The
Beijing Olympics have begun. I’m not a big fan of the Winter Olympics in
general, but I have in the past tuned in for some events.
There’s
something about curling.
But
this year I am boycotting the Olympics over China’s human rights abuses. Just
to cite two of China’s many offenses, the treatment (genocide) of the Uyghurs
and forced abortion, merit condemnation. I am saddened that the U.S. and other
nations still sent athletes.
In
1908, Chesterton commented on nationalism and athletics – the kind of misplaced
national pride we too often see with the Olympics.
Patriotism
and Sport
I notice that some papers, especially papers that call
themselves patriotic, have fallen into quite a panic over the fact that we have
been twice beaten in the world of sport, that a Frenchman has beaten us at
golf, and that Belgians have beaten us at rowing. I suppose that the incidents
are important to any people who ever believed in the self-satisfied English
legend on this subject. I suppose that there are men who vaguely believe that
we could never be beaten by a Frenchman, despite the fact that we have often
been beaten by Frenchmen, and once by a Frenchwoman. In the old pictures
in Punch you will find a recurring piece of satire. The
English caricaturists always assumed that a Frenchman could not ride to hounds
or enjoy English hunting. It did not seem to occur to them that all the people
who founded English hunting were Frenchmen. All the Kings and nobles who
originally rode to hounds spoke French. Large numbers of those Englishmen who
still ride to hounds have French names. I suppose that the thing is important
to any one who is ignorant of such evident matters as these. I suppose that if
a man has ever believed that we English have some sacred and separate right to
be athletic, such reverses do appear quite enormous and shocking. They feel as
if, while the proper sun was rising in the east, some other and unexpected sun
had begun to rise in the north-north-west by north. For the benefit, the moral
and intellectual benefit of such people, it may be worth while to point out
that the Anglo-Saxon has in these cases been defeated precisely by those
competitors whom he has always regarded as being out of the running; by Latins,
and by Latins of the most easy and unstrenuous type; not only by Frenchman, but
by Belgians. All this, I say, is worth telling to any intelligent person who
believes in the haughty theory of Anglo-Saxon superiority. But, then, no
intelligent person does believe in the haughty theory of Anglo-Saxon
superiority. No quite genuine Englishman ever did believe in it. And the
genuine Englishman these defeats will in no respect dismay.
The genuine English patriot will know that the strength
of England has never depended upon any of these things; that the glory of
England has never had anything to do with them, except in the opinion of a
large section of the rich and a loose section of the poor which copies the
idleness of the rich. These people will, of course, think too much of our
failure, just as they thought too much of our success. The typical Jingoes who
have admired their countrymen too much for being conquerors will, doubtless,
despise their countrymen too much for being conquered. But the Englishman with
any feeling for England will know that athletic failures do not prove that
England is weak, any more than athletic successes proved that England was
strong. The truth is that athletics, like all other things, especially modern,
are insanely individualistic. The Englishmen who win sporting prizes are
exceptional among Englishmen, for the simple reason that they are exceptional
even among men. English athletes represent England just about as much as Mr.
Barnum's freaks represent America. There are so few of such people in the whole
world that it is almost a toss-up whether they are found in this or that
country.
If any one wants a simple proof of this, it is easy to
find. When the great English athletes are not exceptional Englishmen they are
generally not Englishmen at all. Nay, they are often representatives of races
of which the average tone is specially incompatible with athletics. For
instance, the English are supposed to rule the natives of India in virtue of
their superior hardiness, superior activity, superior health of body and mind.
The Hindus are supposed to be our subjects because they are less fond of
action, less fond of openness and the open air. In a word, less fond of
cricket. And, substantially, this is probably true, that the Indians are less
fond of cricket. All the same, if you ask among Englishmen for the very best
cricket-player, you will find that he is an Indian. Or, to take another case:
it is, broadly speaking, true that the Jews are, as a race, pacific,
intellectual, indifferent to war, like the Indians, or, perhaps, contemptuous
of war, like the Chinese: nevertheless, of the very good prize-fighters, one or
two have been Jews.
This is one of the strongest instances of the particular
kind of evil that arises from our English form of the worship of athletics. It
concentrates too much upon the success of individuals. It began, quite
naturally and rightly, with wanting England to win. The second stage was that
it wanted some Englishmen to win. The third stage was (in the ecstasy and agony
of some special competition) that it wanted one particular Englishman to win.
And the fourth stage was that when he had won, it discovered that he was not
even an Englishman.
This is one of the points, I think, on which something
might really be said for Lord Roberts and his rather vague ideas which vary
between rifle clubs and conscription. Whatever may be the advantages or
disadvantages otherwise of the idea, it is at least an idea of procuring
equality and a sort of average in the athletic capacity of the people; it might
conceivably act as a corrective to our mere tendency to see ourselves in
certain exceptional athletes. As it is, there are millions of Englishmen who really
think that they are a muscular race because C.B. Fry is an Englishman. And
there are many of them who think vaguely that athletics must belong to England
because Ranjitsinhji is an Indian.
But the real historic strength of England, physical and
moral, has never had anything to do with this athletic specialism; it has been
rather hindered by it. Somebody said that the Battle of Waterloo was won on
Eton playing-fields. It was a particularly unfortunate remark, for the English
contribution to the victory of Waterloo depended very much more than is common
in victories upon the steadiness of the rank and file in an almost desperate
situation. The Battle of Waterloo was won by the stubbornness of the common
soldier--that is to say, it was won by the man who had never been to Eton. It
was absurd to say that Waterloo was won on Eton cricket-fields. But it might
have been fairly said that Waterloo was won on the village green, where clumsy
boys played a very clumsy cricket. In a word, it was the average of the nation
that was strong, and athletic glories do not indicate much about the average of
a nation. Waterloo was not won by good cricket-players. But Waterloo was won by
bad cricket-players, by a mass of men who had some minimum of athletic
instincts and habits.
It is a good sign in a nation when such things are done
badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is a bad sign in a
nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few
experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking
on. Suppose that whenever we heard of walking in England it always meant
walking forty-five miles a day without fatigue. We should be perfectly certain
that only a few men were walking at all, and that all the other British
subjects were being wheeled about in Bath-chairs. But if when we hear of
walking it means slow walking, painful walking, and frequent fatigue, then we
know that the mass of the nation still is walking. We know that England is
still literally on its feet.
The difficulty is therefore that the actual raising of
the standard of athletics has probably been bad for national athleticism.
Instead of the tournament being a healthy melee into which any
ordinary man would rush and take his chance, it has become a fenced and guarded
tilting-yard for the collision of particular champions against whom no ordinary
man would pit himself or even be permitted to pit himself. If Waterloo was won
on Eton cricket-fields it was because Eton cricket was probably much more careless
then than it is now. As long as the game was a game, everybody wanted to join
in it. When it becomes an art, every one wants to look at it. When it was
frivolous it may have won Waterloo: when it was serious and efficient it lost
Magersfontein.
In the Waterloo period there was a general
rough-and-tumble athleticism among average Englishmen. It cannot be re-created
by cricket, or by conscription, or by any artificial means. It was a thing of
the soul. It came out of laughter, religion, and the spirit of the place. But
it was like the modern French duel in this--that it might happen to anybody. If
I were a French journalist it might really happen that Monsieur Clemenceau
might challenge me to meet him with pistols. But I do not think that it is at
all likely that Mr. C. B. Fry will ever challenge me to meet him with
cricket-bats.
