I can't bring myself to. The Olympics lost something when competition stopped being about self-mastery. If you look at the ancient Olympic Games or maybe even just several decades ago, competition wasn’t just “who runs fastest.” It was embedded in religion, civic honor, and virtue. Excellence includes discipline and character. There was a seriousness to it...
The modern Olympics branding, broadcasting, social media, and the Olympic Village basically being treated like a giant adult summer (winter) camp. I know people say the sex, the substance use, etc... is just stress relief or “they’re adults, who cares.”
But to me, sex isn’t recreational stress relief. It’s powerful. It shapes you. So, when the highest level of competition, something that should represent extreme focus and self-command, is surrounded by that kind of culture, it feels off. Debauched.
I guess the heart of the matter is how competition is viewed: Is it sacred or is it a spectacle? What is elite sport actually for?
I cannot really cheer for team USA because I know a majority of these athletes do not represent these things. Though I can see and recognize achievement, it doesn’t inspire loyalty or emotional investment for me because the underlying values are absent.
Well, first of all, sexual freedom is killing us. So knowing that the Olympics is one of the peaks of civilization-destroying behavior is inherently depressing.
In reference to the Olympics themselves, though, they aren't just about athletics. The original purpose of the games was to foster sportsmanship among the countries of the world and elevate the human spirit. Athletics is a necessary but insufficient property of that mission. Now you could argue that's all a bunch of crap, but the more the Olympics becomes a compartmentalized, mechanistic athletic meet, the more it deteriorates. Various scandals like the conditions at Sochi and Brazil become more common - why not? That's how people behave in crass, transactional relationships.
You could say that the Olympics is a case study in Western civilization, which requires the population at large to hold high-minded values. As people start to lose trust in those values, because they see that they don't in fact exist anymore, things progressively fall apart, as we see everywhere today.
I really wish people would stop being so dramatic that they think something is “killing” us when really they mean the birthrate is declining. Nobody is getting “killed” when there is more sexual freedom lol.
But I don’t really get your second paragraph.
So what would you propose as a change to the game to better foster sportsmanship/spirit? What needs to be added/what has been taken away?
Being below replacement rate is actually a bigger crisis than terrorist attacks or other disasters. It determines whether your people and civilization will continue existing as well as the well-being and quality of life of people in the present. Modern attitudes toward sex are far from the only contributor, of course, but they're a big one.
I would change the Olympics according to broken windows theory. Enforce a standard on opening and closing ceremonies so nuclear blights like Paris don't happen. Enforce stricter codes of conduct on PED regulations and athlete behavior. End the anti-traditional political grandstanding like the flirtations with tranny athletes. Ban Israel. Basically, taking steps to take "role model" status more seriously.
Fucking lol
What sorts of standards?
Yeah, really funny that whites are a minority of high school seniors now.
Ceremonies must adhere to boundaries of Western classicism even if they don't have the aesthetics of such.
Millions of male suicide victims would disagree with you
Or they might agree with me.
Guess we'll never know.