Upon
winning a tennis match, the Guardian reported the event as follows:
Petkovic, a deep-thinker who had entertained the
media with her reflections on Nietzsche earlier in the week, wanted to talk
after her best win in years and gave a press conference nearly as long as Götzen-Dämmerung
oder Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert. But a little easier to
understand.
“I have to say today I was in a real zone,”
Petkovic said. “I didn’t think at all. I was just focused on what I had to do.
Mentally I was really good.” Reading Nietzsche will do that to you.
It is difficult
to judge who is more brainless, the tennis player or the reporter, unless one
credits the reporter with a really clever pun with his last line – which I
doubt. I am inclined to think that “Reading Nietzsche will do that to you” is
meant to support Petkovic’s assertion that ‘mentally she was really good’, i.e.
reading Nietzsche toughened her up mentally, for as we know from the common
sporting mantra that in the top echelons of sports competition it’s the mental
superiority that wins the game - top players all have the same skills.
Of course we
(you and I) also know that this is a lot of nonsense, crediting brawn with
brain. As such it is hilarious that Petkovic is described as a ‘deep-thinker’
(maybe writing this phrase with a hyphen is another inside-joke) when during
the game ‘she didn’t think at all’! Does she ever think when not playing the
game? I doubt it. Reading Nietzsche should not be equated with ‘understanding’
Nietzsche, for as the reporter indicates, reading Götzen-Dämmerung oder Wie
man mit dem Hammer philosophiert (in
German, no less) meets with little or no understanding on his part, and while
Petkovic as a German tennis lass might well be better qualified in the language
stakes, one would think that she would be able to articulate her witticisms
accordingly, and not come up with the usual boring and brainless sports phrases
like the meaningless “I was just focused on what I had to do”. Of course
her English language skills may not be up to it but she could have tried a
little bit harder at least.
In the end one
cannot but help to credit her and the reporter with the Cartesian non-sequitur
‘non cogito, ergo sum’ – a motto many a celebrity sports star and their
reporters will sign up to in the absence of the real thing ‘cogito, ergo sum’.
I am arrogant enough to say that Nietzsche couldn’t have said it better
himself, and BTW I do hope that Petkovic wins the French Open simply because
she grunts less than Sharapova.
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