Everyone Loves the Olympics

In the Catholic tradition, there are three great dangers every soul must overcome: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

All three are found in the Olympics. I've never liked them.

“The world” means society, the social consensus, group think. The Olympics are very much a celebration of society in this sense. Nations compete for prestige through their athletes' accomplishments, and through hosting the games. If a Canadian athlete does well, for some reason, I as a Canadian am supposed to feel partly responsible for his acheivement.

The Olympics have a sordid history of propping up the very worst sorts of governments. Hitler famously used them as a showcase for his regime and thesis of a “master race.” Imperial Japan sought the same, had their planned games not been interrupted by the Second World War. Berlin's games in 1916 were also cancelled, due to the outbreak of the First World War: the type of government that wants the games, it would seem, is often the type of government that also wants war. Relatively repressive regimes in South Korea and Mexico have also used them to boost their international prestige; not to mention the 1980 Olympics in the old Soviet Union.

Their appeal to repressive governments is intrinsic. First, they are custom-made for a centrally-planned economy, which can pour all its resources into one big display. Second, sports are apolitical. Athletes have nothing in particular to say. Emphasizing sport has kept the people's minds off politics since the days of the Roman Empire, Sparta, and before: give them bread and circuses. We ought not to aid and abet.

What could be a purer celebration of the flesh, of the human body, than the Olympics? Yet our bodies are already too much with us; we ought instead to strive to cultivate the spirit and the mind: our angelic, not our animal, part. Leave aside the question of salvation: even the greatest feats of our greatest athletes, after all, are, in real terms, trivial. Human advancement comes entirely from the mind.

A great broadjumper, having devoted a lifetime to training, can stay in the air for three meters?

Seems to me he could do better in a plane.

As for the devil, he too, as tempter, is certainly involved. Put another way, the Olympics are an occasion for sin. Consider the striking history of Olympic scandal: the bribery and corruption that almost wrecked the Salt Lake Winter games. The regular controversies over whether a given athlete is really male or female; amateur or professional; or taking some kind of dope. Over crooked or biased refereeing. Over ruthless acts by governments hosting the games, in order to provide a greater spectacle.Some say over a million have been displaced in Beijing for the sake of the games.

No doubt I come across as a killjoy. But I am not against a good party. I'm Catholic. We're the folks who invented feast days. It is just that this is the wrong celebration, of the wrong thing. A celebration of the arts or engineering would, by contrast, be ennobling. I love a World's Fair. If the Olympics were restricted entirely to robots, it would be worth watching.

But as we speak, the Communist Chinese government is revelling in its medal count and its new international prestige, while bombs explode in Xinjiang and Tibet protests. Meanwhile, Russia is exploiting the distraction to crush its small neighbour, Georgia.

Enjoy the party.