I am back, friends, for a post every couple days or so for the next few weeks.
The Olympics have just closed in Rio. This world event is related to my values/cultural system in some logically useful ways. Why? First, because millions of people look to athletes to see inspiring demonstrations of the values they admire and believe in, and second, because, as I have argued repeatedly, the deepest, most basic of human values are universal. Great moments in sport move people all over the world, even when those people speak different languages and observe different customs. Courage, wisdom, freedom, love, compassion, work, sacrifice ...all over the world we admire these virtues because, over millennia, societies everywhere have learned, as whole societies, that these values work. They enable people who live by them to confront the forces of the natural world and survive. Even though we are most of the time not conscious of how our values guide and motivate us, they have been programmed into us so deeply that the behaviors that emerge in the living days of the human subjects are informed by, and driven by, values/virtues that are similar in country after country. And nowhere else do we see these truths as clearly as we do in sport.
This photo shows Wilma Rudolph winning her race at the Rome Olympics in 1960. If you don't know her story, you should. Look it up. Her courage, self-discipline, and sacrifice would move a store mannequin to weep. And after all those years of courage and sacrifice ...she won. A true story more inspiring than any fiction. She defined courage.
Below is an image of wisdom -- skills, strategy, tactics, etc. -- being passed on from an older man to a younger one. Respect on both sides. And real, useful knowledge being passed on.
basketball coach Brad Stevens talking to player A. J. Graves
legendary gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi chose freedom over communism (defecting in 1981)
And freedom? To pursue your own innovative methods in your sport? And to be recognized and paid if they work? If you're an athlete, freedom is the air you breathe. "I am training with these coaches because I chose them and they chose me."
And if the image below (from the Rio Olympics) doesn't move you, then I wish you would not come to my blog. We have nothing to discuss. After an accidental fall for both women, NZ runner Nikki Hamblin helped US runner Abbey D'Agostino to get up and go on to finish the race. After literally years of brutal training for this day, still compassion won out over ego. For me, the most precious image from these games.
Nikki Hamblin (NZ) helping Abbey D'Agostino (US) to her feet during 5000 m. race
Deep down, we all love the same things, the same values, the same virtues. Cultural relativism is bunk. If we have some problems getting together and working to bring about world peace and world prosperity that does not prove that we can't work out those problems. It only proves that we have to try harder.
What other choice is there?
The Olympics have just closed in Rio. This world event is related to my values/cultural system in some logically useful ways. Why? First, because millions of people look to athletes to see inspiring demonstrations of the values they admire and believe in, and second, because, as I have argued repeatedly, the deepest, most basic of human values are universal. Great moments in sport move people all over the world, even when those people speak different languages and observe different customs. Courage, wisdom, freedom, love, compassion, work, sacrifice ...all over the world we admire these virtues because, over millennia, societies everywhere have learned, as whole societies, that these values work. They enable people who live by them to confront the forces of the natural world and survive. Even though we are most of the time not conscious of how our values guide and motivate us, they have been programmed into us so deeply that the behaviors that emerge in the living days of the human subjects are informed by, and driven by, values/virtues that are similar in country after country. And nowhere else do we see these truths as clearly as we do in sport.
This photo shows Wilma Rudolph winning her race at the Rome Olympics in 1960. If you don't know her story, you should. Look it up. Her courage, self-discipline, and sacrifice would move a store mannequin to weep. And after all those years of courage and sacrifice ...she won. A true story more inspiring than any fiction. She defined courage.
Below is an image of wisdom -- skills, strategy, tactics, etc. -- being passed on from an older man to a younger one. Respect on both sides. And real, useful knowledge being passed on.
basketball coach Brad Stevens talking to player A. J. Graves
legendary gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi chose freedom over communism (defecting in 1981)
And freedom? To pursue your own innovative methods in your sport? And to be recognized and paid if they work? If you're an athlete, freedom is the air you breathe. "I am training with these coaches because I chose them and they chose me."
And if the image below (from the Rio Olympics) doesn't move you, then I wish you would not come to my blog. We have nothing to discuss. After an accidental fall for both women, NZ runner Nikki Hamblin helped US runner Abbey D'Agostino to get up and go on to finish the race. After literally years of brutal training for this day, still compassion won out over ego. For me, the most precious image from these games.
Nikki Hamblin (NZ) helping Abbey D'Agostino (US) to her feet during 5000 m. race
Deep down, we all love the same things, the same values, the same virtues. Cultural relativism is bunk. If we have some problems getting together and working to bring about world peace and world prosperity that does not prove that we can't work out those problems. It only proves that we have to try harder.
What other choice is there?
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