{"id":484,"date":"2012-08-17T16:14:18","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T16:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=484"},"modified":"2014-02-09T05:10:33","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T05:10:33","slug":"olympic-fever-nationalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2012\/08\/olympic-fever-nationalism\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve Got Olympic Fever – and the Only Cure is More Nationalism! – Article by Bradley Doucet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"The<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Bradley Doucet
\n<\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
August 17, 2012<\/big><\/span><\/div>\n
Recommend this page<\/a>.<\/strong><\/div>\n
******************************<\/div>\n
Once again, the Olympics have come and gone. Some of the best athletes from around the world competed to see who could run, swim, row, dive, jump, kick, shoot, spike, spin, flip, and twist faster or higher or more artfully than their opponents. And that part of it was great. Well, some of it was dull as dirt, but some of it was genuinely thrilling and even beautiful.The part of it that I don\u2019t get is where I\u2019m supposed to cheer for the guys and gals who are \u201crepresenting\u201d Canada. I\u2019m supposed to feel disappointed when these fine young men and women fail to live up to expectations, and I\u2019m supposed to be happy, even proud, when they make it to the podium. And people from other nations are supposed to feel these emotions for the athletes \u201crepresenting\u201d them. Well, not only do I not feel anything special for Canadian athletes, but I would go so far as to say that such seemingly innocuous nationalistic sentiments are a big part of what\u2019s wrong with the world.Nationalism by Any Other Name<\/strong><\/p>\n

For my money, foul-mouthed stand-up comedian Doug Stanhope put it best<\/a>: \u201cNationalism does nothing but teach you how to hate people that you never met, and all of a sudden you take pride in accomplishments you had no part in whatsoever\u2026\u201d Now granted, the Olympics are not so big on the hate. But why should I, simply because I\u2019m Canadian, take pride in the fact that Canada hauled in 18 medals? And should I feel a little less proud because only one of them was a gold? Of course, strictly speaking, \u201cCanada\u201d did not win 18 medals. Rather, Canadian athletes won 18 medals. But why should \u201cwe\u201d care one way or the other, much less feel vicarious pride? We didn\u2019t build that.<\/p>\n

To be clear, I\u2019m not against sporting events per se. I actually like sports, both playing them and watching them. I like watching basketball and American football, and I even root for certain teams (the Celtics and the Patriots). I enjoy watching my fellow human beings perform incredible feats of strength and agility, and struggle to summon extra energy or settle frazzled nerves. Watching tennis star Na Li rally from a 1-5 deficit in the deciding third set of her semi-finals match at the Rogers Cup in Montreal this weekend to win six straight games and take it 7-5 was both exciting and inspiring. I like the way Na Li plays\u2014I refuse on principle to place her family name first, regardless of what is done in her nation\u2014and she\u2019s got a pretty quick wit, too, judging from the times I\u2019ve heard her speak. Why should I give a damn what her nationality is?<\/p>\n

I did watch some Olympic tennis, including the record-breaking third set of the match between Milos Raonic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga that took 48 service games to decide. I was impressed that Raonic could give Tsonga such a run for his money, but the fact that we are countrymen was the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, I was happy that Tsonga finally won the match. I enjoy his style of play, and he\u2019s actually my favourite player on the men\u2019s tour at the moment. Different nationality, different mother tongue, different skin colour? I literally could not care less.<\/p>\n

The Hosts with the Most<\/strong><\/p>\n

What about the host country? In an article in the Globe and Mail<\/em>, Doug Saunders wrote<\/a> of the \u201cmood of national euphoria\u201d in England following the closing ceremonies, and of the \u201cineffable value of having organized a very large, very happy event with virtually no flaws, and having looked very good before the world\u2014something that Britain once took for granted, and is likely to enjoy remembering for some time.\u201d The implication is that Britain should feel proud of the great job it did hosting the Games.<\/p>\n

But again, did \u201cBritain\u201d host the Games? Did \u201cthe British people\u201d host the Games? No. Some small subset of specific individuals organized the event, for better or for worse. Why would every Brit deserve credit for that? Now, British taxpayers did foot the bill, whether they wanted to or not. And what a bill it was, totalling some $14.5 billion. (You can forget about any economic stimulus from hosting the Games, by the way. As Saunders tells it, the prospect of daily Olympic crowds of 100,000 kept at least 300,000 non-Olympic tourists away.)<\/p>\n

Similarly, as a Canadian taxpayer, I financed some tiny fraction of the training of the Canadian athletes participating at these Games, who were subsidized to the tune of $96 million<\/a> over the last four years. (For those of you keeping track at home, that\u2019s five million and change per Canadian medal.) The thing is, paying taxes is not really something a person does; it\u2019s something that is done to a person. I cannot therefore reasonably feel proud of what is done with those dollars once they are taken out of my account against my will, and neither should the British taxpayer.<\/p>\n

For Love of Country<\/strong><\/p>\n

On a trip to Ottawa a few years ago, I saw a bumper sticker that captured my feelings about Canada: \u201cI love my country, but I\u2019m afraid of my government.\u201d Canada is a fine place with many fine people who continue to enjoy the echoes of a strong classical liberal tradition. But those \u201crepresenting\u201d us (there\u2019s that word again) in the halls of power are not generally speaking the finest of those fine people.<\/p>\n

For one thing, they all seem to be nationalists of one stripe or another. I suppose it wasn\u2019t surprising to see Pauline Marois, leader of the separatist Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, celebrate the fact that Canada\u2019s first four medals were won by Quebecers<\/a>. Rather more disappointing was how all three major provincial party leaders were competing to oppose the purchase<\/a> of homegrown Rona by US rival Lowe\u2019s. The race for gold in the \u201ceconomic nationalism\u201d event was too close to call.<\/p>\n

Someone is surely going to argue that the Olympics are all about the nations of the world coming together in friendship. Well first of all, at the risk of beating a dead dressage horse, \u201cnations\u201d cannot be friends. Only people can be friends, and some of the Olympians probably made some new connections. But do the Olympics help people from different parts of the world adopt friendlier attitudes toward one another? An American basketball team packed with NBA superstars rolling roughshod over every other team tells a different tale, as does the rash of below-the-belt punching<\/a> in the quest for basketball gold. And how about those bad calls against the Canadian women\u2019s soccer team, denying them a chance to play for gold? That really promotes friendly international relations.<\/p>\n

One parting shot: I\u2019ll take the human achievement of the Mars landing<\/a> over the nationalistic achievements of the Olympics any day. And although again, the taxpayer funds used to pay for it rub me the wrong way, at $2.5 billion, the price tag was roughly 1\/6 as large as the Olympic tab.<\/p>\n

Some kind of reverence for imaginary lines on a map seems to be deeply ingrained in most people, but to me, honestly, winning a medal \u201cfor your country\u201d is only slightly less creepy than winning one for your Dear Leader<\/a>. I prefer the humanist sentiment of elation of one Western writer (I\u2019ve tried in vain to relocate his name) who, upon seeing the Great Wall of China for the first time, exclaimed, \u201cMy people built that.\u201d Human beings can do great things, which should be a source of encouragement and inspiration for us all, regardless of the colours of our passports.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Bradley Doucet is\u00a0Le Quebecois Libr\u00e9<\/a>\u2018s English Editor. A writer living in Montreal, he has studied philosophy and economics, and is currently completing a novel on the pursuit of happiness. He also writes for The New Individualist<\/a>, an Objectivist magazine published by The Atlas Society, and sings<\/a>.<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bradley Doucet August 17, 2012 Recommend this page. ****************************** Once again, the Olympics have come and gone. Some of the best athletes from around the world competed to see who could run, swim, row, dive, jump, kick, shoot, spike, spin, flip, and twist faster or higher or more artfully than their opponents. And that part of it was great. Well, some of it was dull as dirt, but some of it was genuinely thrilling and even beautiful.The part of it…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,5],"tags":[66,435,1186,89,319,634,57,1181,1187,1182,1183,1180,1179,1184,1185],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-politics","tag-66","tag-achievement","tag-athletes","tag-bradley-doucet","tag-canada","tag-competition","tag-individualism","tag-london","tag-medals","tag-nation","tag-nationalism","tag-olympic-games","tag-olympics","tag-sports","tag-taxpayers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2101,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions\/2101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}