Universal Civilisation or Cultural Decadence?
How to interpret the opening of the Olympics in France
Culture and soft power is an important part of international politics, and France has a long history of cosmopolitanism that appeals to universal civilisation:
- However, I suspect most of the world interprets this performance at the Paris Olympics as cultural decadence.
- The Olympics is always political, so what is the significance? The show evidently intended to display and communicate tolerance as the most important ingredient of liberalism. Yet, the intolerance toward criticism of the appropriateness of this at the opening of the Olympics is a contradiction.
- Liberalism is known for its two contradictory components: tolerance and the assumption of universalism. The contradiction becomes evident as there is very little tolerance toward dissent to progressiveness / universalism that must be embraced by all. This is why excessively liberal societies usually have very little tolerance for dissent on issues like immigration, radical secularism, abortion and the new gender ideology.
- As I write this, I realise I may already be guilty of "hate" by failing to comment on this cultural phenomenon with praise. But, if conformity and consensus about this new cultural phenomenon is formed through intolerance and intimidation, does it not prove my point?
- However, I may be wrong... Culture is the root that sustains civilisation by connecting people across space and time. Maybe the world finds cosmopolitanism, unity and universalism in drag shows and sexualised smurfs who denigrate Christianity and The Last Supper.
There's a time and place for everything even whatever the f that was. But IMO the Olympics opening ceremony was definitely not the time and place for whatever the f that was. But the Olympics has become hopelessly politicized ie. Belarus and Russia banned and even potential athletes from those country competing under neutral flags being forced to submit to an ideological purity test on their attitude to the war in Ukraine to compete. Meanwhile Israel is free to both compete and commit genocide and I don't remember US and UK athletes etc being barred because of the illegal invasion of Iraq based on a lie. We are through the looking glass and the view is trash. C'est la vie.
As Alex C. put it, the scene in Paris was ClownWorld.
RE 'universalism' and 'liberalism':
The 'universalism' that Glenn objects to is objectionable, but it is not the universalism of Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville and the other best figures of conservative liberalism.
Glenn, too, favors a universalism, one that is context-sensitive and suitably humbled to the human limits of knowledge.
"Of Universal Benevolence," Adam Smith in THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS:
"The administration of the great system of the universe,...the care of the universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings, is the business of God, and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers, and to the narrowness of his comprehension — the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country..."