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I like the Olympics. I prefer winter to summer and I'd just as soon watch reruns of Bonanza as track and field events, but I remember when we beat the Russians in '80. I liked the ice skating controversies. I like watching the boxing. They've got an event where you have to ski for like a couple of miles, then shoot at a target with a rifle and then jump through some flaming hoops or something. Anybody remember the Jamaican bobsled team? ...that fat English guy that did the ski jump?

I'm pretty close to a guy who was on the olympic team in 84 and 88, and I'm casual acquaintances with more, including a couple of pretty famous beach volleyball people, and that may be skewing my view...

There's always something weird that happens. Remember Torville and Dean? English people went crazy over them--why? Isn't that interesting?

And has the world ever, at once, been more critical of some of China's internal policies? The games have brought more attention to China's pollution problems than it's ever received before. ...and I don't think anybody's used the podium to make a statement for Tibet yet, but someone will.

Something interesting will happen.

I like track and field events for the purity. How fast can you run, how far can you throw a lead sphere, how high/long can you jump? It's basic, it's simple and you don't need to explain the rules.

Does it advance human aspirations, freedom, peace, brotherhood and all that rot?

Fuck no. Does everything have to? Can't we just have a world wide festval with stupid competition thrown in for the hell of it? I'd add sack rases, pie eating and the egg toss, all competitors under age ten to keep the games in perspective.

This is my (and tymac's) opinion(s) on the Olympics, based on a conversation from yesterday. Generally, I agree with the "fuck the Olympics" sentiment though.

Done :-)

Thar's pretty much my deal. I just enjoy top level competition in general. I don't think it is some special unique moment in unity. I often wish the thing would dispense completely with the nationalist trappings in general. Given we already have people getting citizenship in different countries just to compete and what not, we're already half-way there.

The opening ceremonies were more in the neighborhood of about 100 million or so. 40 billion is what was spent on total Olympics prep including all the construction. I kind of doubt that it will be particularly worth it in terms of the long-term economic benefit but that is a pretty long-term debate that applies to every country that hosts the Olympics.*

As for the opening ceremonies, 100 million is a lot but assuming all those people are being paid and aren't from the Laogai or something, it isn't really that much more morally outrageous than the standard issue pork that comes out of most governments.

Of course, standard disclaimer here about how governments shouldn't be spending people's money and all that in general on pretty much anything.

*I'm reminded of various sports franchise "BUY US A STADIUM OR WE'LL LEAVE" complaints. I haven't studied the numbers closely but I always have doubted that using tax payer dollars to keep Sports Franchise X in the city really was a net economic positive.

Somebody else has done the math. [SPOILER ]They aren't.[/SPOILER ]

My strong statement: It does not matter who wins this election. Very nearly the same shit will be screwed up and to the same degree by either one of these clowns. Stay home and have a beer.

Once every four years I watch volleyball and you guys want to spoil it. Feh on you.

Sure they can, so long as they're willing to continue killing dissidents. And thus far, they show no signs of stopping that. Lead for bullets is still pretty cheap.

Ditto Shem, though perhaps with less acerbic language. It's my understanding that the Chinese ruling party is able to maintain its grip on power largely because the Chinese people see it as legitimate: as long as GDP is rising by 10% a year, and the people's lives continue to improve dramatically, they don't mind the political oppression too much. Sort of the reverse of the situation in Iraq: we've increased political freedom there, but the Iraqis might prefer less political freedom and more safety and wealth. If the Chinese stop growing, though, they lose the excuse and basically all of China turns on them. Possibly including the army. They can't afford to stop getting richer.

Jennifer, where exactly do you get your information about China? Because, given this and other discussions, it seems increasingly as if most of it comes from a mixture of human rights and nativist propaganda. Which is fine, I suppose, but it does play a role in whether or not it's pointless for me to try and point out that your view of China is so far from nuanced that it makes some of the protectionists I've talked to look measured by comparison.

Which parts of my statement do you suspect are wrong: the one-child policy? The forced abortions? The imprisonment of dissidents? The occupation of Tibet? The millions of deaths under Chairman Mao (whose oversized face still adorns government buildings in Beijing, if the Olympic broadcasts are to be believed)?

Jennifer: I don't know what Shem's going to say, and it sounds like he's more informed than I am. But my point was that the Chinese government can get away with doing that precisely because the country is continuing to grow and get richer. The people are willing to put up with all sorts of abuse as long as their standard of living keeps going up. Take that away, though, and you have a mass revolt. So the ruling party simply can't afford to halt economic growth, which was Shem's original point.

As for the apparent incongruity of trying to cut back on births while forbidding emigration: it makes perfect sense if you think of that as trading poor, unskilled babies for rich, skilled workers.

Among those particular points, it's not that you're wrong, it's that your arguments are distressingly simplistic. You betray no understanding of the context underlying the issues. Everything is a matter of the evil Communists at the top subjugating the poor helpless Chinese; there's absolutely no room in your arguments whatsoever for the idea that maybe, just maybe, given what happened prior to those events, that huge segments of the population approve of what their government is doing. Which doesn't make it right, but it does make them harder to see as the helpless victims in distress that your mindset forces them to be. Now, on other points, we can't seem to have a discussion recently about China without you making a mistake about the facts or their implications. The wiring (really Jennifer, using that much copper, just for the Olympics? With so many other needs?) is just the latest example of that.

The Communists are evil bastards. You'll never hear me arguing otherwise. But, in a broad sense, they do govern with the consent of large portions of the population. Which means that portraying Zhāng Sān the average Chinese as a helpless victim when there's just as much evidence that he's a willing participant is irresponsible for you and an insult to the humanity of the people who make that choice.

Yes, and Hitler got to office via election, too. Doesn't change the fact that -- even ignoring the Jews and focusing exclusively on the "real Germans" -- he was a vile dictator who gave a damn about his people only insofar as they could add to the glory and power of The Reich.

For that matter, a lot of cowardly Americans support all that the government's doing to "keep us safe" from the terrorists. Doesn't change the fact that our civil liberties are being eroded.

The issue of "how many people approve of the nasty government" is different from "is the government a nasty one." And the question of "how many people think the government's doing right by them" is different from "WILL the government do right by them if push comes to shove."

i don't think you guys are talking about the same thing.

infrastructure is important if you want to stay a true player.

"Whiff" in the same sense that a dysentery hospital ward's septic tank might be described by some as unpleasant.

There's nothing amateur about the modern Olympics, not that the professional / amateur distinction ever made much sense, anyway. Hell, they're only incidentally about athletics at all, for that matter. What the Olympics really are all about is sublimated warfare and quasi-religious worship of the almighty nation-state.

A real modern Olympics would be permanently set in one place -- Greece springs to mind -- and athletes, whether professional or amateur, from anywhere could come as individuals to compete in open tryouts to determine who got to compete for the medals. Fat chance.

I always thought that it was a way to keep the games as a competition among the idle rich. At least initially, anyway.

gaius marius would have approved.

There is no amateur requirement anymore, but yeah, it had that effect.

At least since 1992, When the NBA had the "dream team" play in the basketball tournament, but it could have been earlier.

I'm not "hostile to athletes," but I am hostile to the idea that I personally should feel pride, shame or anything else based on how many medals the US Olympic team does or does not win. I truly don't give a damn.

In regards to all the poor people in China, I don't give the Chinese government much credit for the hundreds of millions of Chinese people who have pulled themselves out of poverty over the last twenty years. I'm not sure I blame the present government for the hundreds of millions of Chinese people who are still in poverty either, but as a free market libertarian, I'm almost certain that if I were Chinese, I wouldn't want the government to do anything to lift me out of poverty...

The Chinese government tried that in the past, you know, and it failed spectacularly.

Are you arguing that Olympic athletes are trying to get out of the ghetto?

All sorts of people become Olympics hopefuls for all sorts of reasons. (How's this for a brilliant insight, huh?) Professional boxing may well be a dying sport in the U.S., at least among its non-Spanish speaking population. The kids all go for the mixed martial arts now, or so I'm reliably informed by my extensive ghetto contacts. (cough, cough) Still, I'm sure winning an Olympic medal will open doors in other countries where (witness the Chinese) it remains important. Personally, and speaking of people who willingly risk their bodies for my amusement, I'm far more interested in the upcoming NFL season.

How can anybody dislike an event that includes televised women's volleyball games between Eastern European and Cuban teams?

DAR, the old Commie sports machine is gone. Nowadays, Poland sends real, actual, hot Eastern European chicks to the Olympics.

This thread has officially become useless without video. Lots and lots of high-definition, closeup video.

Nationalism and the Olympics. Fuck, where do I begin?

Does your state get pumped up when their seven footers are in the NCAA final four? How about when the local millionaires play some millionaires from another metro area in the inaptly titled World Series? Is that really all that terrible when a community comes together over something as silly and pointless as whose hired guns can play hockey the best?* Many people like sports. Even more like to live vicariously through others. The Olympics offers citizens of small and impoverished nations a chance to cheer for their countrymen competeing and sometimes triumphing on the world stage. It doesn't mean crap to educated western society urbanite sophisticates like ourselves,** but in smaller and less confident societies these international contests are a big goddamned deal. It brings feelings of pride and accomplishment, warranted or not, to billions of people.

What can Kenya point to for bragging rights? Yeah, they have some nice national parks (under siege by poverty) and small economic suscess stories, but if you strike up a conversation with a Kenyan, he will proudly bring up his nations success in long distance running before any other positive attributes of his homeland. The Olympics consists of so many events that almost any nation that competes has a realistic chance to "win" a medal. People less sophisticated and cynical than us really do feel like "they" have won something important when one of their countrymen brings home a freestyle wrestling medal in the 52 Kg class.

I've always tried to converse with the locals wherever I've visited. If you do it right, that means a lot of listening. A Kiwi, an Aussie, a Japanese is not likely to bring up the success of his countrymen in international competition unless it flows naturally in the conversation. People from less confident nations, a Filipino, a Kenyan, a South Korean (back in the '70s, it is likely different today) will proudly bring up the subject of a native atheletic hero at the first opportunity.***

Lastly, I strongly recommend against seating Jennifer at the table of the first Sino-Grylliade Cooperation Conference. ;-)

* Swedes hired by Mike Illitch it seems.
** I do not personally claim the mantle "educated western society urbanite sophisticate" .
*** Or Miss Universe. Just trust me, they will.

Insert Ayn Rand joke here.

olympics = meh
athletic competition = awesome in some cases and boring in others

I don't think athletes should lord anything over anyone, but in general the market speaks on these things. There are a lot of dollars willingly given to fund athletic competition because people like it. LARPing, not so much. Also, I would argue for an inherent admirability to pushing the body to perform at very high levels. Feats of athleticism are inspirational because they remind us of the distance between where we choose to live our lives and the limits of our capabilities.

Well, mostly by the time they get to the Olympics, they're not still "trying to get out of the ghetto" or they probably wouldn't have the time and money to invest in their training, but yeah, some of them do come out of the ghetto. (I actually knew Sharon, about 20 years ago.)

well, it's probably a healthier class of hobby than most, at least in terms of physical health.

absolutely.

No, most sports are losers. NCAA football and basketball are "revenue generating" sports, i.e., they make money if they are successful. At the top they make tons of money, but many smaller basketball and football programs struggle. The rest may bring in soft money from alumni who have fond memories of playing some non-revenue sport, but that's it. Plus the federal mandate to provide roughly equal mens and womens sports programs has had, IMHO, an overall negative effect on many small college athletic programs. They don't have the money to add sports, so they cut back in order to remain in compliance.

It's nice of you to try to reach the haters but they are haters, and you have to be careful if you interrupt them while they're hating.

It's like yanking on a dog's tail while he's eating.

As long as you ignore injuries and self-inflicted drug regimens, yes.

It's also inherently admirable to push your mind or your imagination or your concentration or blah blah blah blah to perform at very high levels. The fact that most stamp collectors don't just means it's exactly like athletics: most people who play really suck compared to the pros.

Even the "Be all you can be at X" principle is, at bottom, subject to the usual meta-normative analysis. Yes, we all benefit far more from the positive externalities created by such people than by what the stoners sitting in their parents' basement lifestyle generates. Still, to each his own if it isn't my basement. In other words, humanity doesn't owe me civilization, however much I may benefit from its creation and preservation. Athletes overvalue athletics the same way attractive people overvalue being attractive, artistic people overvalue artistry and, for that matter, intellectuals overvalue intelligence. (Most people suck at thinking just as most people suck at athletics, too.)

Sports attract people viscerally. (So, for that matter, do the arts.) Now, you can make the case for athletic competition sublimating our more reptilian instincts and emotions -- as sports being to real violence and war what masturbation is to sexual intercourse. I think there's something to that argument. But when nation-states use international athletic competitions, it's less about avoiding war, no matter what their rhetoric to the contrary may be, than about feeding that "us versus them" mentality that is at the root of justifying the nation-state in the first place.

i don't think it's as stark as that. admirable-ness isn't a pot from which only so much stew of goodness can be drawn. people who do xyz at very high levels are impressive.

there is something special about those who, through a combination of good genes and a willingness to go beyond normal physical behavior, go beyond the limits of the body.

hell, i think people who train themselves to hang from hooks or practice ecstatic mutilation are pretty impressive, too. i may not particularly want to flay myself, but i can appreciate that kind of dedication.

i also appreciate people with encyclopedic knowledge of old blues records, too.

dhex +1

It is built into the definition of achievement that we are talking about admirable qualities, whatever the achievement happens to be.

Some forms of achievement have the advantage of clarity. The rules of sports are designed to allow apples to apples comparisons and within that context achievements have a publicly consumable purity. When Roger Federer, or Tiger, or LeBron, or Peyton Manning, do certain things, it is obvious to a great many people that they have just done something amazing becuase the sport provides the context for us.

I understand the perspective, and I think the critique of nationalism writ large is precisely on point. In the field of competition, though, the logic is no more sinister than any fan's cheering for their team. You invest emotionally in a team to give you artificial (and, to my earlier point, distilled) highs and lows. It is harmful if indeed your self worth is based on the success of your team, but basking in reflected glory doesn't have to be anything so profound - its just fun.

Regarding nationalism and vicarious thrills:

Watching a truly great athlete reach new heights of excellence could be an inspiring event for somebody from any country. Moreover, if the local connection is important to one, should a Tijuana athlete, somebody who trained less than 200 miles from where I live, be less inspiring than some guy from Maine? Should somebody from the town where Yao Ming plays for the NBA be less inspired watching him play in the Olympics because he's playing for a Chinese team?

I can respect great achievements from any part of the globe.

Finally, in defense of the Olympics, I will just say this. Women's beach volleyball. In the rain.