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A review by lkedzie
The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon by Katie Rose Hejtmanek
3.0
Much like CrossFit® itself,(1) the problem in the book is mistaking volume for depth.
There are a few layers here. The first is as the title, and the ways in which CrossFit®(2) derives from and is bound within Christianity, specifically Protestantism, and specifically there American non-denominational but sectarian Protestant religion, heretofore "WASPery."(3) Not only does ® hinge well into WASPery in general, it acts as a sort of modern cypher to WASPery now and WASPery past, Muscular Christianity obviously, but also New Thought.
The last point is what, often, gets too little attention. This leads to the author's own description of "Oracle Capitalism"(4). This has a real "this is water" problem, owing to how much of the U.S. identity is and always has been bound up in WASPery. Even in its discontents, which exist in specific response to it. But these great ideas, both of which I am inclined to agree with, are developed fully. In particular, a lot of the evidence for a sort of unified WASPery experience to American Culture is surface level. There is insufficient attention put on mythology or the religious experience in general contra what is specifically WASPery, while there is too much weight put on a sort of other as regards religion as requiring WASPery(5).
It is a pervasive sort of mixed feeling that I have about the writing here. I think that the arguments are correct, but with so many there could not be sufficient analysis given to any one, so the project feels weaker than I think it is(6). I also think that there is an interesting missing study about how Libertarianism isn't, because tone, clique, and culture overcomes any ideological commitment to something without that.
In addition, the book is an ethnography of ®. It is a good study. Here are a lot of the compelling and memorable parts of the book. The author does good work relating her own ethnographic studies to her arguments. The weakness here seems to be of restraint. Race and gender are consistently reflected upon, and I kept waiting for a deeper take, but the ones that exist are somewhat surface level, particularly on race. The book is aware of other ethnographies of ®, and the sense that I have is of not wanting to reduplicate that work, but it felt like both the author had more to say and did have good and valuable impressions to provide, based on what bits are there.
The ethnography veers into memoir. This is not a critique. This is the story of the author's participation in and then divergence from ®. It is worth mentioning here that while the author downplays her accomplishments in ®, however one chooses to characterize those, it was a step for her to accomplish incredible things(7), operating at a level of performance that I have not accomplished in anything, much less a physical thing. (I am too ASD to know what sort of emotion that I have here, but I offer that we should all be impressed, if only that someone manages a schedule that allows them to do that, write a book, and have an academic career.) None of that factors into the author's conclusions, but it does set the tone of the book and the general sense of disenchantment.
Much of that sense comes from what operates as the next layer to the text of it serving as a history of ®, and, in particular, its sort of mask-off moment(8) in 2020, with subsequent changes that drove changes in the community. Well, temporarily, at any rate: the downer ending is how half the protest quitters slunk back. Here is where you can feel the harm and hurt. But it is not the point of the book, and so not the focus. It is a strong ending, but again, feels like something out of a different project altogether.
I remain most frustrated about the ethnographic angle. While it operates on background so to speak, what bits do show up locked my attention. I want the book that is only about the author's experiences of international ®, because the teaser that there is a conscious push against the WASPery while also an intention to forge a shared cultural experience is some seriously provocative stuff, more so when it allows for reflection between two non-American units.
So, yes, I am reminded in this book of ®, specifically the book's own section of the pseudoscience of it. It is generally noble and I do not want to knock it. But it enacts the Sharpshooter Fallacy by finding a couple definable things, then building a focus around those things. No one choice is wrong, but the cluster itself is not as useful as any one of the choices.
My thanks to the author, Katie Rose Hejtmanek, for writing the book, and to the publisher, NYU Press, for making the ARC available to me.
-
1 - The joke is not funny when I discovered that, per the guidelines, CrossFit is an adjective and should not be used it isolation, ergo it must be the CrossFit® cult, never the cult of CrossFit.
2 - Okay, let's take this gag even further. Heretofore CrossFit, which is to say CrossFit®, which is to say the organization that oversees CrossFit® training, will be referred to as "®."
3 - Part of the gag here is a reflection on ®'s own naming structure, itself which operates as a sort of linguistic trap (outside, of course, of any cult's propensity to rename things), in performing a cliched masculinity that takes offense only as readily as it purports to scoff at the offense of others: cf. Murph vs. Fran.
4 - Which, probably, ought to be "Operatic Capitalism," but then you would be explaining all the time that it did not have to do with La traviata and have to face suits from Ms. Winfrey's lawyers.
5 - Yes, all Satanists; no, not all Occultists. Specifically, this is why the connecting but then undercooking of New Thought hurts.
6 - The exception here is the military/militarism aspect. Much as with Giuliani, "9/11" is not a universal solvent. Again, though, it is a frustrating sort of thing to comment about in terms of a review, because I think that the argument is right. There is an overlap, particularly in the apocalypse-oriented thinking and how 9/11 factors into that, but this is a multi-vector concern. The ideas and ideals in play pre-date 2001, and after 2001 become engaged with the popular culture and the real military in different ways. It is a dense cake with marketing icing.
7 - You can include an "in a real sport" if you so choose. It is not something that I would say to a ®ers face, but yeah.
8 - Literal and figurative!
There are a few layers here. The first is as the title, and the ways in which CrossFit®(2) derives from and is bound within Christianity, specifically Protestantism, and specifically there American non-denominational but sectarian Protestant religion, heretofore "WASPery."(3) Not only does ® hinge well into WASPery in general, it acts as a sort of modern cypher to WASPery now and WASPery past, Muscular Christianity obviously, but also New Thought.
The last point is what, often, gets too little attention. This leads to the author's own description of "Oracle Capitalism"(4). This has a real "this is water" problem, owing to how much of the U.S. identity is and always has been bound up in WASPery. Even in its discontents, which exist in specific response to it. But these great ideas, both of which I am inclined to agree with, are developed fully. In particular, a lot of the evidence for a sort of unified WASPery experience to American Culture is surface level. There is insufficient attention put on mythology or the religious experience in general contra what is specifically WASPery, while there is too much weight put on a sort of other as regards religion as requiring WASPery(5).
It is a pervasive sort of mixed feeling that I have about the writing here. I think that the arguments are correct, but with so many there could not be sufficient analysis given to any one, so the project feels weaker than I think it is(6). I also think that there is an interesting missing study about how Libertarianism isn't, because tone, clique, and culture overcomes any ideological commitment to something without that.
In addition, the book is an ethnography of ®. It is a good study. Here are a lot of the compelling and memorable parts of the book. The author does good work relating her own ethnographic studies to her arguments. The weakness here seems to be of restraint. Race and gender are consistently reflected upon, and I kept waiting for a deeper take, but the ones that exist are somewhat surface level, particularly on race. The book is aware of other ethnographies of ®, and the sense that I have is of not wanting to reduplicate that work, but it felt like both the author had more to say and did have good and valuable impressions to provide, based on what bits are there.
The ethnography veers into memoir. This is not a critique. This is the story of the author's participation in and then divergence from ®. It is worth mentioning here that while the author downplays her accomplishments in ®, however one chooses to characterize those, it was a step for her to accomplish incredible things(7), operating at a level of performance that I have not accomplished in anything, much less a physical thing. (I am too ASD to know what sort of emotion that I have here, but I offer that we should all be impressed, if only that someone manages a schedule that allows them to do that, write a book, and have an academic career.) None of that factors into the author's conclusions, but it does set the tone of the book and the general sense of disenchantment.
Much of that sense comes from what operates as the next layer to the text of it serving as a history of ®, and, in particular, its sort of mask-off moment(8) in 2020, with subsequent changes that drove changes in the community. Well, temporarily, at any rate: the downer ending is how half the protest quitters slunk back. Here is where you can feel the harm and hurt. But it is not the point of the book, and so not the focus. It is a strong ending, but again, feels like something out of a different project altogether.
I remain most frustrated about the ethnographic angle. While it operates on background so to speak, what bits do show up locked my attention. I want the book that is only about the author's experiences of international ®, because the teaser that there is a conscious push against the WASPery while also an intention to forge a shared cultural experience is some seriously provocative stuff, more so when it allows for reflection between two non-American units.
So, yes, I am reminded in this book of ®, specifically the book's own section of the pseudoscience of it. It is generally noble and I do not want to knock it. But it enacts the Sharpshooter Fallacy by finding a couple definable things, then building a focus around those things. No one choice is wrong, but the cluster itself is not as useful as any one of the choices.
My thanks to the author, Katie Rose Hejtmanek, for writing the book, and to the publisher, NYU Press, for making the ARC available to me.
-
1 - The joke is not funny when I discovered that, per the guidelines, CrossFit is an adjective and should not be used it isolation, ergo it must be the CrossFit® cult, never the cult of CrossFit.
2 - Okay, let's take this gag even further. Heretofore CrossFit, which is to say CrossFit®, which is to say the organization that oversees CrossFit® training, will be referred to as "®."
3 - Part of the gag here is a reflection on ®'s own naming structure, itself which operates as a sort of linguistic trap (outside, of course, of any cult's propensity to rename things), in performing a cliched masculinity that takes offense only as readily as it purports to scoff at the offense of others: cf. Murph vs. Fran.
4 - Which, probably, ought to be "Operatic Capitalism," but then you would be explaining all the time that it did not have to do with La traviata and have to face suits from Ms. Winfrey's lawyers.
5 - Yes, all Satanists; no, not all Occultists. Specifically, this is why the connecting but then undercooking of New Thought hurts.
6 - The exception here is the military/militarism aspect. Much as with Giuliani, "9/11" is not a universal solvent. Again, though, it is a frustrating sort of thing to comment about in terms of a review, because I think that the argument is right. There is an overlap, particularly in the apocalypse-oriented thinking and how 9/11 factors into that, but this is a multi-vector concern. The ideas and ideals in play pre-date 2001, and after 2001 become engaged with the popular culture and the real military in different ways. It is a dense cake with marketing icing.
7 - You can include an "in a real sport" if you so choose. It is not something that I would say to a ®ers face, but yeah.
8 - Literal and figurative!