International Olympic Committee executive director Gilbert Felli also defended the use of a more photogenic double, comparing it to an athlete taking part in Olympic qualification and then being dropped for the main event.”
Or, having the superior bid as an Olympic hosting city, but being dropped in favour of better offers.
Asked how Yang’s parents would explain the decision to her, Felli added: “That is what it is in sport, in life.”
We now return you to coverage of synchronized diving and beach volleyball….
h/t maz2
Cripes, that’s nothing. Do you think Aretha Franklin could have made it in today’s music industry? They take the best looking kids they can find, teach ’em to sing as best they can, and if they are tone deaf, they use pitch correction.
Looks are everything in American Entertainment, with the exception of “clowns” like Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell, who are allowed to actually look like somebody you might meet on the street.
Before this moves into a pure emotional Bash China day, I think it’s important to differentiate between a society focused around a group identity and one focused around the individual identity. It’s not a trivial difference.
China is a very old civilization and for almost its entirety, your identity, as an individual, was only as a member of a group. Therefore, if one person sang and one person presented, there was no practial existential difference. You were both an integral, organic part of ONE entity; the group. You can see this acknowledgement in the words of the little girl who sang but didn’t appear visually.
Individualism is an existential mode that is only about 500 years old, and is specific to the West, for demographic and economic reasons that I won’t go into here. Its focus is on the existential, finite reality of one unit: the individual.
Remember, the group existential reality incorporates all those individual units into its organic nature. Each ‘unit’ in the organic group can’t stand on its own; each is part of the whole.
So, the Chinese girl singing and the Chinese girl visually performing are, to the Chinese perspective, an integral part of that whole and single organic reality – the group. They’d be baffled by the West’s reaction of shock that the units aren’t differentiated.
China, particularly over the last two decades, is moving out of the group organic reality; its individuals are becoming ‘existential’ each on their own. They are doing the unthinkable in a group; they are competing with each other and with other ‘units’ in other groups. You can see the results in the Olympics.
But I doubt if China will, or should, forget its over 5,000 years of existential history – that notion of the group as an organic whole. I’d guess they will move to some kind of balance between the two..
A storm in a teacup, albeit characteristic of this ruthless regime.
There are more important things to worry about, such as Georgia or the Falun Gong persecution.
looks are everything!
someone better tell Keith Richards.
I’m less bothered by the lip syncing than I am with China blatantly flouting the age rules for women’s gymnastics. The kids are supposed to be a minimum 16 years of age but the Chinese girls look like they’re 12 and 13.
And Tim is right: looks, not talent, are paramount in today’s entertainment biz, which is why we’re inundated with so much soulless pap.
Togo is now ahead of Canada in the medal standings. But we are a winter sports nation and can’t be expected to win a bronze in white water kayaking as did the African nation. Nope, no opportunities in Canada for white water kayaking.
While I completely agree with your comments to maz2 in the reader’s tips thread ET, wrt to the post above? Two words come to mind. The first one begins with B the second with S.
Keith Richards made it a long time ago, before music videos. While I can’t seem to judge these things, more than one female aquaintance, one of them black too, tells me that Mick Jagger is “very hot”, in a manly way.
ET, what a load of collectivist claptrap. Human beings are individuals. There is no such thing as a collective identity. That is the lie that 90 years of socialist communist doctrine would have you believe.
Individuals have always existed, societies are made of collections of individuals that cooperate in their own rational self-interest.
It is not an “organic reality” people are not plants nor are the Chinese people some sort of technologically deficient form of Star Trek’s Borg collective.
I can’t even believe that someone could defend this blatant communist propaganda.
What did Goebbels say about the truth? It’s what we tell them?
Here’s a line up so far…
Games sold out – well not really. The officials just gave away enough tickets that there’s a shortage available to the paying public leaving empty seats in the venues. (the committee is probably recruiting bodies to fill the empty seats as we speak)
Blue Sky Days – The sky is whatever colour we tell you it is!
“Yes she is a very good singer” (or sorry lip syncher)!
These will be the best games ever!
Ticket fraud, $50 million of fake tickets sold. Can we say WTH didn’t they have tighter controls on ticket sales (or did they even want tighter controls?)
“We will improve our human rights record” Pffft, yeah sure.
“You will have unfettered access to the internet” see above!
“We will show the world how powerful we are now and they will have to respect us” (didn’t someone say something similiar in 1936?)
All I’ve seen so far is a corrupt, power hungry government passing a polluted grunge hole as a tourist destination.
Atlanticjim – I think you’ll have to clarify your objections to my post about the difference between a society that defines its individual members as inseparable ‘parts of a group’ versus one that sees those individuals as separate entities.
I mean that post – and if you’ve studied social structure over the years, you’ll know that in some societies, the individual is not ‘exisentially isolate’ or real; they only exist as part of the whole.
Indeed, in these societies, competition and individualism are denigrated and considered completely unacceptable. Parents will have all kinds of tactics to reduce individualism as the children mature.
So, the perspective that one member of the group is visible, and another member of the group is heard – is entirely acceptable to a society which views the individual not as an existential isolate reality but only as an organic bit part of a larger organic reality.
I suggest that you do a bit of reading in anthropology.
ET, kind of like that “tribe” thing eh.
China has been involved with the Olympics for a long time now, they know full well what is considered right, fair, honest, and ethical but still do what they want to.(Sort of like the MSM.) The joys of being a billion plus country. Kind of like getting them to play Kyoto… ain’t goin to happen.
I gotta agree with you ET well stated.
If the Rolling Stones were young rockers trying to get a name for themselves today they wouldnt get a chance.
This is no slight on their talent as their looks would be the deciding factor.
ET and right of center, you’re both relying on the OLD model of the entertainment industry works. There’s the “indy band” factor now thanks to the ‘net. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
ET wrote, “Individualism is an existential mode that is only about 500 years old, and is specific to the West, for demographic and economic reasons that I won’t go into here. Its focus is on the existential, finite reality of one unit: the individual.”
ET, I know you’re an atheist: fair enough. But don’t you think the Judeo-Christian dispensation had SOMETHING to do with this? After all, “the West” 500 years ago was Christendom. With due respect, you appear to have a real blind spot where Christianity’s concerned. How about giving credit where credit is due?
Also, I agree with Texas Canuck: the Chinese know what’s expected but just don’t care about following the rules: just like the power hungry Liberals, who broke all the rules and thumbed their noses at anyone they wanted to when in power—and still do—all the time. I’m confused about how this is not OK when the Liberals do it, but quite OK when the Chinese do. I’m appalled by this kind of cheating on China’s part. It’s holding up a mirror to what Canada’s becoming: all style and no substance. (Too many governmental, educational, judicial, etc, policies and our HRCs are based on this Neverland fantasy: favoured groups get makeovers that bear no relation to the reality of their beliefs and actions, while the reality and rights of their opponents are stuffed under an “invisibility cloak”.)
China’s transgressions are despicable, and especially scary, now that our once free country is on the fast track to emulating their dirty tricks. I don’t think China should be excused: in fact, I think its skulduggery should be an object lesson for all of us in Canada: “Turn back!”
ET said: “Before this moves into a pure emotional Bash China day, I think it’s important to differentiate between a society focused around a group identity and one focused around the individual identity. It’s not a trivial difference.”
YES! This is exactly true of Chinese culture. Now the next question which arises, is this a Good Thing (TM) or is it something we should work really hard at changing? As if our lives depended on it kinda hard.
Multiculturalism holds that all these things are “relative” and all cultures are equally “valid”, but this lip synching business is a scandal precisely because it is the antithesis of the Olympian spirit.
Does anybody care about the American swimmer’s looks? Nope, because he’s got a fist full of medals. He could look like a warthog and still be the toast of the games. This little girl sings like a lark, the sportsmanlike thing to do is put her on TV. Nobody gives a crap about her less-than-movie-star appearance, because she’s got the pipes.
Did they do that? NO they bloody well did not, which means they -do-not-understand- the point of even having the games in the first place, and don’t give a rip about it anyway.
The fact that the International Olympic Committee executive director is willing to shill for the Polit Bureau indicates that he doesn’t care a damn about sportsmanship either. That’s been my point about this whole Olympic movement from the start, and this Beijing Games in particular.
Its Munich 1936 redux, and we all know how that turned out. Tigers do not change their stripes.
Toooo funny Kate!
No, phantom – multiculturalism is NOT the same as basing a society around ‘the group as an organic whole’. Indeed, multiculturalism rejects the organic whole. Instead, it splits the population up into ‘blocs’, defined by identifiable characteristics – such as religion, ethnic origin, language. These separate ‘blocs’ are groups in themselves but they certainly aren’t part of the whole.
Then, you ask if ‘it’s a good or bad thing’. That can’t be answered. In ancient times, when there was no need for rapid change but there was instead a need for societal support of all (sharing, collaboration) then the idea of the organic group was ‘good’.
In the West, the population explosion which eclipsed their economic capacity to sustain that population, required change – and that requires individual dissent and divergence into new technologies. So, the constraining pressure of the group against ‘free though’ and debate and dissent..had to be rejected.
You simply don’t understand the group perspective, which doesn’t see the individual as existential by themselves but only as existing within the group. And again – this has absolutely nothing to do with communism.
Heck, I used to give my students an outline of a fun story about this very difference between the focus on the group and the focus on the individual -which took place among the San people (hunters and gatherers) in the Kalahari. These people focus on the group and constrain, restrain and mock and denigrate any individualism. It’s important to do this is a group-based structure.
zip – I suggest that you read a few books on anthropology; then, you’d understand that the notion of the collectivist or group identity is basic and has been basic, to human societal structure for thousands of years. It isn’t ‘communist’; it’s the ancient mode of societal organization. The idea of the ‘individual’ as a unique and self-referential existence is recent – the humanist idea emerging from the 15th, 16th c in the West – due to population and economic requirements.
the bear – I haven’t the slightest idea of the model about the entertainment industry. I’m working from a knowledge of anthropological societal organization. The rejection of individualism and the concept of the group as an organic whole is a basic societal mode; it was extremely functional because individual competition would have reduced these societies to internal strife and ruin.
lookout – the emergence of the supremacy of the individual within societal organization in the West had nothing to do with any religion. Religion, after all, is a superstructural expression of a deeper reality- the reality of material existence. The emergence of the individual was due to population pressures on the economy.
And, both you and Texas Canuck misunderstand the situation. There are no rules in the Olympics that state that the organizing society’s opening ceremonies must be carried out by individuals and not by the whole society. For someone in a society where the individual is an integral part of a group – whether you sing or are viewed – is totally irrelevant. What matters is the whole result of the group effect. Therefore, to these little girls, being part of the whole, is the issue. Not our western individualism.
Munich? Nonsense.
ET, I’m no theologian, but neither are you. The worth of the individual is central to the tenets of both Judaism and Christianity. Your contention that the importance of the individual in Christendom—one of its defining features, I believe—has nothing to do with Christianity is very hard to swallow. I don’t!
You also say, “There are no rules in the Olympics that state that the organizing society’s opening ceremonies must be carried out by individuals and not by the whole society.” Who ever suggested any such thing?
However, there is such a thing as natural law: you know, that there is a right and a wrong. Although I think rejecting a fine little singer because of her looks is unkind, that’s not the worst of it. The fact that the Chinese tried to hoodwink the watching world (as usual) by not telling about this charade is the greater transgression. How can one trust the Chinese or the crooked Olympic organizers when they readily collude in style over substance? (Apparently, such behaviour is frowned on in the actual competitions. One rule for competitors, another for the organizers? You see nothing wrong with that?)
I know it’s hard to change your mind, ET, but I think you’re the one missing the point here. Again, why is it not OK for the Liberals to dissemble and cheat (we altogether agree on that), but it’s OK for China and the Olympic organizers to? (E.g., Would you buy a used car from a Liberal or a Chinese or Olympic Committee official?)
Don’t lose sight of the real issue here – that China is not what it appears to be, and it will do anything and go to any lengths to maintain the illusion it is presenting to the world.
The issue is not that someone lip-synced. (A common enough occurance.) The issue is that the government and its state controlled press LIED about someone lip syncing. They lied to maintain their carefully crafted illusion. Now apparently, this issue is blacked out in the Chinese media.
Yes it is, a “tempest in a teapot”. But if it is so trivial, why bother lying about it? That they felt they should deceive on such a trivial matter, says a lot about how a totalitarian government sees its relationship with its people. The people are essentially the state’s property, its servants, to help it maintain the illusions so important to its power structure.
So, now we find out that the singing star can’t sing.
And that the fireworks telecast was graphically enhanced.
And that the gymnasts’ birth certificates have been changed to make them older.
And that many of the sports fans filling the venues are really “volunteers” there to make the arena look full for television.
And that the “mist” is really lung-scorching pollution.
Are we supposed to be surprised?
Throughout this Olympics, the list of illusion and fakery on the part of the Chinese government will grow.
But the biggest illusion of all is the Beijing Games themselves. This spectacle is a lying deceit, artfully crafted to create the illusion of peace, progress and freedom. How cunning the communists, and how cynical and corrupt the I.O.C. that a symbol long treasured by the civilized world is the very banner used to blindfold the world against the ugly truth. They’ve done a good job too – on T.V. it almost looks like the “Real Olympics”.
But we are only fools if we believe it.
Right on Phantom.
The Chinese and the International Olympic Committee have a long way to go to “get” love and compassion for their fellow man.
They pretend they do, like having Yao Ming hold a nine year old like a baby for the cameras during the opening ceremonies; it was window dressing.
Remember what that little hero that Yao was holding replied, when asked why he went back into the crumbling school to save his classmates.
He didn’t say “They were my friends” or “They needed help”, he said “I am the Class monitor and it was my job”.
Yau was truly crying and it was heartening, but how contrived was it given the 100,s or thousands beaten by the state and thrown out into the street because they wouldn’t turn over their property so that the state could demolish it and build their Olympic roads and official rose gardens.
Look at Eddie the Eagle and The Jamaican Bobsled Team.
These were the stories that attracted people; not 300 drummers beating out Borg-like war tunes in perfect syncronization.
China’s communist government and to a lesser degree the International Olympic Committee are directly opposed to everything the Olympics should stand for; fraternity, individual excellence, and sportsmanship.
Let the Greeks have the Olympics back, and take it away from the corrupt little clique of elitist graft gobblers (International Olympic Committee) that own it now.
What drives innovation in a collectivist society? An innovator is one who steps outside the norm. All the societal forces act to herd the individuals into pen of acceptability and normality.
What is China’s lastest innovation? Are we going to hear about sphagetti and paper and gunpowder forever? It’s getting a little stale, and does not convince me of the superiority of the current collectivist state.
Innovation is what is required to bring alternative energy sources into widespread adoption and economic feasibility. I’m surprised that the left has not seen the (wind-powered) light and recognized that collectivist societies have not demonstrated industrial or technical innovation. Rather, their innovation has been in thought-control, behavioral control, media control, punishment and re-education, and forced labor. Innovation will leap from the hearts and minds of the altrusitic People’s Scientists, in good time. Sure.
I await the report from the “People’s Committee On the Great Leap Forward To Replace Oil As An Energy Source”, with important input from organized labor. Yes, it can be a report printed on paper – that wonderful centuries-old innovation that provides proof positive that current Chinese Communism is The Superior societal organization of all time.
In communism, truth isn’t what happens, it what the bosses says happened.
The cute girl, the one who looks like the ideal propaganda image, sang the song.
Live with it.
Can’t say that I expected anything different from the Chinese State.
It’s a nation of sheep ruled by bureaucrats and the rulers are used to getting what they want.
The real failing in this 2008 Olympics is the IOC .. the venal Eurotrash that agreed to be bought off by the Chinese who wish to create a new public image for themselves.
China in NO WAY represents ANY of the supposed ideals of Olympic competition … but who should be surprised that the supposed guardians of that tradition sold out?
The IOC lost their credibility long before this.
China tries to “win” any way it can.
Mean while, Canada tries to .. loose ?
” We cannot do well at the Summer Games because we are a northern country.”
“Our government doesn’t care enough.”
“We don’t want to win “too much” and celebrate “too much” and venerate “too Much” and hero worship “too much”. That would risk turning us into a nation of gloating Americans.” Charles Adler
http://cjobam.corusradionetwork.com/emmis/BlogAdler.cfm?bid=25292
How long before we learn that the chinese divers were really just cardboard cutouts. As for cheating on the girls ages, think back to the russian female gymnaists of years ago, who were given drugs to keep them from developing. As someone posted a few days ago, soon the athelets will be carrying flags of their labs instead of their country. At least we can be sure that our team is clean, as they have not won any medals. And why can’t all those that bought phoney tickets, and are there, get in to fill the seats.
Hope BC is watching this closely.
“There’s the “indy band” factor now thanks to the ‘net. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”-Bear
Yah I have heard of it, does it mean success?….no!
Perhaps you know that many bands that rely on the net for exposure generally fail.
ET:
I have a huge amount of repect for your opinions, but I have to disagree on the defense for the chicom’s action on this one.
This has zero to do with the Individual versus the whole and everything to do with a totalitarian regime’s attempt to score a propaganda point. Just as in ’36 and ’80 these attepmts in their aggregate revealed the evil underpinnings of the leadership to all those who were watching. Let’s hope that like ’80 this will play an important role in weakening and ultimately destroying the regime.
R or C, just as many bands fail using your brick & mortar approach & don’t make any money either. The rise of the indy approach is a sign of a broken business model. You’re holding on to the past.
ET said: “You simply don’t understand the group perspective, which doesn’t see the individual as existential by themselves but only as existing within the group. And again – this has absolutely nothing to do with communism.”
ET ma’am, I don’t mean to be annoying (to you, at any rate :), and on the off chance that you are Chinese or related to someone who is, I’m not taking shots at Chinese culture just for the hell of it. As I’ve said previously, there’s lots of Chinese cultural traits which are admirable, and I spent a loooong time living with Chinese people and learning Chinese martial arts.
So, I feel safe in saying I do understand the group perspective as it is used in China. I lived under it for several years, so I know it from the inside as a White boy trying to fit in to it.
I know it so well that I can say with some confidence it is entirely incompatible with Western civilization. (Not civilization generally, just Western civilization.) Also on a personal level I don’t -like- it, and I fight against it whenever I have it inflicted upon me by whatever group/org/company/government thinks they can get away with it.
My objection is I don’t like doing the work and having somebody else get the good of it.
In this case of our Milli Vanilli lip sync scandal, we have two little girls being used and abused supposedly for the “good of the nation”. Really its for the good of whatever Politbureau pr1ck made the decision. One little girl is told she is good enough to sing but too ugly for TV, the other is pretty enough for TV but not good enough to sing. Nice, eh? Real Olympic Spirit.
Now the other thing you said was this: “There are no rules in the Olympics that state that the organizing society’s opening ceremonies must be carried out by individuals and not by the whole society.”
That’s true. It is supposed to be understood that the Olympics is about Sportsmanship and Fair Play, two quintessentially Western concepts which are completely -lacking- in this Beijing circus. They could use some education in these two concepts, and so could the IOC.
Fair play would dictate you let the ugly girl be on TV, or let the pretty girl sing, because lip-syncing is -lying-. aka cheating.
Cheating is another Western concept these collectivist types have a problem understanding.
So hopefully you get what I’m driving at here. If we want to live in a nice, peaceful, productive world where people get along and stuff, behavior like that of the Chinese government or Mr. Putin’s current outrage has to be seen, by the -people- in those countries and not just their leaders, as wrong, evil and not to be accommodated in the slightest way. Its a philosophical poison which kills people by the millions, and must be eradicated.
Communism is merely one flavor of it, fascism another.
Lookout – I didn’t say that the importance of the individual in Christendom has nothing to do with Christianity. I said that the importance of the individual in the West has nothing to do with Christianity.
The rise of the individual as a political, economic and societal power began in the 12th, 13th c…and many people who rejected the authority of the church, and claimed that they had, as individuals, the capacity to think, were branded as heretics by the church.
The rise of the individual came because the West was being destroyed by the results of overpopulation and desperately needed new technology in order to produce more food and deal with disease, etc.
No, lookout, you view the Chinese behaviour as ‘hoodwinking’ and your ‘natural law’ of right and wrong is different from a group-based societal right and wrong. The Chinese group, who all work together rather than as individuals, don’t see this action as hoodwinking. That would only be valid within YOUR perspective, which is focused on the individual and not the group.
As for your comparison with the Liberals – that’s an invalid comparison. The Liberal Party is operating in an individualist societal system, and when their individuals lie and cheat – that’s wrong. You simply don’t get it; the Chinese presentation of the song was not a lie; it was a group-based presentation. You simply don’t understand how a collectivist societal system operates. No-one takes individual ‘recognition’ in such a system. All share and collaborate.
Exactly, shaken. In a group-based or collectivist society, the agenda is stability. No change. That’s been the norm for most of the hundred thousand years of human societal organization on this planet.
Only individuals think. Groups don’t think. So, when a society requires adaptive technology, it has to enable individualism, which means – dissent, debate, disagreement.
China has been collectivist since the times of Chuang tze, Mo tze, Kung Fu tze..but they are rapidly changing. Now, they have moved into capitalism, which is an individual-based economic mode – and are more and more, focused around the individual. I doubt that they will abandon their old infrastructure that soon – if ever. It’s over 5,000 years old.
As for science, Chinese researchers have moved into top areas in physics, chemistry and biology. That’s in the last two decades. And it’s going to increase as their competitive focus expands.
And no, OMMAG, the Chinese aren’t a nation of sheep led by bureaucrats. I’d define Canada in that manner, however.
And yes, the Chinese do want to create a new image of themselves -as participants in the modern world. What they need from the West is an acknowledgement that they can be such – and this will help them modernize and democratize. The fact that you continue to sneer at them and view them as unacceptable – that’s your problem.
In a country whose people are not so easily offended and that is not burdened with political correctness …. a person who sings like a bird, but looks like a toad, can be represented by someone who looks like a bird but sings like a toad and it’s okay.
No hurt feelings, no CHRC complaint. Just let’s get on with the show.
The number of billions spent in the west each year on all sorts of things to merely make us look better means that appearances are important.
Let’s not be so critical. China is just putting on it’s best “face”.
Just because the CBC hires ugly toads doesn’t mean everyone must. CTV is no beauty contest either. However, FOX NEWS .. whew! Now they know where to find very smart and very hot babes. And why not? I prefer looking at Laurie Dhue than Lisa La Phlegm. How about you?
ET
I agree with much of what you posted here (I have not read the whole thread), but have to point out to you that you fail to comprehent that you are “talking” above many of the posters here on the social vs. individual construct within sociaties:-))))))
that little girl had vampire teeth…so ugly…and their choice was to opt with the holly wood version of what to do…they could have given her fake teeth…but in their eyes the she didn’t fit the image…SO WHAT… they dubbed her voice which was magnificant…beautiful face…fit the voice…
If they decided not to tell..who cares…this was done many times in the film industry and in the entertainment industry…over and over…in large concerts…THEY DON’T TELL EITHER.
Yes, talk about all the corruption of the games…as if atheletes from other countries don’t cheat…never have…never will…Gosh I wonder why all the drug testing…
Pray that the Chinese do become a super power, now #3 in the world…because they will help in the defence of islamification which is on the move and will mushroom in the future…
The Chinese are progressing and doing a great job of it…Mao was long ago…and they are in flux…still communist but with many freedoms and more and more emerging…
You can safely criticize them in Canada…and even somewhat when living there as I learned…
Try directing all the things you said about Chinese to the islamists, in other words speak out about those lunatics..and even in Canada you could find yourself beaten up by the islamist thugs.,..
Thank the stars the Chinese have no patience for islamists or theocratic bull…and that they are doing their best to enter the 21st century.
John V, nothing wrong with that perspective, but it proceeds from the assumption that the Olympics is a -show-. A spectacle in other words, with no meaning or purpose other than to be spectacular.
Which is indeed what these games are. That’s the problem.
Phantom:
I think ET’s points hold. You stated that it irks you when someone else gets credit for the work that you do, but ET has already stated that if your mindset is one of a group mentality, you’ll have no problem letting someone else get the credit.
Lookout:
“ET, I’m no theologian, but neither are you.”
So you’re not any more qualified than him to say anything hmm? I can see your point about the individual, but you’re looking at the modern church IMO. If you’re looking at the church 500 years ago, there was absolutely no emphasis on the individual whatsoever. People didn’t have bibles, and the only bibles that were around were in Latin. It was in fact illegal to translate the bible out of Latin.
Now, in a world where I’m sure very few people were literate, how many can we expect to also be literate in Latin as well? The idea of a “personal relationship” with God is a very new concept, starting with the reformation. Prior to that, the church was very closed and insular, and did not allow much free thought or individual expression whatsoever unless you elected to join the church and rise to join the “elite” amongst them.
As to natural law, I have my doubts. It seems far more plausible that “right” and “wrong” are merely evolutionary traits that developed as part of a need for social cohesion once the concept of communities became central to the human race.
As to your argument about the Liberals, that’s just silly. Do you think Stephane Dion creates all his own policy? Hardly. He’s the face of the party, just like that little girl who lip synced at the opening games was the face of the Olympics. The really talented people who weren’t just a talking mouth piece, or a savvy politician are the ones creating policy for him to espouse. I would almost go so far as to claim that politician’s are perfectly represented by that little girl who lip synced. They are presenters, just as this girl was, and they present either the views of their constituents, or they present the views of the economic or military advisers, hopefully with the interest to better the Canadian people.
Wikipedia: Potemkin villages were purportedly fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress’s eyes.
The Potemkin Village deception is a tactic of Communist regimes. It’s virtually a Communist founding principal.
*
“et sombrely intones… if one person sang
and one person presented, there was
no practial existential difference.”
uh, dave’s not here, man.
*
So this action is like Olympic sports?
Only when the best-looking finalist is given the winner’s medal and record and pushed up onto the podium.
What nonsense… But then maybe that is how sports is done in China
ET: “I didn’t say that the importance of the individual in Christendom has nothing to do with Christianity.” And I didn’t imply that you did either.
You also say: “As for your comparison with the Liberals – that’s an invalid comparison. The Liberal Party is operating in an individualist societal system, and when their individuals lie and cheat – that’s wrong.” (I can’t believe you said that!) The corollary is that what the Chinese are doing, because it fits their way of doing things, is not wrong.
What you posit here is crass relativism and some really bad theology, as in this kids’ hymn, sung in the fifties: “You in your small corner and I in mine.” How is that conducive to human rights and world harmony?
“We’ll let you off lying and cheating because that’s your way.” It’s like the radical feminists, who overlook Bill Clinton’s infidelities and exploitation of young women, as well as the atrocities against women in Muslim countries—or even under their own noses. This is hypocrisy and appeasement of the highest order.
By this fallacious reasoning, we’d have had to sit back and let the Nazis continue their atrocities: as fascists, they most certainly did not share the values of Magna Carta. Parents and teachers of the Whatever Generation would have to excuse their kids’ transgressions because they don’t share the same moral code. etc., etc. How would the world ever be able to change for the better if the best and better are only allowed to judge the worst people, organizations, and countries by their own—totally flawed—standards? BTW, that’s how multiculturalism, which you abhor, works. It isolates groups and allows them to do their own, at times, barbaric and cruel things—with government funds and protection.
No thanks.
Does China think we are so stupid that they can toss out two or four insignficant things to talk about and that we will forget about Tibet, the Chinese role in the ongoing genocide in Darfur and involuntary organ harvesting?
But will they respect us in the morning?
ET … BAH to you… I sneer at the Chinese Bureaucrats … the people can’t help that they are sheep because outside of the relative few who have world experience they have NO other frame of reference.
It’s Not a Problem of mine as you state … it is however my response to the incessant BS that Sino apologists offer claiming that this dysfunctional sham is somehow more than just that.
Also you seem to be implying that I am responsible in some way for the sorry state of this country Canada. I’ll admit that many of my boomer peers are … I however have been questioning this degradation and arguing against acceptance and trying to support people who actually care about being better than a captive public to a socialist state agenda.
So to you pedantic ET … BAH!
There are millions of people who do not support a seperate Tibet…It is a backward theocratic society…that degrades women…
but then the whole canadian society along with the rest of the western world has been foiled by the dali lama who has been wandering around for almost 50 years…pissed off at Mao…hey and so he should be…(Very Smart man with so many books and phd’s)..He got kicked out of his country..which at the time was part of China…and a backward dirty tribal theocratic state where women and other low life men were slaves…
Does anyone ever really think about anything?
Not likely…
China is involved in trade…arms to the perpitrators of genocide…Gosh…let;s see how often have the U.S. done this…or European countries…the records are there for anyone who wants to look…
Not that I support giving weapons to lunatics…but all I’m saying is let’s not make the Chinese out to be satanic…they are guilty of the same thing that many countries have done. duh
There are millions of people who do not support a seperate Tibet…It is a backward theocratic society…that degrades women…
but then the whole canadian society along with the rest of the western world has been foiled by the dali lama who has been wandering around for almost 50 years…pissed off at Mao…hey and so he should be…(Very Smart man with so many books and phd’s)..He got kicked out of his country..which at the time was part of China…and a backward dirty tribal theocratic state where women and other low life men were slaves…
Does anyone ever really think about anything?
Not likely…
China is involved in trade…arms to the perpitrators of genocide…Gosh…let;s see how often have the U.S. done this…or European countries…the records are there for anyone who wants to look…
Not that I support giving weapons to lunatics…but all I’m saying is let’s not make the Chinese out to be satanic…they are guilty of the same thing that many countries have done. duh
Tempest in a teacup. This sort of thing isn’t uncommon in the Orient – just look at the Japanese teen-pop stars, where the person who sings and the person who apppears in the videos and on stage may be two different people. The opening ceremonies are about spectacle, and so long as that was provided, who cares? This isn’t “Chinese Idol” here, where individual performance would indeed be paramount.
barejebus, I’m not saying ET is wrong. I understand what she said, and I understand the traditional Chinese collective mode of thought. I’m saying that collectivism is antithetical to my way of life. Group mentality, when imposed from above, creates misery. Since I don’t like being miserable I’ve learned to fight it.
Many people mistake the concept of “team” for a collective mentality. A team is a group of individuals working together because they want to. A collective is a group of people stuck together whether they like it or not by societal forces they can’t break.
The Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of the former. This Olympics is sadly an example of the latter.
Hence my objections.
The only issue for me is “faking” versus “reality”. We are quite tolerant of the manipulations of the entertainment industry. It doesn’t matter if the spaceship really exploded or if some clever person was able to generate the effects with computer graphics. We’re willing to go along with the illusion because it’s entertaining. However, some things should matter. It should make a difference whether the voice and the little girl are being presented as the same person when they’re not. The fact that this seems “okay” to so many people bothers me. Are we going to start sending “attractive” standins now, to collect the medals? (He’s a damn fine athlete but just too ugly to stand on the podium.) I think it won’t be long that we’ll be looking at genetically enhanced athletes created in a lab somewhere. At least then, we won’t need to worry about drug-testing anymore.
ET is right about collectivism. That’s the way it’s been in China for thousands of years and this attitude is not likely to change any time soon. I, however, am appalled by the continued use of cultural relativism to excuse systems (such as collectivism) that produce inferior results. Western civilization is the richest and freest in history precisely because it upholds individual rights which produce superior results. The Chinese are beginning to understand this as millions of people are being pulled out of extreme poverty. We must support them in this endevour and reject ancient cultural practices that will hurt their society in the long run.
ET:
Individualism is not 500 years old. The Greeks, who viewed life as a zero-sum game, were ferociously competitive. Indeed, our obvious instinct for self-preservation testifies to an overwhelming biological bias in favor of individualism. Communitarian values are at best a veneer. That little girl and her parents may express all the correct sentiments, but I’d be astonished to find that they actually felt them.
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The Phantom has it right.
If anyone needs to know what horrors collectivism leads to … read anything by Ayn Rand.
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Don’t have the time to study the comments but here’s a link to a recent piece supporting ET’s thesis:
Op-Ed Columnist: Harmony and the Dream By DAVID BROOKS
China’s rise is an example of how the ideal of a harmonious collective may turn out to be as attractive as the ideal of the American Dream.
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Brooks has been on a bit of a collectivist roll lately having recently penned a piece detailing five social issues which will require a massive ramp up of government power.