My many acquaintances in the world of science and culture are rather indifferent to the Olympic Games. They point out many problems, such as excessive commercialization, and the fact that high-intensity athletic training is often a brutal assault on athletes’ bodies rather than a form of exercise. Rather than pouring massive resources into the vanity of chasing Olympic gold medals, it would be better to invest more in building up basic sports, in promoting public exercise, and in work that fosters health.
Here, I disagree with those teachers. I think this line of thought is, in fact, pragmatic and utilitarian. On the one hand, I certainly acknowledge that the spread of public exercise is important, but I certainly would not regard promoting health as the only goal—after all, people do not live for health alone. For those who have faith or ideals, there are things far more important than physical health. For a society as a whole, the physical fitness of the populace is certainly important, but that too is not the only thing.
In fact, the Olympics were never “sports” in the first place, much less exercise; they are “Games,” that is, play, carnival, a grand festival. Moreover, even if we say they are sports, this kind of sport is not that kind of sport. It is like saying that, even though both are “writing,” a clerk’s writing and a calligrapher’s writing are completely different. In daily life and work, writing should of course be as neat as possible, whereas certain hard-to-read wild cursive scripts by calligraphers are obviously at odds with everyday requirements; calligraphers’ writing speed also often cannot meet the standards of stenographers. Does this mean that one need not waste large amounts of time and energy practicing calligraphy at all? In fact, it is of course inappropriate to judge artists’ activities by ordinary standards. Similarly, even though both are “running,” the running by men, women, young, and old to exercise their bodies and Liu Xiang’s running are obviously two different things. To accuse the training of track athletes of being useless for bodily health is just as off the mark as accusing a calligrapher’s practice of being useless for improving shorthand ability.
It is inappropriate to compare the Olympics, the World Cup, and other sporting competitions with the popularization of exercise among the public. The Olympics were never about pursuing “physical fitness”; what the Olympics pursue is something else. Whether it is “faster, higher, stronger,” or carnival and entertainment, or economic benefit, or political influence, or the pursuit of empty fame—in short, in any case, it is not “physical exercise” that they pursue.
If a state invests too much financial and material resources in winning Olympic medals, that may indeed be inappropriate, but such inappropriateness should not be measured by the standard of public exercise. In a democratic society, the criterion for judging the legitimacy of policy lies in whether it accords with the wishes or interests of the broadest mass of citizens. And since the economic benefits of the Olympics, the enhancement of international image, the effects of spectacle and entertainment, and so on are after all recognized by a fairly large segment of the public, it is perfectly understandable for the state to increase its investment in the Olympics.
If the Olympics are after all not physical exercise, then what exactly are they? We know that the Olympics were originally a grand festival in ancient Greece—not merely an athletic competition, but also a religious sacrificial rite and a major artistic occasion. The modern Olympic Games are similar. Although the modern Olympics no longer sacrifice to the gods of Mount Olympus, they are still permeated by a certain modern religious faith—faster, higher, stronger. Personally, I do not subscribe to this faith in “modernity”; however, the pursuit of “transcendence” has always been admirable. In ancient Greece, including in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, what people pursued as “virtue” in essence referred to “excellence.” A steadfast pursuit of excellence is worthy of praise. Some opponents of modern civilization go too far, and even lose enthusiasm for “pursuit” itself; this is in fact another aspect of the sickness of modernity.
People who are tenaciously steadfast in their own pursuits are often also people full of passion. The Olympics symbolize the spirit of ancient Greece—not Apollo’s, but Dionysus’s: tragedy and carnival, heroes and myths. Yes, the Olympics are a drunken revel; they are a gathering of heroes.
Some people will accuse certain countries of being overly attached to the empty fame brought by competing for Olympic gold medals; however, what kind of fame is not empty fame? Is it not also the tradition of ancient Greece for a city-state to display its strength through its strong and handsome heroes, to seek honor and respect? If we say we should not invest too much in an arms race, then can we not also compete with one another in any other field? Wouldn’t a world without competition be very dull? — Flaunting one’s heroes is of course preferable to flaunting one’s weapons.
Some people will accuse the modern Olympics of being overly entertainment-driven; however, were not the athletic festivals of ancient Greece also a carnival of competition and entertainment?
Still others will accuse the modern Olympics of excessive commercialization—in fact, commercialization is everywhere in modern society. Yet since ancient times, religion and money have always been inseparable; religion has always been embedded in the system of society as a whole. For example, the wealth controlled by ancient temples was often far greater than in modern times, and that goes without saying even more so in states where church and state were one. And I have already said that the Olympics are a religious grand festival. Since that is so, it is only natural that they should be entangled with economic and political factors; there is no way to avoid this, nor is there anything strange about it. These factors do not necessarily affect the sacredness and purity of the religious ritual.
The most serious crisis facing the modern Olympics is the intrusion of utilitarianism—for example, evaluating the merits of the Olympics by standards such as whether they help public health.
I grew up doing “Olympic mathematics competitions” from childhood—why do math contests also have to be called “Olympic”? In fact, this means that such an activity is not merely a competition, and not merely an examination; in particular, it is absolutely different from “exercise”! — That is to say, although we mathematical “athletes” are first selected out through ordinary mathematical activity, when we systematically participate in the “training” of the math Olympiad, the activities we engage in gradually move away from everyday mathematics teaching and are no longer undertaken in order to exercise one’s ability in classroom mathematics. The top students in the math Olympiad may perhaps be “unhealthy” in their daily studies; they often need to sacrifice their ability to cope with ordinary exams and throw too much energy into specialized, high-intensity training. This mode of training is suitable only for a small number of people, and is absolutely not a “mass fitness” undertaking. However, many people treat the math Olympiad as a training method for ordinary students, using it as regular extracurricular reading material or even classroom training; that is of course extremely inappropriate, and it was this that led the education authorities to suppress the math Olympiad. If parents, teachers, and education departments could truly regard the math Olympiad as an “Olympics,” perhaps everything would be much better.
On the first anniversary count-down to the Beijing Olympics, I hereby solemnly express my support for the Olympic Games.
August 8, 2007
On Fushan Road, Shanghai
Latest comments
mist
2007-08-09 02:44:22 Anonymous 124.17.16.85 [Reply]
In my view, the error seems not to lie with the Olympics, but with the city-state’s equating “the number of gold medals won at the Olympics” with “the people’s level of physical culture,” or perhaps the error lies in the city-state’s creating the illusion of such an equation. This in turn creates an imbalance, which is reflected in the contrast between these two kinds of investment: investment in the Olympics and other sports that belong to only a small number of people, and investment in the construction of public sports facilities.
If the funds a city-state invests in public sports facilities were proportionate to the funds invested in the Olympics, there might be far less criticism of the Olympics.
Gu Dien
2007-08-09 08:03:01 http://epr.ycool.com/ [Reply]
That is exactly what I mean: it is inappropriate to equate Olympic gold medals with the people’s level of physical culture. But this connection is not entirely false, after all, because Olympic results can indeed reflect certain issues. It’s just that investment in the Olympics and investment in basic sports infrastructure are related, but after all they are two different things. The state should invest more in infrastructure, but that does not necessarily mean it must engage in an either-or competition with investment in the Olympics.
I have been thinking: how can we increase the spread of sports? How can we improve citizens’ physical fitness? I think that, in addition to building hardware facilities, promoting a culture and a set of ideas around sports is also important. If the public is not interested in sports, then no matter how many stadiums and facilities are built, they will all be mere decorations. As for making the public interested in sports and feel that they are exciting and fun, sporting spectacles like the Olympics play a positive role in this regard. Think of table tennis back then: at first, it seems it was mainly assigned the political mission of “small ball pushing the big ball,” and later table tennis not only became the “national ball,” but also became increasingly widespread among the public. If those athletes had not achieved such dazzling results again and again, I think the public’s spread of table tennis would have been a different matter altogether.
Yi Wu
2007-08-10 23:43:28 [Reply]
That is to say, OLY has in fact always been a kind of traditional elitism. If it is popularized, then there are many unreasonable aspects.
However, elitism in any field will always be exploited and end up distorted; there are many examples.
I have never especially liked the Olympics. It feels so-so. To cultivate one champion requires 1.6 billion yuan. I have nothing to say about that investment. China’s OLY operating model is fundamentally wrong. It has no foundation. Many other countries first have hardware facilities and a cultural basis for mass fitness, and then elites naturally emerge from that. China, by contrast, has nothing to rely on and directly creates elites on its own. As for academic OLY, I am not too clear about it, so I won’t say more for now.
Gu Dien
2007-08-11 09:23:05 http://epr.ycool.com/ [Reply]
To be precise, they are not “elites,” but “heroes.”
I do not deny that the modern Olympics have long since “changed flavor” in many places—being not only far removed from ancient Greece, but also deviating from the original intention with which Coubertin founded the modern Olympics (for example, it changed from allowing only amateur athletes to participate to being almost entirely made up of professional athletes). But many things are, after all, unavoidable compromises made in order to suit the times. Still, when we learn about the experiences and deeds of Olympic athletes, we can still see “heroes,” and that is enough.
Modern heroes often mutate into “stars,” which makes the Olympics resemble Super Girl. But however restless and superficial it may be, one still cannot simply deny it wholesale.
A champion costs 1.6 billion? Where did you see this figure? However you think about it, this is impossible. Perhaps all the sports investment related to the Olympics was simply lumped together and counted toward one champion to reach that amount. I searched a bit and found claims that one champion costs four or five million; that probably seems more credible. Even if one champion costs several hundred million or several billion, such investment depends on the standard by which you evaluate it. If you compare it with basic sports infrastructure and emphasize that training Olympic champions has no significance whatsoever for improving the people’s level of physical culture, then of course you will conclude that such investment is a huge waste. But as I have said, these are originally two different things, and one need not necessarily measure the Olympics by such a standard. Looking from other angles, for example from the standpoint of economic investment, investment in cultivating Olympic champions can stimulate a series of economic effects, including the benefits of sports clubs, stadiums, sports equipment, and so on, as well as entertainment effects, international influence, and the economic effects driven by these things; I believe the overall economic benefit is not a loss. Or, from the standpoint of political benefits, of increasing international prestige, and so on, the investment in Olympic and similar competitions is tiny compared with space moon-landing programs, arms races, and so on, yet the effects are still considerable.
First there is a relatively high mass foundation, and then elites naturally emerge—that is of course correct. But in another sense, “heroes” in turn also inspire people. In Greece’s Dark Age, the previous civilization was destroyed by new invaders, the cultural environment returned to barbarism, and the only thing that continued to be sung was Homer’s epics, praising the heroes of the past. The myths of heroes inspired the new age. Even if one does not say that heroes come first and a cultural foundation comes later, the two also work in coordination.
Of course, I admit that China’s sports system is seriously problematic, that the whole line of thought and the whole model are simply off track—China’s various systems are seriously problematic. But this is not the Olympics’ fault. Even if the state were to reduce its investment in and attention to the Olympics, that would not necessarily mean it would then turn to caring about infrastructure. More to the point, can defects in system and model really conceal the sacredness behind the Olympics? If one’s gaze rests only on the secular, all one sees is ugliness. But can’t the noble and sacred dwell behind the secular? Does the reality of an education system full of ills and plagued by corruption really conceal the greatness and sacredness of the profession of “teacher”? Secular people only know how to stare at secular things; they can only see those ugly systems and rotten teachers. This is not because the world lacks sacredness, but because their hearts lack sacredness.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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