August 8, 2004

• MORE ON THE OLYMPICS

  In modern times (1894), a French aristocrat decided to restart the games. He had some strange ideas, amateurism being among the strangest. This seems to have been a sort of social class thing and was borrowed from the Social Darwinism ideas of the time (racial superiority, White Man's burden, Nietzsche, etc.). The first modern Olympic games were held in Greece in 1896 and for the next several decades were held in Europe and America. The most spectacular pre-World War II games were, of course the games held in Germany in 1936. Hitler/Goebbles/Reichfenstall (well Hitler is spelled right) pulled out all the stops to set the stage for the nationalistic shows we have today. The Russians had already made a mockery of the concept of amateurism with their state-supported athletic training programs but most other countries hung in there until the early 1980s with at least the pretense of demanding amateur status of the performers.
  The Games began as a religious celebration and in modern times they have regained some of that status. Those countries who compete seriously certainly regard their sports with religious fervor. Here in the U.S. athletes are even sometimes excused rape and murder and I suspect more citizens focus their Sundays on football than on church.
  I think the games started as an expression of the Greeks' worship of the human body and its possibilities and in modern times, with some modifications, has returned to that worship. That being the case, I'm surprised that there isn't more of a religious backlash. After all, the games are in direct competition with organized religion. Come to think of it, they are pretty organized also: Structure, priesthood, dogma, commandments, the whole bit. I wonder what pagans and those dusty gods up on Olympus think of all this?
  Hey, I haven't even touched the homosexual aspect, both ancient and modern

  • 10:22 am
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