The Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race
"An institution of 183 years.."
A Gentleman's Tradition: Preserving durable customs
"Elitism Leads to Tyranny"
-- Protester Trenton Oldfiled
"The boat race itself, with its pseudo competition, assembled around similar principles of fastest, strongest, selected ...etc, is an inconsequential backdrop for these elite educational institutions to demonstrate themselves, reboot their shared culture together in the public realm. It is also inconsequential to the performance that the overwhelming majority of the population continue to remain interested in their own lives and disinterested in the boat race.
The boat race, while accessible to everyone, isn’t really advertised or promoted as something for the general public to attend, you know when it’s on because it is part of the social networking calendar. This is a public event, for and by the elites with broader social relations aims. The fact that it happens in the public realm (visible) almost exactly as it has done for the last 158 years also becomes important; the untouched; the unchanged is significant. Most standing alongside the Thames today are in fact the pumped-up though obedient administrators, managers, promoters, politicians and enforcers; functional, strategic and aspirational elites. The transnational-corpo-aristocratic ruling class (invisible) haven’t turned up today and would never consider doing so, despite the best endeavours of Bollinger, Xchange and Hammersmith & Fulham’s mayor." (Oldfiled Manifesto)
blogs.indepenedent.co.uk
Is the sport of rowing becoming increasingly more accessible to the general public or does it still remain a symbol of privilege and oppression of the masses?
The following series of tweets were written by William Zeng, an oarsman in the Oxford crew. It indirectly responds to protester Trenton Oldfiled who's demonstration and the ensuing collision led the heavily favored Oxford to lose to their biggest rival, Cambridge.
VS
The Institution
The Individual
The Incident
Trenton Oldfiled claims to be an advocate of the greater masses, the individual self-made man, who is oppressed by the privileged few who get unwarranted advantages and opportunities. The sport of rowing has traditionally embodied these ideals because the inherent high fixed costs and the physical strain exerted during training and the contests has historically been limited to include primarily they very affluent, privately educated, caucasian men. While this may be changing to slowly include other groups; a quick glance of the 2012 men's varsity 8+, Cambridge and Oxford are the quintessential embodiment of this stereotype. Even the responses of other participants exude this naiveté,
"To Trenton Oldfiled (sic); my team went through seven months
of hell, this was the culmination of our careers and you took it
from us," Oxford rowing president Karl Hudspith said.
Unlike the "common man" who can work for a lifetime and never have the same opportunities to compete at the same level as those blessed with nepotism and or the privileges associated with affluence. Oldfiled's protest was a symbolic attack on the sport, but really in essence attacks what the school stands for. Ruining the event was not his intention in so much as he wanted to draw attention to the inherent and still highly relevant problem of elitism. Many of those who he would characterize as this, in his own estimate, "seventy percent of government pushing through very significant cuts are Oxford or Cambridge graduates (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20003058) ".
However, Oldfield's actions were disruptive, dangerous, and in my opinion misguided. Although rowing still disproportionally caters to men belonging to the higher socioeconomic status, this is slowing changing to be more inclusive. The nature and expenses of the sport disallows this change to happen at a faster rate.
A Protest of Privilege
