Olympics and Civilization

Clean water is necessary to sustain human life. One of the first things that any civilization must do is to make sure that its citizens have access to life’s basic necessities. In its effort to bring their brand of civilization to its ever-expanding empire, the ancient Romans constructed aqueducts, some of which still stand today. They understood the concept, and the world supposedly learned this lesson long ago. Therefore, I was initially appalled when I read a story about sportscaster Bob  

Costas getting an eye infection from washing his face in his Sochi hotel room while in town to cover the current Winter Olympics. I was ready to heap scorn upon the Russians, who have had years to prepare for this event, but were still working furiously after the deadline had come and gone. Perhaps their leader should put his shirt back on, gather a few civil engineers together, and solve this not-so-little dilemma. After all, these guys started the space race. Can’t they figure out how to provide clean water in a resort town?

After I had started writing about it, I paused for a little national introspection. Don’t get me wrong, despite how many times I get frustrated by my government or fellow citizens, I am still glad to live in a country where I can go to the sink and wash my face without getting pink eye. I’m thankful that the U.S. Congress once passed the Clean Water Act, back in the day when they actually did things like pass useful laws that benefit their constituents.  However, when I stopped to think about it, our track record isn’t exactly spotless these days. There was a recent chemical spill in a West Virginia river that sent nearby residents scrambling for bottled water because the stuff coming out of the faucet was poisoned. Contaminated water and coal fly ash are still leaking into a river in North Carolina. It’s never a good idea to hurl rocks from inside a glass house.

I would like to see some country, someday, open an Olympic Games when everything is in place and ready to go, but that’s probably never going to happen again. Perhaps it is just our need to over-complicate everything that makes this too difficult to accomplish in our modern age. The ancient Greeks just camped out during their Olympic Games way back when. But then again, they didn’t exactly invite the world to come over and play. It was hard enough getting Spartans to abide quietly alongside Athenians while ignoring the Corinthians. These days, we expect amenity-packed hotel rooms for our rest, and gourmet-quality restaurants to provide our sustenance. Anything less is unacceptable, and apparently subject to worldwide ridicule if the effort falls short.

Currently, the world seems to be holding its collective breath in anticipation of a terrorist strike from whatever ideologically inspired nutcase that sees the death of uninvolved innocents as an acceptable method of furthering their cause. Providing security at the Olympics is now a task of beyond Olympic-sized proportions. The games are now fraught with dangers from both within and without. Why do the athletes even bother taking the chance? Some actually compete because they would like to be considered the very best at what they do. There will be no significant recognition beyond the medal they receive in their fleeting moment of triumph. Others recognize that Olympic gold leads to that ever more desirable real gold, or at least money and fame. We root for our nation’s athletes in a nationalistic frenzy usually reserved for actual wars. But it’s easy to see that Olympic Games are a better alternative to real war, even if we’re able to provide air conditioned barracks and potable water to our battlefields and not our Olympic venues.

The Romans used their military might to conquer the Greeks, who had invented the concept of the Olympics. However, Roman civilization eventually peaked, then declined, then fell into the abyss known as the Dark Ages. Perhaps they lost focus of the important things like providing everyone with good drinking water, when the one-percenters of Roman leadership began to focus instead on orgies featuring luxuries like hummingbird tongue casseroles and entertainment featuring lions and Christians, where the cats held a distinct advantage and ensured a blood-soaked finale. There are lessons to be learned here, but we’re likely to miss them. We’ll be busy tweeting about the failure of Russian electronic signs and betting on the Jamaican Bobsled team.