The Olympics and human nature

This is the first time since I arrived at Princeton that any Olympic games have been contested while I’m on campus. And I have to say, with the thesis bearing down, it couldn’t have come at a worse time, as I know my productivity is going to slow down for the next two weeks. In fact, I’m writing this column (slowly) while watching the American men’s hockey team dismantle the Swiss. (But at least it’s not as bad as the Canadian women against the Slovaks. 18-0. Geez.)

There is, as many people recognize, something entrancing about the Olympic games. For some, it’s the fact that the competition is international, and it thus becomes an outlet for patriotic competitive fervor. But that’s not the reason why the Olympics exist; the point is to foster international cooperation, not jingoistic discord. The idea — and I think it’s a widely accepted idea -— is that it is precisely the nature of sporting competition that promotes global understanding. There is something about the games on which we can all agree, something that allows Israelis to march in the same procession as Iranians, something that makes people think national pride is on the line in the discipline of cross-country skiing, something that is fundamentally human.

This idea — that there is something especially universal about sport — has become a widely accepted cliche that is particularly popular every two years when the Olympics take place. The question is, Why is this intuition so widely shared? What is it precisely about the Olympics that captures the imaginations of so many people from so many cultures?

Every two years, the Olympics display values and virtues that are universally recognized to be fundamentally, objectively good. It is not sport as such but the virtues that it instills in competitors and then presents to onlookers — who wish to see the best of which humanity is capable — that are universally attractive.

The Olympics proves, for instance, that there is a distinctively human, universally recognized quality called “courage.” We cheer for the alpine skier who risks life and limb to pursue a passion for excellence. We appreciate the hockey player who goes to a dangerous part of the ice to make a play for the good of the team, or who challenges a stronger opponent who targeted a star player. And we are particularly thrilled by the successes of participants who are injured or have experienced struggles. Appreciation for courage is not an idiosyncratic taste or a social construct; it is a fundamental virtue recognized by all.

The same could be said of any other expression of objective human excellence displayed at the games. We marvel at the perseverance of the marathon runners (or cross-country skiers) and empathize with their exhaustion as they collapse beyond the finish line, knowing that we could never complete half of their task without capitulating. We admire the self-discipline of the athletes who train daily for years with no assurance of success, and the accompanying material sacrifice that must be accepted. We appreciate the intelligence required to understand the curves of the bobsled track, the angles of the curling ice and the strategy of the hockey game. And we intuitively recognize all these things to be irreducibly, objectively good. Otherwise, why would we watch? Why would we care?

Perhaps the least obvious but most profound object of universal appreciation is beauty, most obviously on display in figure skating. This discipline (even more than other sports) is somewhat strange, as there’s no obvious reason for it to exist. It doesn’t have the head-to-head competition of hockey, nor is its essential quality some objective standard such as speed (as in skiing or sliding sports). Its summer analogue is most nearly gymnastics, which at least can trace roots to military training and is an overt display of strength and flexibility. Those qualities, though important, are merely ancillary to figure staking. The sport owes its existence, it seems, to the existence of beauty.

Someone discovered at some point that there is something fundamentally and thrillingly lovely about gliding on ice, and over time it has been developed into an art form. Figure skating is judged (though some would fairly argue that the system attempts to quantify beauty too much) on the assumption that some performances are objectively more beautiful than others. And that is precisely the point of the sport and precisely why we watch: the hope that, through finesse and discipline and skill, something truly and essentially beautiful will emerge from the human form.

And so, as we watch the Olympics this year, we must remember the fundamental assumption on which they, and all sports, are based: that there are some basic, objective, and universal human goods that are captured in sport. It is why the Olympics are truly an international event, and why the dream of international understanding through sport, though idealistic, will live on.