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Economy of bodily management responsible for widespread use of illegal steroids among MLB players
The widespread use of illegal steroids among Major League Baseball players has been fueled by an "economy of bodily management," the free agent market and exploding television revenues, a UT Arlington assistant professor argues in a newly published research paper.
Sarah Rose, a labor and disability historian, says by attacking individual ballplayers' morality, commentators have obscured the more salient issue.
"Baseball is representative of the fact that Americans increasingly live in an age of biotechnology in which bodily modification for profit has become the norm and, often, an unstated job requirement," said Rose, who joined the UT Arlington Department of History in 2009 and is director of the University's Minor in Disability Studies program.
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Economy of bodily management responsible for widespread use of illegal steroids among MLB players
Editorial Comment:
Some quotes from the article:
The study suggests that the question raised by steroids is not individual morality, but rather the morality produced by a political economy of labor that calls for both services and body parts rendered.
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"Why has professional baseball players' steroid use been characterized as an immoral illegitimate bodily enhancement, when other medical interventions, such as 'Tommy John' elbow reconstruction surgery, have been celebrated as career-saving cures?" Rose questioned. "While admittedly different, we show that both bodily interventions arose out of the same dramatic shifts in the business of baseball - shifts that drove the medicalization of the game and players' bodies."
Great article... gets to the core of the motivations of steroid use in professional athletes.
The widespread use of illegal steroids among Major League Baseball players has been fueled by an "economy of bodily management," the free agent market and exploding television revenues, a UT Arlington assistant professor argues in a newly published research paper.
Sarah Rose, a labor and disability historian, says by attacking individual ballplayers' morality, commentators have obscured the more salient issue.
"Baseball is representative of the fact that Americans increasingly live in an age of biotechnology in which bodily modification for profit has become the norm and, often, an unstated job requirement," said Rose, who joined the UT Arlington Department of History in 2009 and is director of the University's Minor in Disability Studies program.
...........
Economy of bodily management responsible for widespread use of illegal steroids among MLB players
Editorial Comment:
Some quotes from the article:
The study suggests that the question raised by steroids is not individual morality, but rather the morality produced by a political economy of labor that calls for both services and body parts rendered.
......
"Why has professional baseball players' steroid use been characterized as an immoral illegitimate bodily enhancement, when other medical interventions, such as 'Tommy John' elbow reconstruction surgery, have been celebrated as career-saving cures?" Rose questioned. "While admittedly different, we show that both bodily interventions arose out of the same dramatic shifts in the business of baseball - shifts that drove the medicalization of the game and players' bodies."
Great article... gets to the core of the motivations of steroid use in professional athletes.
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