Discuss: Looking Away from Beauty

This is a fantastic article. Thank you! This is a thoughtful reminder about the ways nations use bodies but silence people.

While I wholeheartedly agree with your thoughts, Rebecca, I can’t help but wonder what chaos there would be if each Olympic medalist chose to make a protest statement while receiving his/her medal.  AS far as the Olympic games being a synthetic reality, perhaps we need the respite of a few hours in contemplation of the grace of athletic human bodies as an antidote to the overwhelming pain and suffering in so much of the world.  Yes, the games may be a vehicle of nationalist posturing, but I say far better that we compete on the playing field than on the battle field.

Sorry Rebecca, no cigar. I still can’t pick you for my team, whether Olympic commentary or spelling bee.

I’m sorry, but I can’t begin to agree with the logic of this piece. The Olympics present the one opportunity our flawed species has to celebrate our being in a pure, natural and unfettered manner. To introduce the grimy, oversold elements of our everyday struggle to the Olympic arena in a premeditated fashion undermines this completely.

The corporate behemoths which abuse bodies all over the world will never accept a sense of responsibility for anything which does not serve the bottom line.

And, given the way the BIg Boys on Wall St. are crumbling, perhaps we should cherish this Olympics as an artifact of sorts for it may be the last for a while.

  The ecosystem world-wide has some surprises in store before the next 4 years unfold.

Absolutely correct.  A brilliant piece detailing the desires of the human person - you have captured our fear of the truth.  China continues to kill people.  Everyday the death toll mounts.  Monks, Uiygurs, political dissidents, Tibetans are being murdered.  We must speak for what is right.  Thank you for speaking this.

“The Olympics present the one opportunity our flawed species has to celebrate our being in a pure, natural and unfettered manner”
It represents how much a government is willing to spend on training sports people, how many faciliities are available to the general public, not necessarily in tandem with money spent. It represents stuggle to some atheletes and to others a life immersed in their sport at the cost of all else & insistence of their governement.
Our BEING is far more than our body.
The medal league tables and national anthems are all about nations not amazing individuals or the extrordinary capacity of our bodies.
The same bodies that sweat and toil. Sport is an isolated use of the body not in its practical useful sense; the skills and feats of manual labourers are amazing too, the pitching of a bale be it in the hay field or the cotton factory: the uncelebrated many who make our lives what they are.
Yes I will watch some sports I enjoy the shapes and energies of swimming and speed skating….

I have often appreciated your clarity and thoughtfully precise language and your well meaning heart, while not always agreeing with all your views.  I will be going to Beijing in November (http://www.commonground2008.com) and this time was thinking along the lines of what you wrote. So thank you for explaining my own thoughts to me.