buyers remorse

I know we’re out of the Olympics proper to the special people’s Olympics, but I thought this article in Forbes embodied a lot of the unease found more generally in commentary on the late sportsfest:

This manufactured perfection was matched by legions of conscripted "volunteers," the Potemkin village-like disguise of unsightly buildings with faux veneers, uniformed spirit sections at venues with scripted cheering at random moments, a lip-synched little girl's soprano, pre-recorded spliced-in fireworks and the perpetual emptiness at the far-flung locations designated for protesters.

Such flawlessness, though, is exactly what betrays the real divide between East and West. In stark contrast to the public yet artificial perfection of Beijing's Olympics stand the substantial civic and systemic challenges of past events in Atlanta and Athens. In Atlanta, late buses for athletes, failing scoreboards, suffocating street vendors and, of course, a terrorist bombing during a late-night concert sparked public controversy; tardy construction of key venues, traffic control and financial distress plagued Athens.

But these prior Olympics proffered raw authenticity, pluralistic interests, democratic voices and transparent decision-making. Athens would almost seem disloyal to its label as the cradle of democracy were there no disagreements. Similarly, the entrepreneurial polyglot culture of Atlanta was a carpet of humanity; the 21-acre Centennial Olympic Park was filled with children rollicking in splash pools, families watching performances by musicians from around the world and perusing exotic exhibits. Los Angeles, Barcelona, Spain, and Sydney, Australia, also remembered to create gathering places that showcased the spontaneous expression of individual joy.

I think the phrase is “wearing the medals of your defeats”. The Atlanta Olympics organizers didn’t throw in a few pipe bombs to demonstrate what scrappy individualists they were. “Tardy construction, traffic control and financial distress” weren’t features of the Athens Olympics, they were bugs. And "manufactured perfection" wasn’t a feature of the Olympics with Chinese characteristics: it is what all Olympic organizing teams aim for, including London’s. They want what the Chinese were able to deliver.

And since when has perfection ever been spontaneous, especially when it comes to the Olympics, one of the most manufactured events on the planet, and one which offers a kind of global paradigm: an inextricable mélange of sport, business and politics staging a four-yearly spectacle of worldwide viewership, consumption, brand-building, profit taking and prestige. It’s the kind of thing everybody gets behind. At least until a dictatorship pulls out all the stops and takes the process to its logical end: a great and gaudy show involving the best athletes in the world before an audience stuffed with plutocrats and heads of state: by winners, for winners, about winners. That’s when buyers remorse starts creeping in.

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[Fellow Traveller]

The French critic, Roland Barthes, dubbed this act of justifying the greatness of an institution by virtue of its flaws 'Operation Margarine' in an eponymous essay written during the mid 50s. He wrote:

"To instill in the Established Order the complacent portrayal of its drawbacks has nowadays become a paradoxical but incontrovertible means of exalting it. Here is the pattern of this new style demonstration: take the established value which you want to restore or develop, and first lavishly display its pettiness, the injustices which it produces, the vexations to which it gives rise, and plunge it into its natural imperfection; then, at the last moment, save it in spite of, or rather by the heavy curse of its blemishes.

...

Take the Army; show without disguise its chiefs as martinets, its discipline as narrow-minded and unfair, and into this stupid tyranny immerse an average human being, fallible but likable, the archetype of the spectator. And then, at the last moment, turn over the magical hat, and pull ou of it the image of an army, flags flying, triumphant, bewitching, to which, like Sganarelle's wife, one cannot but be faithful although beaten (From Here to Eternity).

...Finally the Church: speak with burning zeal about its self-righteousness, the narrow-mindedness of its bigots, indicate that all this can be murderous, hide none of the weaknesses of the faith. And then, in extremis, hint that the letter of the law, however unattractive, is a way to salvation for its very victims, and so justify moral austerity by the saintliness of those whom it crushes (The Living Room, by Graham Greene).

It is a kind of homeopathy: one cures doubts about the Church or the Army by the very ills of the Church and the Army. One inoculates the public with a contingent evil to prevent or cure an essential one."

Mythologies 1957