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Originally Posted by GuitarBizarre
I think you're very much cherrypicking here and glossing over responses to points you're regurgitating.
As for education - The end goal of education is to be educated. One takes notice of the uses which education has and aims for personal improvement in the field sufficient to be better suited for other endeavours. There is nothing about education which is akin to sporting competition. A spelling bee would be a different matter, since at that point competition and victory IS the end goal, rather than the personal improvement.
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I think it's worth asking here whether the "end goal" of anything is relevant in this particular discussion, because although I understand that the aim of education is different, there's absolutely sod all in any definitions of sport or even anything these definitions remotely imply that if one does it for the wrong motives then it's not sport. The point is that it is competitive and you were claiming that being competitive is what defines sport.
To put it another way, people who train for a competitive sport are essentially in the same boat - the end goal of their training is to be better equipped for future circumstances, not victory. But yet what they are doing is still a sport.
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I think you have a real issue with considering the difference between exercise and sports. They aren't the same thing. One does not imply or deny the other.
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To be quite frank I still disagree with that - I remember a lot of people referring to activities like "chess" as sports, but to be honest I don't view that as a sport either, merely a "game" (but very important and respectable game).
You say I have a "real issue" with your separation of exercise and sport, and I do, I really don't think they are separate. I see a lot of squirming around earlier in the thread where people say "but 'athletic' in this definition is not a pre-requisite..." but to me it looks really clear that in every definition I've seen "athletic" is the central part - and sadly reading the thread has not remotely altered my opinion. It really is a pre requisite because its the main predicate of the definition of sport.
"Competitive" on the other hand is definitely not a pre requisite - as the definition says "OFTEN". However your stance seems to swap these two around and claim that "competitive" is the predicate, which from Pedestrian's definition it clearly isn't.
Drawing a line under all this:
Looking at the whole debate as a whole, I think personally it's not only a case of no one arguing for any position here looks like changing their minds, but also I personally could not imagine a more tedious debate, essentially bickering over the semantics of attributes of language.
I propose then, that we come to a mutual understanding that neither of us will ever think differently about this. I don't think that you're going to alter your opinion that "competition" is the key element of sport, and I really think all sports are defined by "athleticism" rather than skill or competition.
What do you think? Has this debate worn itself out?