The Olympics

[janus!andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

David Nevin Friedman writes:

> My opinion on athletics is this: I admire athletic excellence, not 
> amateurism.  Nowhere do people play basketball as well as in the NBA, 
> nowhere is tennis played on the level that is played at the Grand Slams, 
> no where is soccer played better than in Europe's and South America's 
> professional leagues.  If the nature of athletic excellence is such that 
> one must be a professional to achieve the pinnacle of success in their 
> particular sport, so be it.  But then again, I am an unabashed capitalist...

Frankly, who gives a fuck about what a bunch of obsessive nerds do to
mutate their bodies into the contortions required to achieve some
patheticly stupid and pointless goal concocted by equally obsessive
and nerdy mutants. By all means let them do what gives them their
kicks but to consider it worthwhile as anything other than a personal
experience?  And even though at a personal level it may have some
value, at what cost?  It's hard to respect an endeavour which not only
twists your body but also your mind - in evidence of which consider
the pathetic immaturity of most pro tennis player, the fairies at the
bottom of the Olympic garden path.

But the worst of it is that the Olympics has become a freak show, a
piece of global pornography, yet another stultifying arrow in
Cupidalism's quiver. Another means to co-opt not just your attention
and your time but also your emotions and your - yes you guessed it
didn't you - your sexuality. One of the first things I gave up
watching on television before I finally kicked the entire habit was
sport. And the reason was that it was responsible for the most blatant
manipulation of the viewers' sensibility. Commentaries which draw you
closer and closer into the screen, carefully increase heartbeat and
blood pressure, prickle your skin with hints of possible failure,
sweep you up and rush you towards an orgasmic climax spurting and
grunting incoherent words and phrases before ebbing slowly into a
plaintive, dragging drawl as the result is mopped up. It's so
unabashedly sexual.

Who are these people to play with you like a rag doll? What do they do
it for? If a stranger came up to you in the street and offered you the
full performance would you just accept it at face value? Would you not
suspect an ulterior motive? Would you keep on going through the same
performance every week without wondering why this was happening to
you, without attempting to take some part in the proceedings yourself,
attempting to direct it if only *just to see what happens*? Or have
you lost that fundamental curiosity?

Only on TV you cannot choose other than to be directed, coached,
pushed, manipulated. What is it that makes good pornography so good
and bad pornography so bad if not that the former liberates, allows
you to learn and grow while the latter stultifies, denying agency,
independence, sensibility. TV is pornography at it's most degrading
and TV sport is as low as you can sink.

And If you are still an unabashed capitalist after reading Pynchon
then I think you missed the point. Entirely.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.