A bit of a delay getting these last two write-ups on Kurt Hahn’s “Seven Laws of Salem” together. They seem simpler in some aspects than the preceding, but in other aspects are slightly more complex in looking at their social impact here in America. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. Part 5. Part 6.
Kurt Hahn was an educator and vocal anti-Nazi in the early days of their rise to power. The principals he called “The Seven Laws of Salem” (the basis for the school he founded in Salem, Germany between the world wars) became the founding principals of the Outward Bound programs now offered at independent schools around the world.
Hahn was focused on developing social change through education of the younger generation. He placed the natural world, our earth, in a position of great importance to the heath and development of a human being at a time when industrialization and modernism was beginning to over take more traditional life styles.
The Seven Laws of Salem
1. Give the children opportunities for self-discovery.
2. Make the children meet with triumph and defeat.
3. Give the children the opportunity of self-effacement in the common cause.
4. Provide periods of silence.
5. Train the imagination.
6. Make games important but not predominant.
7. Free the sons of the wealthy and powerful from the enervating sense of privilege.
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"Make games important but not predominant."
His brief description goes on to say, "Athletics do not suffer by being put in their proper place. In fact you restore the dignity of the usurper by dethroning him."
Hahn is talking about athletics and their role in education and while that is surely a loaded topic for people concerned with those things I believe the more interesting exploration is how we include 'athletics', and more broadly 'games,' in our daily lives as adults.
What happened to play?
These skills are essential throughout our lives, skills we need as adults functioning in society. As Hahn points out though, when we make the game predominate we can lose track of the other values and aspects of life that are important. Whether as a player or fan when sport (or video games or competition in general) becomes our main focus we can easily, and almost unknowingly, fall out of balance in our relationships, our work, and perhaps most importantly with our emotional sense of reality.
As a participant, especially as a high school or college student/athlete, at the age where we are beginning to form our own identity, the danger is in creating too strong of an ego identification with the role. Pop culture is filled with references to the athlete who yearns for the glory days, unable to come to terms with his role out of the limelight. Especially with athletics, as we age our bodies become weaker, softer, more delicate. Over identification of our self image with our physical health sets us up for a struggle of incoming to terms with the truth about how our bodies age and change. At some point in the future, whether permanently or temporarily, we have to face the fact that we cannot compete as well as we once did.
Watching sport has many benefits. We can learn from our teams success and failures, we find a larger sense of community, but it is also common to over identify and replace our own goals, dreams, commitment and relationships aside to live vicariously through the team we support. Placing our own emotional state it the hands of our teams success or failure is a way of abdicating responsibility for our own feelings.
Even off the field, as fan, stories and "scandals" of athletes impact our lives. Athletes who have over identified with their role often don't have the lives we expect our heroes to have. Trouble with drugs or money, abusive relationships, violence, are all symptoms of making the game more important, or making our self image as an athlete more important, than developing coping mechanisms or life skills off the field.
As a fan, especially a young fan, its easy look at those behaviors and think that is how successful people behave - mimicking that behavior will make me successful like that athlete. Its a logical fallacy, but one its easy to make for many. Its not to say that there aren't athletes out there who have found ways to balance their lives healthily - there are. Scandal is highlighted in our culture. There is a sacrificial quality professional athletes take on - carrying the hopes and dreams of fans and often being expected to be more than human, even flawless. Whenever we expect this from others, or from ourselves, we are bound for disappointment.
So what's the solution? How are sports & games suppose to fit in to our lives healthily? I've found nothing from Hahn which spells it out implicitly, but I think the main piece is that in connection with his other "laws" we are striving for a broader, more complete experience in the world. In many ways these "Laws" are about building humility, seeing ourselves in the larger context of the world, natural and social.
One of the effects of sport or games is that it allows us a break from the more dangerous stakes of reality. Its not life or death. As fans we don't need to think of the larger social impact of the Pats beating the Giants, or Brazil losing to Argentina. There is one, definitely, when one's self identity (or national identity) is placed in the hands of a game - but according to Hahn it shouldn't be.
Play is an important part of a balanced life - a way to switch our field of operation and experimentation into now with lower stakes. In play, in games, we have an opportunity to see our strengths and weaknesses. Over identify though, to make the game as important (or more so) than other aspects of our lives, and we can loose our sense of reality, our ability to be present in our own life and relationships.
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Kurt Hahn's School's and Legacy by Martin Flavin was the primary source for these posts.
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