Island News & Views
General · 4th September 2008
Ray Grigg
Now that the thousands of 2008 Olympic athletes have returned to their distant homes from around the world, perhaps this is the occasion to ask what they were trying to accomplish in Beijing.
The superficial answer is that they were all trying to run faster, jump higher and swim better than anyone else on the planet – also to be counted are the other various endeavours, from fencing and rowing to wrestling and biking.
Such an answer, however, does not diminish the significance of the heroic effort and perseverance that is represented by the competing athletes. Years of training, both physical and psychological, were embodied in each of their feats. For all who competed, a coveted gold medal was the apex of achievement for themselves and for their country. And for some, a gold medal was access to millions of dollars in rewards.
This is where the goals of the Olympics begin to lose some of their lustre. The American swimmer, Michael Phelps, is expected to earn about $100 million in endorsements for the unprecedented eight golds he won in his aquatic events. Other winners of gold, such as a Canadian women's wrestling champion, Carol Huynh, from Hazelton, British Columbia, will probably burst with pride for the rest of her life but will receive little financial reward for her heroic efforts.
The other shadow that dulls the lustre of gold at the Olympics is the conversion of intense competition into overt nationalism, as if the games catapult us back to the most dangerous attribute in our atavistic roots. Tribal irrationalities are fuelled by collective pride, prestige and honour. Granted, such competition is better than bloody warfare. But the scoring feel desperate and compulsive, as if the competition were trying to prove a truth that should be far more evident by trust and co-operation. In these particular Olympics, America accused China of trying to compensate for an inferiority complex. China itself, after more than a century of military humiliation, intends to show the world that it is a full and dignified member of the world community – as if that were not already self-evident.
But even these explanations don't answer the deeper question of what the athletes were trying to accomplish in the Beijing Olympics. And for this answer we must return to the ancient Greek culture that originated the games and to their cautionary myth of Narcissus.
Narcissus was a young man in Greek legend who gazed into the clear water of a calm pond, saw his own reflection and fell forever in love with the image. Imprinted hopelessly on himself by the power of his own affection, he was doomed to never escape from this confining and debilitating fascination.
The Olympics in Beijing, like the myth of Narcissus, are a celebration of ourselves as a species, an exercise in self-love as we run and jump and swim. It reflects our fascination and fixation with our collective image. Look at us going faster and higher and better than ever before. Watch us transcend limitations as we aspire to be like the gods of ancient history. For the duration of the Olympics, and for years afterwards, we will continue this self-congratulatory exercise, as if we were a gift of unparalleled in beauty and accomplishment to the cosmos. "The noblest work of God," as Mark Twain ironically observed – before he then asked, "Now I wonder who got that idea?"
We would be wise to consider the hubris of self-acclaimed nobility with a perspective somewhat larger than the four-year rhythm of the Olympics. Biologists are honest enough to remind us that 99.9999 percent of all the species that have lived on Earth since the inception of life are now extinct. And, if those 3.5 billion years are compressed into the 24 hours of a day, our glorious presence occupies only the last 15 minutes – modern human beings fill only the remaining few seconds. And during this brief time, we have been creating ecological chaos on the planet.
As for the Beijing athletes, their Chinese hosts, the International Olympic Committee, the nationalistic fervour and the billions of electronic spectators around the world, what they were really trying to accomplish was two weeks of amnesia, a temporary forgetting wrapped in a self-congratulatory illusion.
Yes, we are undeniably incredible for who and what we are. "The noblest of all the animals," as Shakespeare wrote ‹ to which he then added for a modicum of perspective, "this quintessence of dust." So we might remember that a porpoise could swim circles around the triumphant Michael Phelps and, weight-for-weight, an octopus could give Carol Huynh the wrestling experience of her life.
We might also remember that following the games in Beijing, when the athletes are home and everyone has loosened themselves from the spell of its enchantment, we all have urgent environmental work to do – work that will challenge us individually and collectively as no Olympics have ever done.
The superficial answer is that they were all trying to run faster, jump higher and swim better than anyone else on the planet – also to be counted are the other various endeavours, from fencing and rowing to wrestling and biking.
Such an answer, however, does not diminish the significance of the heroic effort and perseverance that is represented by the competing athletes. Years of training, both physical and psychological, were embodied in each of their feats. For all who competed, a coveted gold medal was the apex of achievement for themselves and for their country. And for some, a gold medal was access to millions of dollars in rewards.
This is where the goals of the Olympics begin to lose some of their lustre. The American swimmer, Michael Phelps, is expected to earn about $100 million in endorsements for the unprecedented eight golds he won in his aquatic events. Other winners of gold, such as a Canadian women's wrestling champion, Carol Huynh, from Hazelton, British Columbia, will probably burst with pride for the rest of her life but will receive little financial reward for her heroic efforts.
The other shadow that dulls the lustre of gold at the Olympics is the conversion of intense competition into overt nationalism, as if the games catapult us back to the most dangerous attribute in our atavistic roots. Tribal irrationalities are fuelled by collective pride, prestige and honour. Granted, such competition is better than bloody warfare. But the scoring feel desperate and compulsive, as if the competition were trying to prove a truth that should be far more evident by trust and co-operation. In these particular Olympics, America accused China of trying to compensate for an inferiority complex. China itself, after more than a century of military humiliation, intends to show the world that it is a full and dignified member of the world community – as if that were not already self-evident.
But even these explanations don't answer the deeper question of what the athletes were trying to accomplish in the Beijing Olympics. And for this answer we must return to the ancient Greek culture that originated the games and to their cautionary myth of Narcissus.
Narcissus was a young man in Greek legend who gazed into the clear water of a calm pond, saw his own reflection and fell forever in love with the image. Imprinted hopelessly on himself by the power of his own affection, he was doomed to never escape from this confining and debilitating fascination.
The Olympics in Beijing, like the myth of Narcissus, are a celebration of ourselves as a species, an exercise in self-love as we run and jump and swim. It reflects our fascination and fixation with our collective image. Look at us going faster and higher and better than ever before. Watch us transcend limitations as we aspire to be like the gods of ancient history. For the duration of the Olympics, and for years afterwards, we will continue this self-congratulatory exercise, as if we were a gift of unparalleled in beauty and accomplishment to the cosmos. "The noblest work of God," as Mark Twain ironically observed – before he then asked, "Now I wonder who got that idea?"
We would be wise to consider the hubris of self-acclaimed nobility with a perspective somewhat larger than the four-year rhythm of the Olympics. Biologists are honest enough to remind us that 99.9999 percent of all the species that have lived on Earth since the inception of life are now extinct. And, if those 3.5 billion years are compressed into the 24 hours of a day, our glorious presence occupies only the last 15 minutes – modern human beings fill only the remaining few seconds. And during this brief time, we have been creating ecological chaos on the planet.
As for the Beijing athletes, their Chinese hosts, the International Olympic Committee, the nationalistic fervour and the billions of electronic spectators around the world, what they were really trying to accomplish was two weeks of amnesia, a temporary forgetting wrapped in a self-congratulatory illusion.
Yes, we are undeniably incredible for who and what we are. "The noblest of all the animals," as Shakespeare wrote ‹ to which he then added for a modicum of perspective, "this quintessence of dust." So we might remember that a porpoise could swim circles around the triumphant Michael Phelps and, weight-for-weight, an octopus could give Carol Huynh the wrestling experience of her life.
We might also remember that following the games in Beijing, when the athletes are home and everyone has loosened themselves from the spell of its enchantment, we all have urgent environmental work to do – work that will challenge us individually and collectively as no Olympics have ever done.