Ellen Goodman has a way with words. Her column [05-25-07] in our area talked about cheating in sports not being cut and dried.
She mentions Masazumi Soejima, who she admires, 'running' the Boston Marathon in a wheelchair and beating the best times of those on foot by 44 minutes and 57 seconds.
She notes also a 20 year old South African named Oscar Pistorius who recently won the 100- and 200- meter races in an international competition for disabled athletes. He won on a pair of J-shaped carbon fiber blades known as Cheetahs. He calls himself 'the fastest man on no legs.' His lower legs and feet were amputated at 11 mos because of birth defects. He wants to race in the Olympics. A final decision won't come until August.
Exactly what kind of technology, training or performance enhancements should we applaud? And what kind should we reject?
She mentions Tiger Woods whose Lasik surgery improved his eyes to 20/15...and 4 straight championships afterward.
Is better-than-perfect vision a kind of enhancement like doping or a correction like contact lenses?
This struck me as funny considering our time frame and the push (or is it jump) to plastic surgery, sometimes with little effect (or need) and sometimes with huge improvements:
Some years ago, I questioned a beauty pageant in whch the contestants had been surgically altered and implanted. They didn't owe their beauty to their maker but, rather, to their remaker.
I have also kept an article on plastic surgery in Asia. The young woman had undergone a number of procedures, only to be disqualified in a beauty pageant because of them. She was a lovely Asian woman in the before picture. She almost looked as though she were from the 50s as to her style of hair and etc. She was a lovely, strikingly beautiful woman in the second, but she looked like a different woman altogether. I showed these pictures to my two young Chinese daughters (at the time about 7 and 9) and both of them picked the before picture as being more beautiful.
Why is it that it is difficult to see the beauty we already have? Why would someone think they needed Caucasian features to eradicate their Asian ones? I've heard of some Asians having their newborns' eyes surgically altered at birth. Why would they think that was necessary?
Or what of the woman (man) who marries and maybe doesn't tell, and lo and behold, their newborn looks just like they used to? Would they be able to see the beauty that they couldn't see in themselves? Would their spouse think less of the child or the parent?
Going back to sports again (and there is beauty in sports too, ask me, my son used to play basketball)...Ellen quotes ethicist Tom Murray:
Similar questions about the remanufacture of athletes force us to ask what is the point of sport. Whatever we think is meaningful about sports has to do with the ways we admire natural talents and hard work and dedication.
It is a brave new world out there with so many choices that didn't exist in previous years. I applaud the wonders of better protheses. I'm sorry that much of that work came out of military injuries. (But then that's where plasma came from also according to a Smithsonian article.)
I don't fault anyone for cosmetic surgery, but sometimes it doesn't look as if it were necessary. If it is going to be a necessity across the board for everyone, then insurance ought to pay for it, LOL. It used to be enough that one had one's own teeth. Now they have to be white. (Ever looked at old movies and marveled at their teeth not being white. It is so glaring compared to what we are used to today. Yet they were considered the beauties (and talent), male and female, of their era.)
What do you think?
Karin
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the combination of sports, make-up and ethical debate all in one post. Well done!
I run, somewhat competitively. My admiration is for those who have struggled with their demons (personal and public) yet, kept on the path – whatever that path may be. An amputee has struggled in ways I can’t begin to imagine, but is he more man or more machine?
As much as I would like to give support to my injured brothers and sisters, allowing them to race regular legs would lead to over-anxious amputees. When you want to win, you MUST win . . . at any cost.
Kate (see the Usain Bolt footage)
Hi Kate, Thanks for stopping by. Competition is a good thing when it hones our skills and when we are really competing against ourselves not the other person. Of course, who would compete if they didn’t want to win, at least a little!
Sometimes it is winning just to be allowed to enter a race. I know that from a friend of mine who runs for fun, but has run some shorter races including at Disney.
Come visit again!