzsche's aristocratic and Coubertin's bourgois-plutocratic elitism. The populist nature of nacism, in which the strenght of the "overman" becomes the strenght of the masses ("Ein Volk - ein Fuhrer!"), creates an unbridgeable gap between Nietzche's and Nazi elitism but also between Nietzsche’s and Jacobean and Bolshevic avant-gardism that seek to move the "masses" in order to abolish the oppressive order and create a just society. In order to achieve "national" aims, behind which the colonial interests of the bourgeoisie are hidden, Coubertin seeks to ‘’mobilize’’ the "masses" by way of racism and nationalism, and not by its militarisation, as is the case with the Nazis, but strictly within the role they have as workers. In spite of Coubertin's, and Nietzsche's, insistence on racism and nationalism, the class order is an undisputable foundation of social structuring.
Like Coubertin, Nietzsche reduces "life" to a looting order and proclaims its inhuman qualities the virtues of the "overman". "In great men, the specific qualities of life - injustice, falsehood, exploitation - are at their greatest." Nietzsche does not call on the rich "elite" to create a new world, but to renounce all the scruples and, in the fight against the increasingly numerous and class conscience "herd", apply all the means that will insure the existence of the parasitic classes. Speaking of the morality of the "ruling caste", which should become the "future masters of the earth", Nietzsche says that it involves "severity", "violence", "the art of experiment" - which appears in Zarathustra - "devilry of all kinds", "inequality of rights", "concealment". Fromm's analyses of the psychological profile of a nobleman from the Renaissance, which is for Nietzsche the symbole of a "strong time", enables us to understand the psychological portrait of Nietzsche's "overman": "They enjoyed more freedom, but were also more lonely. They used their power and wealth to draw from life every last bit of pleasure, while at the same time they had to mercilessly use all the means, from torturing to psychological manipulation, in order to rule the masses and stop the competitors within their own class. All human relations were poisoned by the life and death struggle to preserve power and wealth. Instead of man's solidarity with his neighbours - or at least with the members of the same class - came a cynically-indifferent attitude; man viewed other individuals as "objects" which had to be utilized, manipulated or merilessly destroyed, if it suited their ends. The individual was overwhelmed by a passionate egocentrism, insatiable lust for power and wealth", as well as by a "passionate desire for fame". Nietzsche does not depart from man as an independent personality, but from the model of the "aristocrat" and the "worker" (slave). The basis of a person's distinctivness and individuality is not his individual spiritual wealth, but his social position, i.e, the class status according to which the distinction ("extreme") is determined. Consequently, Nietzsche does not speak of the relations between people, but of the relations between classes.
Nietzsche seeks to create his "overman" by means of art and philosophy: the synthesis of an artistic sensibility and a philosophical mind give a specific character to the "overman's" "will to power". In Coubertin, instead of art we find an abuse of the artistic form as a decoration designed to produce a psychological effect. If we start from Coubertin's "Ode to Sport", as a transparent form of his Olympic poetics, we shall see that its symbolism is crude, unimaginative, pompous ...It is full of all sorts of terms with which Coubertin seeks to create a poetical curtain to his Olympic primitivism. It is dominated by the principle of disguise which should give the menagerie a "humanistic" veil: "international cooperation" becomes an excuse for war between countries on the sports fields; "a fine man's sport" for bloody boxing matches etc. A tyrannical self-willedness of the "elite" appears in the form of humanistic phrasings which should conceal their true nature and make people believe that they are the highest peak the human can attain. For Nietzsche, art is an expression of man's affective nature and thus the embodiment of man's overflowing life force. His esthetics involves the abolishment of all the norms which could restrict the "will to power". Hence an unbridled, explosive expressivity becomes the basic characteristic of art. Nietzsche maintains that everything is allowed, including drugs, which brings man into a state of "intoxication" when his affective nature becomes fully expressed, and that involves a free pulsation of the creative-destructive powers of the cosmic forces: the energetic cosmic waves make man's playing being. While Nietzsche insists on art as the means of removing all the barriers which prevent the realisation of man's affective nature, Coubertin insists on sport and physical drill as the means of removing man's instinctive and affective nature and of creating an impersonal musculine storm trooper of capital. For him, sport is a means of uniting man with a capitalist cosmos dominated by a progressistic and expansionist spirit. Unlike Nietzsche's cosmological conception, which does not have an instrumental and utilitarian character and in which things happen the way they do - because they are as they are and cannot be different - in Coubertin's evolutionist conception man is only a tool of facilitating "progress". While Nietzsche's "overman" obtains the energy to develop the "will to power" from a free realisation of his affective nature, Coubertin's "positive man" obtains his energy from the fight with his original natural and human needs. Admiring the masochistic seances of "saint" Colomban, Coubertin states that he does not do that primarily because he wants to "secure a place in Heaven", but to "preserve within himself that wonderful energy from which his work emerged and gave him an encouraging performance". Torturing one's own body represents the highest challange for his pedagogy intended for the XX century. The relation of Coubertin's positive man to others, as well as to himself, is mediated by the progressistic spirit of capitalism which appears in the form of the principle of "greater effort": not the aristocratic heritage, but the growing power of the capitalist monopolies, expressed in a dehumanised science and technique, represents the origin of the "will to power" of Coubertin's "new man". In Coubertin, the spirit, which is the realisation of the spirit of the ruling order in man ("progress"), has priority over the body, which is an istrument for achieving the given ends and the source of energy. Coubertin has no respect for man's instinctive nature nor does he depart from it, but a fanaticized conscious ("spirit") becomes the means of crippling it (above all, eros) and of developing a merciless oppressive-masochistic character. For Coubertin, man is by nature a "lazy beast" ruled by the principle of "lesser effort". Sports should develop in him the will for "greater effort" and create from him a peculiar super-beast. "Disciplining the body" turns into a combat with instincts, senses, imagination - and the creation of a positive character. With this Coubertin is closest to Christianity and furthest from Nietzsche. Coubertin's view of the "soul's need to torture the body so that it becomes more submissive" represents for Nietzsche the worst of blasphemy. In Nietzsche, torturing is not a universal superhuman principle to which people are hopelessly submitted, but a privilege of the "overman" and it does not relate to his body, but exclusively to the "herd". His "will to power" does not admit of the masochistic principle of "greater effort" which underlies Coubertin's "utilitarian pedagogy". Nietzsche: "Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage - it is called Self; it dwells in your body, it is your body." "The creating Self created for itself respect and contempt, it created for itself pleasure and pain. The creative body created the mind as a hand for its will." Nietzsche's ideal of a "creative body" does not affirm man as a (self)creative free being, it affirms the cosmic laws of creation and destruction which pulsate in man making him a toy of cosmic forces. At the same time, Nietzsche calls upon his "brothers" to hear the "voice of the healthy body": "Hearken rather, my brothers, to the voice of the healthy body; it is a more honest and pure voice. More honestly and purely speaks the healthy body, perfect and square-built; and it speaks of the meaning of the earth." Coubertin despises the healthy body, speaking of it as a preoccupation of the "weak", and exhalts the muscular body in a combative exertion as a symbolic incarnation of the expansionist ("progressive") power of the ruling order.
As far as philosophy is concerned, Nietzsche criticises the German schools since in them "one no longer has any idea" of the necessity of "learning to think". Thinking requires "a technique, a teaching curriculum, a will to mastery." By dealing with Socrates' "morbid mind" (Sloterdijk), Nietzsche opens the possibility of establishing a true mind, while Coubertin seeks to abolish the mind and reduce it to a dehumanised and instrumentalised ratio. Coubertin departs from the view that the ancient Greeks were "...little given to contemplation, even less bookish" and proclaims it the chief pedagogical principle which he seeks to introduce in French schools. Upbringing without education and the creation of a muscular body and a combative character (mens fervida in corpore lacertoso) - that is the basis of his "utilitarian pedagogy". Coubertin's conception is not only antiemancipatory but, unlike Nietzche's philosophy, it is anticultural. Coubertin deprived his bourgeois "elite" not only of every human responsibility for their actions, as Nietzsche did with his aristocratic "elite", but also of its creative power. Coubertin's positive bourgeois is not only immoral, but also unreasonable and unestethical. Instead of Nietzsche's aristocratic "elite", which in its "will to power" is guided by estethics, comes the bourgeois "elite", which in its will to submit the whole world is guided by social darwinism and progressism. Nietzsche "overcame" the gap between upbringing and education by abolishing the normative sphere: the aristocratic heritage is not transfered from one generation to another through a normative model, but through living in an aristocratic community, whereas estethics, which is based on imitation, represents the main integrative tissue. The starting point of Coubertin's pedagogical conception are not mimetic impulses of the aristocratic as an organic community, but the "circumstances" that appear in the form of the "war of all against all". Unlike Nietzsche, who departs from the aristocratic community as a cultural community, Coubertin departs from the animalistic heritage of man and seeks to "overcome" it by the instrumentalised principle of "greater effort", embodied in sport and physical exercise, as the form in which the instrumentalised and alienated natural forces appear, and which expresses a progressistic and expansionist nature of monopolistic capitalism.
While Nietzsche insists on the inhereted aristocratic status exclusivity, for Coubertin, the factor of inheritance is a neccesary but not a sufficient condition for a person to acqure a master status: he has to affirm himself in the everyday struggle for existence. Nietzsche advocates a statical aristocratic world, while Coubertin advocates a dynamic (expansionist) bourgeois world. It is most obviously manifested in physical esthetics: while Nietzsche insists on the aristocratic principle ordre et mesure, Coubertin insists on the progressistic principle mens fervida in corpore lacertoso. In Nietzsche, esthetics is of a primary importance in upbringing (education), unlike Coubertin, for whom the insistance on aristocratic manners represents a restraint for the expansionist and "progressive" nature of the bourgeois. In Nietzsche, we find an explicit evaluative apriorism which does not have a normative, but a mimetic character. A reasonable-ethical apriorism in Kant, in whom Nietzsche sees the spiritual reincarnation of Socrates, appears in Nietzsche as an esthetic apriorism: the strict reasonable-ethical principles are replaced by an even stronger esthetic form. Nietzsche: “In Athens, in the time of Cicero (who expresses his surprise about this), the men and youths were far superior in beauty to the women. But what work and exertion in the service of beauty had the male sex there imposed on itself for centuries! For one should make no mistake about the method in this case: a breeding of feelings and thoughts alone is almost nothing (this is the great misunderstanding underlying German education, which is wholly illusory), one must first persuade the body. Strict perseverance in significant and exquisite gestures together with the obligation to live only with people who do not "let themselves go"-- that is quite enough for one to become significant and exquisite, and in two or three generations all this becomes inward. It is decisive for the lot of a people and of humanity that culture should begin in the right place--not in the "soul" (as was the fateful superstition of the priests and half-priests): the right place is the body, the gesture, the diet, physiology; the rest follows from that. Therefore the Greeks remain the first cultural event in history: they knew, they did, what was needed; and Christianity, which despised the body, has been the greatest misfortune of humanity so far.’’ Thomas Mann's criticism of Nietzsche misses the point: it is precisely Nietzsche's pedagogy that offers a far greater opportunity for controlling the instincts than the one achieved through the development of spirit in the form of the development of a moral conscious and an instrumentalized (dehumanized) reason. In addition, Nietzsche does not reject reason: his esthetics is a form in which a relation to the world grounded in reason appears. Nietzsche's insisting on a "strict observation of significant and selected gestures", on a "duty to live only with such people who are not "libertine", suggests a rational moral ground of Nietzsche's esthetics, as well as an apparent spontaneity, and that means the playful. Spontaneity is not expressed in a person's creativeness and thus in the development of relations between people (the playing community), but in the manner in which the normative scheme is learned (uncritically adopted), which becomes the basis and the criterion of an elitistic exclusivity ("to become important and chosen"). Instead of a reasonable upbringing, a physical (bodily) upbringing is established which represents an undisputable esthetic model learned by imitation ("to do what is neccesary") without the mediation of reason (critical reasoning). At the same time, the imitation has a ritual character ("a strict observation of significant and selected gestures"), which points to a liturgical component of his esthetics, similarly to the agonal physical activity in ancient gymnasia. The aristocratic worldview and the aristocratic morality make the basis of Nietzsche's esthetics (pedagogy), while Nietzsche's pedagogical model presupposes to live the life of "the significant and the chosen", which means that to belong to the (aristocratic) "elite" is conditio sine qua non of his pedagogy: an organic community is the basis of a spiritual community. For Nietzsche, life is a "play" (Man), but its rules and its form cannot be questioned. Actually, it is an absolutisation of the aristocratic worldview and the aristocratic morality in a strict esthetical pattern. That, according to Nietzsche, "life can be justified only as an esthetic phenomenon" (Man) means that real life is the one which is lived behind the curtain of his esthetics. Nietzsche instrumentalized esthetics in the same way in which Coubertin instrumentalized mysticism: it became a means for integrating man into the existing order by destroying his critical conscious.
Like Nietzsche, Coubertin realized the importance of the (unconscious) physical movement in building the character and conscious of a man. In Coubertin, also, an unreasonable agonal physical activism represents the basis on which a man's character, and thus the corresponding normative conscious, are built. Upbringing is acquired by living the life of a bourgeois, which is reduced to a constant and merciless struggle for survival and domination, imposed by the ruling logic of life. Coubertin does not depart from aristocratic society with its cultural tradition and exclusivity, but from society as a natural environment governed by the law of natural selection. Hence, instead of an imitation of exclusive esthetic canons, a behaviour conditioned by a struggle for survival, which is not limited by any norms, represents the basic way of a man's upbringing. In Nietzsche, acquiring the character of the master is conditioned by the development of a Dyonisian nature and the esthetic sense, while in Coubertin, such character is acquired through a behaviour which spontaneously follows the logic of natural selection - from which follows the "perfectioning" of man. Art is not the main means for developing man's Dionysian nature and strenghtening his "will to power", as is the case in Nietzche, but is a decoration of a primitive agonal physical activism which is the embodiment of the spirit of monopolistic capitalism. In Nietzsche, the possibility of the creation of a normative model of upbringing that could be applied even to those who do not belong to the aristocracy, is abolished. Aristocratic upbringing becomes the privilage of the ruling class and thus an unsurmountable obstacle that for ever separates the "elite" from the "masses". Coubertin offers to the oppressed a "sports republic" and, starting from the nature of the relations in sport that correspond to the relations in society, tries to teach them to accept the established social order of injustice. The creation of a combatant character ceases to be the privilage of the parasitic classes and becomes the "right" of the oppressed. As we have seen, Coubertin is well aware of the consequent danger and, therefore, in "giving the right" to the workers to compete with their masters on the sports field he sees only a temporary measure which, at the moments of crisis for capitalism, should drive the workers away from the political battlefield and preserve "social peace".
Speaking of the Hellenic cosmos, Anica Savic-Rebac states that the Greeks "were able to create it primarily because they were unaware of the modern distinctions between the esthetical, the ethical and the intellectual. One undivided man lived in all three realms, uncounsciously and without thinking of the possibility of such distinctions ...". Nietzsche speaks in a similar way. Striving to create a "synthetic man", Nietzsche sees in the "man of antiquity" the highest type of man, since he was the closest, in the form of the ancient gods, to his cosmic essence. Coubertin also tries to "deal" with man's fragmentation, which is a consequence of the division of labour, and through his (re)integration reconcile man to the existing world by crippling all that can raise him above the existing world and developing all that can enable the development of that world. Instead of opting for man as a universal creative being, Coubertin opts for a universal manipulation of man on the part of the existing order; instead of a totalisation of the world through man's universal liberatorian and creative practice, Coubertin insists on a totalisation of the world by the ruling "elite" through tyranny and the creation of a positive one-mindedness. Unlike Coubertin, who relies on the expansionist power of capitalism, Nietzsche counts on "...the energy of the totality of becoming" that " rises to a high point and sinks down again in an eternal circle." This "will to power" expresses itself "in the interpretation, in the manner in which force is used up; transformation of energy into life, and 'life at its highest potency', thus appears as the goal. The same quantum of energy means different things at different stages of evolution." Nietzsche sees in art the highest form of the "transformation of energy to life". That is why music has such an importance for him, especially Wagner, in whose works Nietzsche recognized the magnificent thundering of cosmic powers. Nietzsche insists on art as a creative act in which man's affective nature explodes, while Coubertin insists on the effect that a work of art has on people: the Olympic esthetics appears as a "cultural" form of man's ritual insemmination with the spirit of capitalism. Coubertin's appealing to the "immortal spirit of antiquity" has nothing in common with Nietzsche's principle of the "eternal return". Nietzsche sought to reconcile the Apollonian and Dionysian principles; Coubertin, as a devoted Procrustean follower, "reconciled" Apollo and Dionysius by depriving Apollo of reason, and Dionysius of eros. Guided by a utilitarian principle, which is operationalised in the positivistic maxim savoir pour prevoir, prevoir pour agir, he instrumentalizes ratio, abolishes reason, imagination, the poetical. Coubertin is congenial to Rosenberg's conceptions from his "The Myth of the Twentieth Century", in which he deals with Dionysius as the god of "extasy, licentiousness, frantic maenadism", of all that is strange to a "pure" and "asexual" racial being of the Hellenes. Nietzsche mocks, in the form of Comte's philistine, the model petty bourgeois as a symbol of the modern age, who is sterilized (incapable of thinking, loving, admiring...) and whose life is reduced to performing the imposed roles. This man corresponds to Coubertin's model of the "positive man", who lacks reason and eros.
Nietzsche's philosophy corresponds to Coubertin's "positive state" as long as it deals both with the "theological" and "methaphysical" phase in the development of mankind and with the critical reason and the idea of future. Unlike Comte, Nietzsche insists on art and philosophy and opposes the tiranny of facts. Nietzsche is a strong opponent of the objectivistic and absolutistic scientific knowledge, as the source of the positive one-mindedness to which man is submitted. Departing from the thesis that the scientist is "the sheep in the realm of knowledge", Nietzsche criticizes Thain and "other Frenchmen" who "inquire, or think they inquire, without being already in possesion of a standard of values", and in their "prostration before 'facts'," he sees "a kind of a cult." "In reality", claims Nietzsche, "they destroy the existing evaluations." Criticizing Socrates, Nietzsche concludes: "One cannot promote the right way of life through science: wisdom does not make 'wise'." Relying on Comte and Le Play, Coubertin insists on positive science and Thain's principle: "Taisons-nous, obeissons, vivons dans la science!" Unlike Nietzsche's "joy of knowledge", in Coubertin is dominant a positivistic method of knowledge expressed in the maxim savoir pour prevoir, prevoir pour agir, which has an aprioristic, instrumental and reductionist character, and the aim of which is to abolish the cultural heritage and create a positive one-mindedness. At the same time, Coubertin seeks to create a positive character and therefore tries to reach the innermost part of man's soul by instrumentalizing myths and illusions. According to Nietzsche, Coubertin's Olympic doctrine would be the "tartuffery of false scientific manners".
The endeavour to abolish all that mediates between man and world and that prevents man from being in the everyday life united with his human powers, represents one of the most fruitful intentions of Nietzsche's philosophy. In that context, Nietzsche, similarly to Marx, seeks to abolish the spheres in which man's powers are alienated and to realize ''the synthetic man" in contrast to the ''fragmentary man''. "The will to power" becomes an appeal to fight for the original human powers which have been alienated from him during the reign of Christianity and in the modern age. That is why Nietzsche seeks to return to the time when man was not yet separated from the world (cosmos) and when the normative mould which became the basis for determining "the human" was not yet created. Pointing out that in the world of antiquity there reigned "a more lordly morality than today", Nietzsche says that "the man of antiquity" has so far been the only "man that has turned out well". And he continues: "One is no longer at home anywhere; at last one longs back for that place in which one would want to be at home: the Greek world!" It is no accident that Nietzsche glorifies the man of antiquity as a complete man and presents him in a romantic light. He was indeed uncomparably more complete than the modern man, since in the antiquity there were no spheres of science, techniques, art and philosophy in which his powers were alienated from him and thus confronted with his natural being. Marxs says on that: "The universal development of an individual, whose social relations are as their own, common relations also subjected to their own common control are not the product of nature, but of history. The level and universality of the development of forces when that individuality becomes possible pressuposes the production based on the exchange of values, which only with the universality of the alienation of an individual from himself and from others produces both the universality and the diversity of his relations and capabilities. At the earliest stages of development an individual appears more fully precisely because he did not develop the fullness of his relations and did not oppose it to himself as independent social forces and relations. Just as it is ridiculous to crave for that original fullness, so it is ridiculous to believe that we must remain with this complete emptiness. The bourgeois view has never gone further from the opposition to the romantic and that is why the romantic view as a legitimate contrast will follow him to his blessed end." Nietzsche abolishes mediation in order to return to man his alienated powers, but then his liberatorian-creative capability becomes the power alienated from him, which in the form of the "overman" appears as a tyrannical practice. Nietzsche's endeavour to abolish the ‘’fragmentary’’ and create the "synthetic" man becomes the endeavour to totalize the world - in which there is no place for freedom, nor for the idea of future - through an uncompromising oppressive activism of the "superman", which returns man to his cosmic pre-being. Coubertin abolishes mediation in order to finally abolish all those human qualities that are at odds with the model of his positive man - and thus obtain a "pure material" (Hitler) with which he will be able to meet the demands set to him by "progress". Instead of Nietzsche's "synthetic" man, Coubertin offers a positive man, who is devoid of eros, of creativeness, of imagination: the nature of capitalist "progress" becomes the nature of man. Like Nietzsche, Coubertin does not want to abolish all forms of mediation between man and his life so as to liberate man from the bonds of the bourgeois world, but to remove the obstacles which question the realisation of a complete and final domination of the ruling class over the "herd". Drawing on positivism and Jesuitism, as well as on the spirit of capitalist expansion, Coubertin with his positive man brought the process of man's fragmantisation and emptying to its conclusion. His "new man", as the embodiment of the maxim mens fervida in corpore lacertoso, is deprived both of his natural and of his cultural being. Coubertin's absolutisation of the progressistic nature of capitalism, which is dominated by quantity, is the form in which "technical civilisation" deals with man's natural being. It is no accident that Coubertin found the inspiration for his Olympic esthetics at the great industrial exhibitions. He, like the Nazis, insists on the "iron body", while in the "peaceloving estheticians" he sees the same as Hitler - "physical degenerates". Unlike Nietzsche, who seeks to reaffirm quality by giving a primary importance to the esthetical, Coubertin departs from the absolutised principle of performance and a quantitative comparation. At the same time, the principle of "greater effort" does not mean passivity and "wasting" the energy on the restriction of man's instinctive nature, but the transformation of man's instinctive nature, especially his erotic energy, into a conquering-oppressive activism - an instinct for domination. Nietzsche insists on the aristocratic heritage as the original source of the "will to power", while "modern" Coubertin, in the progressistic spirit of capitalism based on the development of a dehumanised science and technique, sees the source of the totalitarian power of the bourgeoisie. Nietzsche insists on the forces that man has within himself; Coubertin insists on the forces that are alienated from man in the form of science and technique and creates from them the main levers of "progress" - in the hands of the rich. Contrary to Nietzsche's ‘’eternal recurrence’’ to the original humanity (cosmic being), Coubertin's "progress" is the road to nothingness and destruction: the Olympic doctrine is not only antiliberatorian, it is also antiexistential.
Instead of Coubertin's "dialectics", which is established in "progress" and Socrates' dialectics, which is established in thought, Nietzsche's dialectics is established in the "superman", in confronting the Apollonian and the Dionysian, which leads to the development of his "will to power". Nietzsche's "over-man" is the model of an aristocrat and symbolizes the unity of the aristocracy as the master class in relation to the ever more numerous and politically (class) conscious "herd". The variety of his qualities forms the fullness of his being that represents a synthetized force of "the will to power". However, in Nietzsche, the Apollonian and the Dionysian exist as two forces independent of man: man is not their origin, but their incarnation. Nietzsche's man of antiquity who is the only one who "has turned out well" is actually a totally empty man to whom gods (temporarily) give their qualities. Gods' richness and their confronted qualities, which represent the life force of cosmos, make the fullness of the human and its dynamics. In him, the Dionysian and the Apollonian principles are confronted: life and form, cosmos and its human appearance are united. Hence Nietzsche abolishes every normative concept which mediates between man and cosmos and which limits his "will to power", and in that context he deals with Socrates who appears as the symbol of man's self-understanding through the sphere of mind: the very "will to power" produces the "human". However, Socrates did not only by deceit, by his "midwifery" (maieutika), drew man out of his cosmic womb, but he cut the umbilical cord that connected him with cosmos and thus prevented the flow of the cosmic energy into man, thereby convicting him to weakening and destruction. Nietzche's "overman" is homo natura and thus a peculiar cosmic "terminator" whose task is to destroy all forms of mediation which prevent the flow of the cosmic energy into man and to which his life force is transferred. It is an endeavour to purify the world from the layers of history that started with Socrates, who cut the life bond connecting man to cosmos and thus marked the beginning of his historical odyssey - that has an antiexistencial character. That role Nietzsche assigned to the "new nobility", which carries out the project of the "revaluation" of all historically created values (Umwertung aller Werte), since it is not degenerated by labour and in it, through its combatant (oppressive) activity, corresponding to the basic cosmic law, the original life force is preserved. Its task is to destroy everything that is "weak" and to deal with the emancipatory heritage of mankind which represents the worst form of cosmic pathology. The nature of Coubertin's "new man" is similar to the nature of Nietzche's "overman": he is the incarnation of the oppressive spirit of the parasitic classes and thus the tool with which "progress" destroys the emancipatory heritage of mankind and enables a free development of capitalism. Coubertin's and Nietzsche's doctrines are similar in their insistance on ".... the strengthening of the type, the ability for great willing....". However, while for Coubertin "the higher people" are those who incarnate the "progress" conditioned by the expansionist force of monopolistic capitalism, Nietzsche considers the higher people those who fully express the richness of forms and the contradictions of man's instinctive being. While Coubertin's "new man" is a capitalistically transmuted beast, Nietzsche's "overman" is a cosmic being without any civilisatory barriers that limit the flow and the effect of cosmic energy. For Nietzsche, the “will to power" is not a form in which the natural laws of evolution manifest themselves in man ("the law of the stronger", natural selection), as it is in Coubertin, but it appears as an expression of cosmic energy whose exclusive bearer is the aristocracy. Like in ancient Greece, the highest challenge of Nietzsche's eurhythmics is to be united with the cosmic being, with the domination of the "feeling of one's own strenght". It is no accident that Nietzsche recommends the use of drugs: all the things that enable the development of man's affective nature and the breakage of chains, which appear in the form of a historical and moral (self)conscious, with which civilisation chained man's affective being, are welcome. Man's affective nature becomes the umbilical cord through which the cosmic energy "flows" into the "overman", who is the working force of the ‘’will to power". The "eternal return" is the return of the (over)man to his cosmic (pre)being, and that means to the original and absolute "will to power" as an expression of the fight for domination in its original sense. Nietzsche's "overman" is the embodiment of the cosmic order - the highest form in which pulsate life and death, creation and destruction - which includes the whole cosmic firmament that once belonged to the Olympic gods: he becomes a symbolic incarnation of the working force of the cosmic order on earth and is thus its master, a peculiar god-man who mediates between cosmos and life on earth. Through the totalitarian tyrannical practice of the "overman" the earthly order becomes the realisation of the cosmic order. Instead of the divine light, the "overman" is infused by the cosmic rays: "the will to power" is the cosmic "holy spirit" incarnated in the "overman". Hence the "overman" is so self-confident: while Christ represents the imaginary god, Zarathustra is the representative of the cosmic forces. Nietzsche declared the death of the devine and a new birth of the cosmic order. An illusionary world, which existed in people's heads, is replaced by a real cosmic world which "flows" in the body. Man has not only opened his eyes again, he again experienced his cosmic being. While for Coubertin the capitalist cosmos is a natural environment of his "new man", for Nietzsche, Zarathustra's cave symbolizes the cosmic foundation of the "overman": it is his true home.
Speaking of Nietzsche's conception of time, according to which "the tiranny of becoming over being must cease if man wants to come to his self in the world which is really his own", Marcuse concludes: "Man comes to his self only when transcendence is overcome - when eternity has become present here and now. Nietzsche's conception ends with a vision of a closed circle - not progress, but 'eternal return'." Nietzsche does not distinguish between false and true being and he abolishes the historical becoming which is the way of liberation of the working "masses" from the tiranny of the parasitic classes. The true being does not only mean the "eternal building of the home of being" (Nietzsche), but also that the home is not a prison but the space of human freedom. Nietzsche's "eternal recurrence" is a "complete affirmation of life instincts" (Marcuse), not of man, but of the aristocracy embodied in the "overman", its basic "life instinct", as a parasitic class, being the looting of the working classes, and not the development of man's creative powers: it results from man's social position, and not from his instinctive structure. In order to release the "will to power", which is still the "prisoner" (Marcuse) of time, Zarathustra expects his believers to purify themselves from the emancipatory heritage of mankind, which means from everything that stops them from oppressing and devastating the increasingly numerous "herd", and that primarily means from the view that every man is entitled to freedom, and that all people are equal and should live on their labour. By criticizing Christianity Nietzsche seeks to abolish eternity which, by being "transfered to a transcendental world", became an "instrument of suppression", and to establish a direct oppression of the "herd" by the aristocracy, destroying the idea of a just world and a hope of a better world. Nietzsche's return of eternity to the "good earth", which involves the "eternal return of its children, of lily and rose, of the sun in the hills and lakes, of the lover and loving, of the fear for their life, of pain and happiness" - represents the privilage of the master class and means the final renouncement of the oppressed of their fight for freedom and justice: earth is "good" only for advocates of the tyrannical power. By insisting on transferring the eternity from becoming to being Nietzsche abolishes history: every man should find a place in the existing world starting from his class, race and gender. Nietzsche seeks to liberate man from history, but he does not think of questioning its heritage: class society, property relations based on the domination of the past over the living labour, as well as the patriarchal order - which are the products of history. Nietzsche's being represents the reproduction and immortalisation of the oppressive tradition of the parasitic classes and a combat with the emancipatory heritage of mankind which offers a possibility of the creation of a just world. He, like Coubertin, tries to sterilize capitalism and destroy the germ of a novum which is created in it. The existing structure of society becomes a concrete-historical bearer of Nietzsche's abstract being grounded in cosmic processes. Nietzsche criticizes time as man's closure in the past, but it does not prevent him from idealizing the past in which the "herd" was not present on the political scene. He does not remove all historical vestiges, but he removes the historical road and thus avoids the answer to the question how the "only complete man" in ancient Greece became the member of the Christian "herd"? Or, what kind of time is a "strong time" - from which a weak time springs? It is a political instrumentalisation of the historical heritage and an endeavour to destroy man's hope of a better world. By abolishing the idea of progress, Nietzsche abolishes history and future and thus abolishes man as a creative-liberatorian being. Like Coubertin, Nietzsche seeks to stop history at the point when the working class became an organised political force capable of abolishing the tiranny of the parasitic classes and the class order. History tells us that the will to power of the working "masses" repeatedly overcomes the will to power of the tirant and that their fight for freedom is the basic feature of history and a historical form of the eternal return. It is no accident that Nietzsche seeks to abolish history: it is a "miraculous mirror" reflecting the road to destruction of the parasitic classes and the contours of a new world in which the tiranny of man over man is abolished. At the same time, Nietzsche uses "timelessness" to deal, like Coubertin, with the historical heritage which suggests that it is not egoism which is the essence of man's instinctive nature, but sociability. Coubertin abolishes eternity as a transcendence that becomes "the ultimate consolation of an alienated existence" (Marcuse), and it becomes a synonym of a continuous existance of the present world, in which only quantitative shifts are possible, and of its "perfectioning" which comes down to the final destruction of the emanicipatory heritage of mankind and the purification of man from all the properties (eros, imagination, reason) that can question the existing world.
For Nietzsche, cosmic laws acquire a metaphysical character; for Coubertin, they are the laws of the evolution of living beings. They do not have a transcendental but an immanent character: they constitute life and man does not relate to them, he is their incarnation and a form of their activity. At the same time, with the abolishment of transcendency the past and future are abolished, and they vanish in the time being: in Couberten, there is a progression without progress, a "progress" without future. As for the criticism of transcendence, there must not exist any idea that transcends the existing world and that can become the basis of a critically-changing distance to it. The Christian logos and Nietzsche's conception are two forms of the abolishment of history: in the first case, being is reduced to an apstract spirit (god); in the second case, being is reduced to an abstract body (cosmos). Nietzsche, like Coubertin, erases man's historical traces and "contacts" with the past only through myths. In that context, the idea of the "eternal return" becomes the creation of a peculiar whirl of thought in which the idea and inclination to future should vanish. Nietzsche abolishes the historical fertility of capitalism: he seeks to destroy the germ of a new world which, on the basis of the development of the productive forces and liberatorian struggle of the oppressed, was created in modern society. The emancipatory heritage which, in the conditions of the "herd's" rise, hinders a radical combat with the oppressed and becomes their quiding principle in the struggle against the tiranny of the strong, is rejected. In that sense, Nietzsche's ''nihilism'' is productive: he seeks to remove all barriers to the "overman's" ''will to power'', including the critical reason. Instead of a philosophy that mediates between the basic cosmic law and man and establishes a firmament which with its rules of thought, knowledge and norms arouses suspicion, obscures and confuses - thwarting the "will to power" and, consequently, the survival of the mighty - the cosmic forces should directly infuse the "overman" with their strenght and man should be returned to his cosmic origin (obscured by the suspicion started by Socrates, whose thought symbolizes the appearance of demos on the historical scene, and with it the notion of a reasonable freedom and equality). Nietzsche's theory is dominated by a cosmic time which is determined by the process of creation and destruction and which is not an expression of the fight of opposites but of the pulsation of the cosmic energy bringing about some qualitative changes: man is a specific form of the existance of the cosmic energy. In spite of insisting on the Olympic Games as the "festivity of spring" symbolizing a (eternal) rebirth of the vital force of capitalism, in Coubertin dominates the mechanical time expressed in a linear evolution of the world which is measured by an increase in the material wealth of the parasitic classes, and which appears in sport in the form of a quantitative increase in the results (records). Man is deprived of qualities; his nature is determined by a dehumanized and denutarilized "progress", while the record becomes the measure of man's alienation from his human essence.
Nietzsche's conception apparantly opposes the "duties" (Socrates, Kant) and insists on a free development of human powers. Actually, Nietzsche deals with the limitations based on reason and freedom, and opts for the limitations imposed by a tyrannical aristocratic order. "Instead of the autonomy of reason we have the self-willedness of the superman - and that was the road from Kant to Nietzsche, described in the IX century - says Windelband. Nietzsche departs from the "overman" who embodies a destructive capitalistic irrationalism and proclaims his nature the cosmic nature of (over)man. Hence the oppressive and destructive instincts become man's chief anthropological trait. Nietzsche seeks to remove all barriers to the tirannical will of the ruling parasitic classes - in order to stop the advance of the increasingly numerous and politically consciouss "herd". Therefore, he has to deal with the philosophy whose representatives are Socrates and the "moral cripple" Kant, which seeks to establish criteria for human action that will respect certain universal human values and will be binding for all - it found its expression in classical German philosophy in the form of the notions of reason and freedom, as well as in Kant's "categorical imperative" and the "Declaration on Human Rights" formulated in the American Revolution and affirmed in the French Revolution.
Nietzsche's philosophy is "beyond good and evil". According to Nietzsche, "the weak" invented the "good" in order to limit the will to power and thus the vital force of the stronger: "The basic tendency of the weak and mediocre of all ages is, consequently, to weaken and pull down the stronger: chief means, the moral judgment." Thus, the "good" is a means of the "weak" for destroying the strong, from which follows that "evil" is a legitimate tool of the strong to preserve the class order. Nietzsche: "From a superior viewpoint one desires the contrary: the ever-increasing dominion of evil, the growing emancipation of man from the narrow and fear-ridden bonds of morality, the increase of force, in order to press the mightiest natural powers - the affects - into service." Dealing with the morality becomes dealing with the barriers that impede the flow of the cosmic energy into man and thus weaken his "will to power". In Nietzsche, there exists a fight between good and evil, but it is beyond the Christian moral postulates and the liberatorian struggle of the oppressed. For him, all that contributes to the development of the will to power of his "overman" is good, and all that restricts that power is bad. When Nietzsche says that his "overman" is "an evil being", he departs from the Christian criteria, while according to the criteria of his doctrine the "overman" is a higher being since it appears as an incarnation of the highest level in the development of the cosmic energy. Hence one of the greatest dangers for the strong is to accept the demand for "goodness" - since it threatens their existence. Nietzsche places the rich "elite" beyond morality, but not the members of the "herd". "We are beyond good and evil - but we demand that herd morality should be held sacred unconditionally", says the principal "moralist" Nietzsche. To obediently bear oppression - that is the highest moral challenge for the oppressed. Here Nietzsche appears as a preacher of the ideology of suffering and thus as a fervent Christian moralist. Coubertin also rejects the demand for justice, freedom and equality, and mercilessly deals with a hope of and a faith in a better world. The power of the strong is the source of their privilages: law and justice are abolished. Coubertin, like Nietzsche, rigidly demands from the oppressed to willingly accept their submission in society, and at the same time exempts the ruling "elite", which has a "higher purpose", from any moral responsibility. Instead of a demand for "goodness", the demand for the "right" conduct, which comes down to the strenghtening of their rule and a global expansion, becomes the highest "moral" challenge for the rich "elite".
Nietzsche, like Coubertin, rejects Christianity since it proved to be an inefficient means for holding the working ‘’masses’’ in submission, and its teaching contains some elements that arouse hope in the oppressed of a better world. Nietzsche's cry "God is dead!" means that the "new nobility" should not count on Christianity any more in their fight with the "herd", but should rely on an overt "will to power" that arises from the highest cosmic law: "right is might". "The death of God" does not signify the birth of a free man, but the new slavery and the destruction of any hope of a just world. The omnipotency of God is replaced by an unconditional and fatal omnipotency of the "superman": the sword replaces the cross. Nietzsche's attack on Christianity and the Church, precisely from the point of view of his political theory, misses the point since the Church provided not only a spiritual, but the most important political support to the aristocratic order which sought to have absolute power over the oppressed: Christianity as the lie of the strong becomes, according to Nietzsche, the truth of the weak. Christianity never limited the self-willedness of the strong, but was a way of their deification. The most atrocious crimes were commited under the symbol of the cross: whole peoples were exterminated and millions of members of the "herd" who dared to oppose Christianity were killed precisely by Nietzsche's aristocracy, to whose genocidal practice refers even Nietzsche, trying to deal with the ever increasing workers. As for Nietzsche's glorification of the Rennaisance as a "strong time", it needs to be said that the Church made its mark precisely on that period. The Catholic church was in that period the generator of evil that lashed out at the "herd" and its best members: massive executions, bestial clashes with the revolting peasants, plots, treachery, horrible tortures, bloody fights between the noblemen, wars, diseases, famine, despair... In Renaissance Italy crime became the main way of life. However, Nietzsche deals with Christianity in the period when the working people become conscious and politically organised, and he recognises in it the ideas that can become a political platform for the unification of the oppressed in their struggle against the tiranny of the parasitic classes. Nietzsche sees in Christianity a spiritual spring of socialist thought: "The gospel: the news that a gateway to happiness stands open for the poor and lowly - that all one has to do is free oneself from the institutions, traditions, guardianship of the upper classes: to this extent the rise of Christianity is nothing more than the typical socialiste doctrine."(Kaufmann,kurziv F.N,123.s.) Like Coubertin, Nietzsche deals with the false Christian hope of a "better world" in Heaven, in order to destroy people's hope of a better world on earth. By dealing with Christianity, he deals with the French Revolution in which he sees "the daughter and continuation of Christianity - its instincts are against caste, against the noble, against the last privileges.." He uses Christian frauds, such as the idea of the "equality before God", in order to deal with the idea of the equality of people in society, reducing it to a demand for uniformity. What Nietzsche, together with Coubertin, demands is a spiritual integration of the parasitic classes in their final combat with the increasingly numerous and organized working people, who are becoming a political force able to dethrone the parasitic classes. Hence Nietzsche does not rely on God, but on the cosmic powers: nothing must hinder the will to power of the parasitic classes and every thought arising hope of the oppressed of a better world should be dispelled. Nietzsche abolishes the Christian spiritual firmament - which appears in the forms of "god" , "Christ", "holy spirit", "devil", "hell", "paradise" etc. - and establishes his own spiritual firmament in the form of the "cosmic energy" and "cosmic laws". He takes the "herd" from the priests and delivers it to his "overman", who appears in the form of a merciless cosmic tyrant. By dealing with Christianity Nietzsche deals with the idea of a true world: "It is of cardinal importance that one should abolish the true world. It is the great inspirer of doubt and devaluator in respect of the world we are: it has been our most dangerous attempt yet to assassinate life.". The endeavour to kill the hope of the oppressed and their faith in a better world is the common characteristic of Nietzsche's and Coubertin's teachings.
Just as Coubertin appropriates the results of the creative powers of the working "masses" and tries to turn them into the exclusive means of the bourgeoisie for their oppression, so Nietzsche appropriates the results of the liberatorian struggle of the "herd" and creates from them a means for the final victory of the "new nobility" incarnated in the "superman" over the "herd". Nietzsche's "overman" becomes the form in which man's liberatorian-creative powers turn into the tyrannical power of the parasitic classes. He represents a new attempt at the deification of the power alienated from man that dethroned the Church and that is capable of creating a new world where there is no place for the old or "new nobility". All that Nietzsche seeks to give to his "overman", the best members of the "herd" created long before Nietzsche's Zarathustra and thus proved that they are capable of finding their own way. Many liberal minds, like Goethe, Feuerbach and Marx, recognized in man a overman, not a tyrant, but a freedom oriented man who is capable of dealing with Christian dogmas and create a world in his human image. It is precisely in their struggle against the Church that people matured and proved that they were not a "herd". That is why Nietzsche does not speak of the historical struggle against Christianity whose symbolic offsprings are Copernicus, Galileus and many others who, like Giordano Bruno, ended in flames or on the scaffold. Nietzsche mercilessly deals with the socialists who radicalized the combat with Christianity and, starting from Marx's view that religion is the "opium for people", refused to continue to be "sheep" that the new masters will milk and fleece at their will. As for Coubertin, he does not renounce the Catholic church as he sees in it a political ally in the struggle against the proletariat, but he appeals to god only when it is necessary, and at the same time renounces Christianity as an ideology that was not capable of preventing the bourgeois revolutions and drive the proletariat away from the political (liberatorian) battlefield. While Christ appears as the leader of the oppressed in their resistance to the strong, Coubertin appears as the spiritual leader of the new "master race" that should for ever deal with the emancipatory heritage of mankind. Coubertin has in Zarathustra, just as in the Catholic church, a rival, but also an ally: they fight for leadership, but they together fight to preserve the class society. Like Coubertin, Nietzsche was convinced that his philosophy "brings the triumphant idea of which all other modes of thought will ultimately perish." Nietzsche's ‘’Zarathustra’’ is the gospel of the parasitic classes, while the Bible is, according to Nietzsche, the gospel of the "herd". He calls on the fight between "evil", embodied in the aristocracy, and "good", embodied in the "herd". Like Coubertin, Nietzsche the "immoralist" offers his services to the European oligarhy: "The princes of Europe should consider carefully whether they can do without our support. We immoralists - we are today the only power that needs no allies in order to conquer: thus we are by far the strongest of the strong." Coubertin claimed the same and he proclaimed olympism the most important religion of the XX century. However, the very existance of Nietzsche's conception suggests its falsity: why Zarathustra if the cosmic power is so undisputable? The same applies to the Church: if god's will is omnipresent and omnipotent, the existence of the Church is meaningless. Coubertin's olympic doctrine has the same difficulty: why IOC if "progress" is inevitable and unstoppable? All the three conceptions do not have an enlightening but a dogmatic character: their main task is not to create intelligent people who seek the truth, but fanatics who will obediently follow the instructions of their spiritual leaders. It is supported by their rethorics: in their sermons, priests, Zarathustra and Coubertin appeal not to reason, but to the "heart", trying to reach man's innermost being and win him over in order to achieve the given ends. This "skill of seduction" based on an instrumentalized mind is a privilege and a means of the "elite" to preserve its power over the "herd". However, Nietzsche's poeticized rethorics opens a possibility to pose crucial questions, and in that sense it far exceeds Coubertin's "Ode to Sport", as well as his olympic doctrine. For Nietzsche, poetical (Dichtung) is the original form of thought that does not hinder the development of man's affective nature and that enables the development of his "will to power". The wise man and the prophet Zarathustra does not appear in a philosophical, but in an esthetical robe and thus removes every possibility of checking the soundness and truthfulness of his views. Nietzsche is against the dialog, the causo-explicative, speculation, the "inner sense", the "intellectual perception", the "thing in itself", mysticism, the metaphysical - against all that appears as an obstacle between cosmos and the "superman's" affective (active) nature. The pursuit of truth as an intelligible act is a frutiless business that ultimately only affirms the limitation and purposelessness of the intelligent act itself. Not to pursue truth but to increase the "will to power", and that means to insure an undisputable power of the parasitic classes - this is the essence of Zarathustra's mission. Nietzsche did not write his works in order to develop philosophy, but to win over and fanaticize the members of the parasitic classes so that they should start the final combat with the increasingly numerous and politically active "herd": Zarathustra is the last philosopher. Basically, it is a psychological manipulation which, on the whole, exceeds a classical hypnotic seance: a poetical expression becomes a way of penetrating the subconscious so as to imprint into man's being certain messages that are to become guidelines for his action - without any possibility of a rational test. Like Christian demagogues, Zarathustra wants to be emotionally close with his listener (reader) by way of his solitary pathos and thus create an atmosphere of trust with which any rationally based doubts will be dispelled and his messages will freely reach the innermost part of the human being. The purpose of his speech is not to enlight, but to dominate man's whole being and to fanaticize him. The symbolism is carefully chosen and has an instrumental character. At the same time, the artistic character of Nietzsche's philosophy in Zarathustra corresponds to his endeavour to develop man's affective being through art by removing all forms of mediation that prevent the flow of the cosmic energy into man as the driving force of the "will to power". In that context, Nietzsche seeks to overcome the fragmantized and create a "synthetic" man who will be capable to experience his whole being.
In the subtitle of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" Nietzsche says that this book is "for all and for nobody", but it is addressed to those who have a developed artistico-philosophical sense, and not to the "animals in the herd" who are left at the mercy of an (alienated) labour that cripples their artistic sense and reason. Nietzsche's Zarathustra is a beacon whose light penetrates into the very being of the chosen and represents the most important means for their spiritual and physical consolidation: to create from the aristocracy an exclusive organic community is one of the primary tasks of Nietzsche's philosophy.
Bearing in mind the basic intention of Nietzsche's work, the "pure" philosophical consideration of Nietzsche's thought is doomed to fail, since the specific and unrepeatable element in Nietzsche's work is beyond indifferent speculation. Consistently following the spirit of Nietzsche's work we can come to the following postulate: to think about Nietzsche's work, one must think together with Nietzsche; to think together with Nietzsche, one must experience Nietzsche.




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