A Libertarian “Bah On The Olympics”

PART I: The People’s Juice

That an individual will cheat for glory tells us nothing new or interesting about the human condition. Aristotle, The Bible, and Shakespeare told us all about it before there was a “Western World” to have a conversation about western values in. What is new ground in political ethics to ponder is: what is it about the Olympics that attracts national rottenness? The Nazis pioneered the political capture of the games, using them as stimulus (to be addressed in Part II) and as a legitimizing come-out party. Putin’s Russia repeated the legitimizing trick in Sochi. The Soviet Bloc pioneered Olympic athletic doping, and Russia has carried on the tradition to the point where their national intelligence apparatus, the FSB, got caught juking their athletes’ pee. That an athlete’s doping is considered a matter of national security indicates a real phenomenon.

Part of the rotten government temptation must be about the reflected glory. Authorities always ride the achievements of their governed, and people generally achieve less in authoritarian nations, so that little bit of good news and tribal pride becomes more important. Soviet Communism held that religion is the opiate of the masses, but reflected sports glory seems to be the opiate of the authoritarian.

Ultimately, why should the average person care about the nature of Ben Johnson’s doping? Carl Lewis should, the man directly robbed of his glory, but why should millions of sports fans? For people living in a healthy culture, the answer is reflexive: the rules protect us all, we trust the rules by and large, and the rules are important in and of themselves, and provide a framework for us to all strive fairly. Also, an arms race of chemical cheating would mean that for every Olympian there will be a million amateur athletes with angry steroid acne and ‘roid rage.

For nations that rule by coercion, flouting the rules of sportsmanship must be laughably trivial. For the Soviets, who sent their people into Siberian exile for protest poetry, altering their victims’ sex lives must be beneath their consideration. This was the problem-solving culture of the Soviet Union (and still is in Putin’s Russia). It’s easy to terrorize someone into running, but it’s impossible to terrorize them into being the world’s greatest runner without resorting to some angle. It’s like a domestic abuser, always reaching for the violence tool: when every problem is a nail, the only tool you need is a hammer. Studies show how violating the little rules, like not paying parking tickets, is predictive of a nation’s propensity for violating big rules, like whether their citizens have a right to their lives. This cancer of cheating is the problem solving culture of Russia today.

Americans seem only mildly diverted by the Olympics this time around, and that is OK with this author. I take it as evidence of progress away from tribalism. Many would put this American cat-like boredom down to lazy narcissism, but laziness invades no nations and doctors nobody’s hormones.

The true irony is that while it’s absurd for me to believe I am entitled to any part of the glory of an athlete because they happen to live in my country, it is possible for me to take pride in being a participating member of a nation that loves sportsmanship and the rule of law. Americans can be proud of having a system where if a CIA officer manipulated anyone’s urine sample, we, mystified, would have him go see the psychiatrist.

Another irony is that the cheating nations regard Olympic competition as if nations were opposing stables of horse breeders; of course they believe some part of their athlete’s greatness comes from the stable that is their system. But history’s greatest Olympian, the American Michael Phelps, attained his greatness as the pinnacle of a system that truly rewards merit.

Fair-and-square rules provide the evolutionary framework for beneficial human endeavor in sports as well as economies, as well as art and just about all aspects of well-being, because they most respect the dignity of an individual’s life. So the cheating-nation approach fails in every way.

Without the illegitimate-state legitimizing attempts of the Nazis and the Russians, without the corrupt stadium-building grandiosity of the IOC (to be addressed in Part II), and without Soviet/Russia dope cheating, the modern Olympics might look very much like its ancient ideal. That ideal is of amateur athletes of all the nations coming together to strive fairly and squarely, transcending the political squabbles of the day. But anywhere man strives, there will be the political, and everywhere you find the political, you find cheating to some degree. Those degrees matter, and are an indelible part of the problem solving culture of a nation.

• About the Author

About Eugene Darden Nicholas

Eugene Darden (Ed) Nicholas is from Flushing Queens, where he grew up sheltered from the hard world, learning the true things after graduating college and becoming a paramedic in Harlem. School continues to inform and entertain in all its true, Shakespearean glory. It's a lot of fun, really. In that career, dozens of people walk the earth now who would not be otherwise. (The number depends on how literally or figuratively you choose to add). He added a beloved wife to his little family, which is healthy. He is also well blessed in friends and colleagues.