And how could it be otherwise? I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.
There cannot be much doubt that the whole thing is bound up with the rise of nationalism—that is, with the lunatic modern habit of identifying oneself with large power units and seeing everything in terms of competitive prestige.
I do not share George Orwell's pessimism about sporting events, but I definitely feel them to be all too true about this year's Olympics.
1 comment:
Saw another non-native speaker leaving traces on Wang Xiaofeng's blog and came to have a look :) Thanks for nationalism thoughts; it's very much in the air now and needs all the picking-apart it can get.
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