Matthew James McNees is visiting professor at the Ashby Residential College at UNC-Greensboro. He is the co-founder of Cyclus Sports, a professional cycling company created to influence cycling development, mentorship, performance, and research nationally.
In what he terms the ‘diapsalmata’ (a term borrowed from
Kierkegaard), McNees asserts that ‘the world is at stake’ in
getting the Lance Armstrong scandal right. Basing his argument on
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, McNees
contends that seeking to punish Armstrong for doping is ‘bad
faith.’ Armstrong was ‘not so much the world's most talented
cyclist but the world's most talented means for capital flow in the
sport of cycling’ (quoting from chapter 7). What is required is ‘a
new societal paradigm that faces the harsh inequities of the
capitalist rhetoric program of manipulating the masses.’ Armstrong,
McNees writes, played a role in producing a socially determined
item of consumption as an elite athlete ‘not unlike a horse or a
dog,’ a role that concealed the all-pervasive system of production
whose instrument he was. Passionate about his subject, McNees
ranges over Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre,
Derrida, Lyotard, Lacan, et al. The Armstrong scandal is a
synecdoche for the regime of late capitalism and its stranglehold
on the world economic order and on the capacity of humans to
understand their manipulation in, for example, the financing of
mega-stadiums and elite performances. Summing Up: Recommended.
Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and
professionals.
*Choice Reviews*
This is a very comprehensive [book]. . . .It’s a very well-written
and interesting book.
*The Outspoken Cyclist/WJCU - 88.7FM*
McNees’s thorough deconstruction of the extent of economic power in
sport demonstrates the possibility of activist sport scholarship.
His work makes evident the societal relevancy of the study of
sport. . . .[H]is work is important and relevant for sport
scholars, not only for its ideas but as an example of bold academic
work.
*Sport in American History*
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