Paralympics basically comes from rehab the main sports being Archery , Basketball and swimming and wheelchair racing . unfortunately shinty didn't make the cut
Looking forward to Sydney McLaughlin v Femke Bol in the women’s 400m Hurdles. Keely Hodgkinson in the women 800m now Athing Mu didn’t get through the US trials due to a fall in the race. Men’s 1500m, Josh Kerr v Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
I hate the Olympics.... But seems a big enough event to have it's own thread if people want it... Surely has to have more people interested than Cricket. I voted merge, but that was primarily just to be a twat.
Why? do you not likthe hypocrisy of a global money making machine pretending to be a global force for peace and inclusively with only honour at stake?
It's way too commercial and over hyped. Most of the events are not that interesting. And yet everything is over hyped as if it is. Its too unfocused... It's also, one giant front for nationalism... Which I know the world cup can be, but somehow it seems worse at Olympics for me. Although, it's not as crazy as the earliest Olympics of the modern era. We don't have painting at the Olympics any more or dueling.... Although personally, I wouldn't mind seeing dueling make a comeback. I think we have the technology now to make it safe for people to shoot rubber bullets at each other.
I think it's divisive. For human society to progress we have to see ourselves as one and work together, not constantly fight one another. If it were just at a sporting level (or equivalent in other fields) it wouldn't be so bad, a competitive element enhances the enjoyment - but I find it hard to disassociate it from the more sinister aspects of political nationalism which leads to so many bad things, imo.
The opposite is also true, perhaps even more so. When you say "see ourselves as one and work together" is that what's called globalism? Or is globalism only a political term?
I'm not sure what you mean by that. In trying to explain my own position, I'd try to avoid any term with political connotations. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many extreme political parties have National in their name in some form or other, or have slogans putting national interests above all else. Self-preservation and protectionist instincts are natural and understandable of course, but we have to be wary that they don't develop into xenophobia in order to justify them.
If I translate nationalism as loving the country and culture of the country you live in or were born in, then anti nationalism is the opposite. It's divisive because it leads to all kinds of bans such as on displaying the union flag on homegrown fruit and veg; taxi drivers flying an England flag during the Euros; Easter eggs labelled gift eggs and toning down all around on Christmas. All to not be seen as exclusionary. Taking your point into consideration regarding political parties with National in their name, maybe nationalism has two ways of interpretation, with this example representing what's bad about nationalism and taking pride in homegrown produce and labelling it with the flag of the country it was grown in, being an example of what's good about nationalism.
That's not at all my definition of divisive, I see it as something that seeks to divide us as people into an us v them mentality. I can't say I've encountered some of the things you list here, and I'd class them as petty and ridiculous, tbh. Displaying the country of origin on something isn't a bad thing, and neither is showing your support for a team. As a non-religious person, I'm not really sensitive to the toning down of religious celebrations, but I can see how some are. However, I'd also maintain that the religious meaning of many of these things has long been sacrificed to commercial exploitation, and that has nothing to do with national pride or lack of it. I'll also point out that I don't see national pride as a dichotomy - more a question of degree. It's ok to have pride in your origins and your culture, but not to the point where you start to get a superiority complex over it. Humans are a strange animal, capable of both wonderfully creative and terribly destructive things. We'll fight over anything - religion, country, ethnicity, gender, sport - anything you can think of. I'd just rather we didn't give ourselves excuses for doing so.
Nationalism, the belief in being better than everyone else because of where you were born? I see a lot wrong with it. By it's very essence it sets up an "us" vs "them" mentality. It is frequently linked to racist and more hawk like behaviour. Now, I'm not saying loving where you live, or wanting your homeland to do well and succeed is bad, and that certainly can be nationalism to a degree. The problem with nationalism is there is a fine line between loving your own, and hating everyone else... And obviously not everyone who loves their own country hates others, but those traits do have some correlation. The problem is when you have a whole population like that then people cross boundaries... The mob doesn't think well as a collective when bound to a dogma. A large percent of conflict in the last 300 years can be linked to some degree to nationalism. I think mild national pride and the desire.to do well can be a good thing, its when that competitive nature becomes a desire to stomp others is when it becomes bad and unfortunately the common man isn't good at knowing where the line is. ... And I'm not saying all people who love their country are bad or evil, just society as a whole tends to drift towards that when a lot of people share the same sentiment about their land being worthy of special praise.
