Sunday, August 10, 2008

The broken and destructive ideology of the Olympics

Berlin, Moscow, Beijing and next Sochi. Time to end the pagan games for good.

by Lego Acies



The Olympics long ceased to be interesting and long ago quit being an expression of the human spirit. Stronger, higher, faster, has been replaced by money, corruption, fraud, professionalism, drugs and mindless nationalism – not to mention the truly insidious notion of rewarding fascist states with this money producing extravaganza. The games are both expressions of mindless statism, and emotionally empty nationalism and little else. Time to end them.

The Olympics serve no purpose. Do we really need yet another universal competition being run by yet another anti-humanist fascist state in the case of China, or yet another global competition populated by professional athletes most of whom take drugs ? The Olympics are simply another sordid attempt to internationalise along UN lines, human activity – for no firm purpose either moral or practical. It is the ideology of the games and of what the games really represent, which is so odious and dysfunctional.

Statist ideology:
The games are the great expression of state planning. Mindless bureaucrats around the world, slaver with drooling anticipation at the thought of using tax money to 'rebuild and 'regenerate' their cities. As if building infrastructure is reliant upon external events. The taxing opportunity, not to mention the kickbacks and money to be made by politicians and their friends in various industries is very tempting indeed. It gives government an unparalled chance to propagandize the benefices of state power and state project building. Building colossi – most of them rendered useless days after the games are over – is but an expression of the age old obsession to carve into stone the greatness of the ruling regime.

State control:
The games give governments a wide range of powers to intervene in sports. The state views sports as the business of making money and gaining international attention and enforcing nationalist pride and unity. Huge sums of money are used up by governments to fund sports; develop sporting heroes; erect sporting colossi; hold various competitions and generate 'national' sports and myths. The opportunities are vast. When a nation does well at the Olympics in real sports, like the USA or Australia, invariably it is the government which takes the credit and pushes for more success, by furthering government funding and taxpayer subsidies. Inevitably every nation gets caught up in the public funding madness.

Tax redistribution:
Every Olympics but one, has lost money. Taxpayers must fund the money losing nature of not only the Olympics but almost every single sporting event held including world championships. There is no need to have states funding massive sporting competitions. If the Olympics are so worthwhile, privatise the operation, issue shares, created dividends and make a return.

Nationalism:
Berlin hosted the '36 Olympics to showcase the glories of the Reich. Three years later a war which killed 70 million people started. Moscow in 1980 did much the same, 10 years later the Soviet empire dissolved, thankfully and surprisingly with no bloodshed. Now we have Beijing showing the world that China is a major power and a nation of humanist ideals [if one is to believe Jin Tao's opening speech]. Yet Taiwan, a Western oriented island with nothing in common outside of trade with the mainland Communist regime is called in these Olympics 'Chinese Taipei'. Oh really.

Nationalism and its primitive emotionalism pervades the Olympics and indeed most sporting events. It is dangerous. There is nothing wrong with good, friendly competition between nations. But there is something quite deranged about nations obsessing about medal counts and their rankings or entire peoples becoming emotionally distraught over losing in an event. Mass crowd psychology is not a form of civilisation. Le Bon's work and the history of fascisms from German national socialism, to various forms of marxist-communism highlight the extraordinary reality-distorting aspects of cheap populist nationalism. It is not really something which should be celebrated.

Globalist ideology:
In the place of war, at least in the minds of some, the Olympics are a welcome substitute for nationalist shows of mindless emotion. One of the most curious aspects to the modern Olympics, from the viewpoint of a sceptic, is that the most virulent supporters of this pagan festival to athletics, are the same 'one-world, one-world' supporters who believe so ardently in eco-baloney, open borders and man's supposed brotherhood. This group of moralising globalists represent the hypocrisy, corruption and mental-moral stagnation which are the Olympics. Are the Olympics really about love, effort and competing ? Or are they more about your own emotions, your own need to belong, your own self-esteem and your own rather narrow view that your 'country' is the best because you won some gold medals in a clutch of sports designed for children ?

Olympic 'spirit':
There is a difference between recognising athletic greatness and staging a pagan festival of orgiastic fraud to showcase talent. The Olympics have nothing to do with the spirit of amateur athletics. There is something compelling about the day laborer, the businessman, the teacher, who in his spare time trains his talents to win at the highest possible level in real sports dedicated around running, jumping, throwing or lifting. There is nothing truly interesting in the current manufacturing of sporting talent – a large factory where athletes' bodies are mere assets to generate various amounts of money, notoriety or most bizarrely – national pride. Endless training, competitions, regional championships, world championshiops and various 'games' demands a full time professional approach. It is manufacturing of talent – not a display of impassioned will to win, or a love of the struggle to succeed.

Non-sports:
Fully 50% of the Olympics are populated by inane and moronic hobbies paraded as sports. Team sailing, duo kayaking, skeet shooting, 40 shot air rifle; ping pong; synchronised swimming; and endless categories divided up by weight or 'challenge' makes the idea that the Olympics are a sporting event a nonsense. Fully half of all Olympic events have nothing to do with real sporting activities of running, throwing, jumping, or lifting. They are agenda and TV fillers. And incredibly ridiculous.

End the nonsense:
There is no cogent reason or set of arguments to keep the Olympics. They lose money. They reward statist and even fascist ideology. They are corrupt. The IOC like almost every international political organisation is riven with fraud and kickbacks. The athletes are drug taking professionals out to make money. The games supply cheap and dangerous nationalistic emotionalism. Very little in the amateur spirit exists.

The Olympics are pagan-Roman spectacles. Odes to state greatness. Cheering to corruption and fraud. Applauding routines that are best left to children in a school yard. The Olympics are the ultimate example of cheap, populist, mass emotionalism. They need to be ended.