Abstract

Einleitend skizziert Verf. die aktuelle Risikosportlandschaft und ihre Anhänger. Anschließend wird der Risikosport aus einer theoretischen Sichtweise analysiert und es wird ein theoretisches Modell aufgestellt. Dies erfolgt in Untersuchung der sechs psychischen und hormonellen Zustände, die im Risikosport auftreten: 1. Angstmomente, 2. Selbstermutigung, 3. Individualisierung und Distinktion, 4. Körperlichkeit und Empfindung, 5. Klarheit und Augenscheinlichkeit, 6. Besitzergreifung des Raumes. Alle aufgestellten Thesen werden anhand von Beispielen und Fakten untermauert. Schließlich konstatiert Verf., dass die heutige Extremsportwelt als eine Art der Reaktion auf die ambivalenten Effekte der Moderne auf das Individuum angesehen werden kann. Seithe

Abstract

The styles and settings of modern adventure and risk-taking sports are well-known: extreme sports actors plunge with parachutes from skyscrapers, bridges or giant dams; complete marathons through deserts, surf on waves as high as houses, ride dangerous winds attached to para-sails or climb the highest peaks on earth. While activities of this kind were once genuinely spectacular feats that achieved a measure of social visibility, today they are core elements of an autonomous type of sport that has come to specialize in the production and staging of risky practices that have become routine. Reports of accidents bear witness to the fact that accepting risk sometimes brings, not only wear and tear, but disastrous outcomes, as well. Every year a significant number of people pay for their passion for the exceptional with their lives. To explain a type of behavior that most intellectuals dismiss as being devoid of any sense, the sociologist who specializes in taking “a second look” will do well not to seize up on anthropological constants or physiological explanations. These explanatory devices are often formulated as follows: human beings require variety and a constant stream of new stimuli, or they will have to experience repeated catharses and adrenaline rushes to achieve a comparable state of excitement. Explanations of this kind ontologize human risk-taking, establish a cause-and-effect relationship between behavior and hormones, and turn out to be obstacles to doing productive theoretical work. What follows is an analysis of modern risk-taking, not from the perspective of the individual subject, his motives or his bodily fluids, but is rather intended as an opportunity to do some theoretical modeling by thinking about society in a theoretical way. In this sense, today’s adventure and extreme sports can be seen as a reaction to the effects and ambiguity of modernity on the individual. This argument will be developed in sequential steps. Verf.-Referat