Give and Take

I couldn't be less excited about the Olympics. I haven't watched one second of coverage. Nothing about these games excites me. Maybe I'm just getting cynical or bored . . . or out of shape. Maybe watching world class athletes run in circles subconsciously wounds me in the part of the brain that also wants to run in circles--the part of the brain that quietly chastises me for not running in those circles since . . . ever. I think this part of the brain shares common nodes with my failure cortex.

I expend lots of energy ignoring this part of the brain.

It's probably an unimportant part anyway, having obviously developed independent of evolutionary stressors. A circle is the worst possible shape to use for evading predators. A circle returns to the same spot after all, and marks its trajectory in yawning arcs. When a tiger sees you running away at full speed, listing to the right as you go, even he knows you'll be back.

Zig-zaggy lines are better.

Even the various species of parallelograms are better. Even though you're doubling back on yourself, at least you look like you're running straight away, until you cut abruptly to or fro.

That all tracks in the world are oval speaks not just to the utter absurdity of that one sport, but to the absurdity of sport in general.

Sport are acts of pointless athleticism. In that they are pointless, they are like almost every other benchmark for prowess humanity has cooked up. See Also: conspicuous consumption.

See also: IQ Tests.

Maybe it's unfair to call these things pointless. They convey bragging rights. They produce self-contained, artificial hierarchies.

In the case of the Olympics, they provide fuel to the fire of nationalism. America is not leading in the gold medal count yet. Know who is? The fucking Communists (reg. req., count might have changed by the time you read this). If this were the Cold War, we might have had to boycott in dignified protest of our not being as good as them.

Now that most of our cheap goods and free labor come from there, even China is worthy to compete with, and even beat the great American athletics juggernaut. God bless free trade.

The fact that the Dream Team sucks, that some Hamm other than Mia is making headlines and that one American swimmer won't be able to top another, older American swimmer, is fodder for statisticians. Because, of course, the US will eventually emerge the victor. That was a foregone conclusion.

If you're looking at the far left column of the medals table and wondering why America isn't on top despite having far and away the most total medals, let me remind you of something: "The plaque for runner-up is in the ladies room."

Only gold matters baby. That's something even Mav and Iceman can agree on.

So athletics are good for America, just like standardized tests. They are a self-fulfilling litmus test for the ego of a nation. They show us once and for all that, as a country, we've got the best ball-manipulators, the best ring-swingers, the best lead-throwers, the best oval-runners.

We're the goddamned best.

It also takes our mind of the muddier things. Things like war, which involves athleticism, and the war on terror, which requires intelligence. But such things aren't pure because they are not athletics qua athletics or intelligence for its own sake. They have purposes, they have an end goal.

Those are the kinds of unfortunate things, war and intelligence gathering--things with ends--that Americans tend to fail at. A lot.

See also: the drug crisis.

Still we are good sports about it. Failure that is. We'd never give up something when we realize the game is so patently ridiculous and flawed as to suggest failure by definition. Even if we dictated the terms to begin with. We're not quitters. Why not let taxation and rehabilitation be the arbiter of a certain issue among consenting adults? Change the rules? Isn't that like cheating? Drugs are bad anyway you goddamned communist.

So, thank a double thank-you to the Olympics for showing us the multi-ethnic though homogeneous face of American success, while allowing us to forget, briefly, the unilateral but multifaceted face of American failure.

Criticizing something means you hate it.