Sporthelden: Spitzensport in postheroischen Zeiten

In: Edition transcript Band 3

Abstract

Contemporary analyses state the arrival of a post-heroic society: Has the heroic lost its significance? Karl-Heinrich Bette shows that the last heroic reserve of modernity is forgotten and suppressed in these descriptions: high-performance sport with its continuous production of victories and defeats, spectacular records and nerve-racking tension. Viewed from this perspective, competitions appear as artificially and serially created crisis and emergency situations that enable individuals or groups to make themselves visible to a mass audience as heroes in post-heroic times.