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Excerpt from the book 
³Philosophy of Olympism´
by Ljubodrag Simonovi,Belgrade, Serbia. E-mail :comrade@sezampro.rs 
MODERN AND ANCIENT OLYMPISM
Coubertin treated Hellenic civilization much in the same way in which theEuropean colonial conquerors treated ancient civilizations. Reading his writingson the ancient world one gets the impression that he is a looter digging the ancientsites in search for something that he might find useful. Unlike those ''noble''representatives of "European civilization" who were after material wealth,Coubertin was after the ancient spiritual wealth - which can be fully appraisedonly within the civilization in which it appeared - and ruthlessly crippled andtailored it in order to make from it a means for destroying the emancipatoryheritage of modern society. The very use of the term "Olympic Games" is asacrilege of the ancient tradition. Coubertin used that term not because he wasinspired by the ancient spiritual heritage, but because it seemed to have a "solemncharacter", which means that he saw in it a peculiar decoration for internationalsports competitions he planned to organize and institutionalize. His politicalconception is the key to understanding his Olympic idea and his relation toantiquity. Coubertin does not try to "restore the ancient Olympic Games" in order to develop sport, but with a view to contributing to the "development of France'snational strength" and its colonial expansion. That is the original prism throughwhich Coubertin observes the "ancient heritage" and the criterion he uses to selectwhat is "acceptable" for the Modern Age. For Coubertin, Hellenic spirituality doesnot have a cultural, but a practical and political value; he does not regard it interms of the cultural development of modern society, but in terms of therealization of anticultural political and economic goals of the ruling bourgeois"elite". While utilitarism is the starting point, positivism is a speculative prismthrough which Coubertin observes ancient Greece.
''Restoring the ancient Olympic Games''
The thesis that the modern Olympic Games represent the "restoring of theancient Olympic Games" occupies the central position in modern Olympicmythology. It is on account of that thesis that Coubertin got the title of "TheRestorer" (³
 Le
Rénovat 
eur 
´)
. From the very beginning, Coubertin, according toCarl Diem, insisted that the modern Olympic Games conform to the time in whichthey appeared. He "did not want to build a museum ruin" that would be ''the copyof antiquity". Of course, it does not mean that Coubertin was not inspired by the
 
ancient Olympic Games and ancient society. He took over from antiquity, that"high culture of mankind", the following "Olympic ideas": ''celebration in thename of peace'', ''dedication to idealism'' and the idea of "human perfection". The program of the Games was intended to be "modern", which means to express thetime in which the Games were created, to serve it and follow its changes.
(1)
Sincefor Coubertin the past is unhistorical, he does not "restore" the ancient Olympicheritage, but takes from "the past", which is ready for use, what might be "useful"to insure free "progress", and dismisses everything that could get in the way of "progress". As for Rudolf Malter's interpretation of Coubertin's relation to ancientOlympism,
(2)
Urlike
 
Prokop rightly claims that Malter misunderstood Coubertin:his aim was not to "restore the classical Olympic Games", but to produce a certaineducational effect by adopting the "formal elements"
 
of the old Greek Olympism.
 (3)
It is a political instrumentalization of ancient Olympism, and not an attempt torenovate the Hellenic spiritual heritage. Coubertin idealizes antiquity and uses thisidealized picture to create an appropriate spiritual background, give modernOlympism a "cultural" aureole and deal with the emancipatory heritage of Helleniccivilization, which, as an inherent part of the emancipatory heritage of mankind,represents
c
onditio sin
e
q
u
a non
of the development of civil society. At the sametime, Coubertin tries, like Hypolitte Taine, to portray Hellenic society, in contrastto the "gloominess" of everyday life,
(4)
as an "ideal world" which should besought for and thus create a spiritual refuge that should prevent man, in hisstrivings for a better world, from turning to future. This idealized ancient worldtakes the role of the "otherworld", which, like Huizinga's Middle Ages, becomesan indisputable and unattainable model to the modern world.Coubertin constantly refers to the original ancient traditions and glorifiestheir "immortal spirit", which is actually the racist spirit of free Hellenes, and notthe "international" (colonial) spirit of monopolistic capitalism. The ancientOlympic Games were the form of the Hellenes' spiritual integration anddemonstrated their racial "superiority" to "barbarians". Only "pure-blooded"Hellenes were allowed to take part in the Games, provided that they had never  been convicted and had not offended the gods. Ancient Olympism did not pursueglobalism, nor was it a form of the spiritual enslavement of other peoples; it wasmeant to draw a borderline between the "civilized" world and "barbarians".Modern Olympism, by contrast, tends to be a universal and global spiritualmovement, and thus follows the Christian doctrine as a universal ideology, fromwhich it derives the "Olympic missionary work" of the Jesuitical type. It appearedas the crown of the ideology of (colonial) bourgeois "internationalism" and thus isthe means for achieving certain global political and economic goals. The firstOlympic Games, held in Athens in 1896, were already organized according to theRomanized Olympic Games, which were devoid of their original religious andracist spirit. In view of that, it is absurd to refer to an "original pureness" of ancient Olympism and, in the Modern Age, try to create a "Church" in which tothe "immortal spirit of antiquity" - "all peoples will bow".
(5)
 
 
According to the modern Olympic doctrine, the Hellenic world has nodynamics of development and is on the same time level, just as the whole past of mankind. Coubertin borrows from that world what he considers useful for hisOlympic idea, disregarding the concrete historical moment in which the given phenomenon appeared and without which its nature cannot be understood.Coubertin raises to the level of myth whatever he finds useful for his conceptionand transfers it to the Modern Age without any regard for the historical distancethat separates us from antiquity. Speaking of a "restoration of the ancient OlympicGames", he wants to show a direct spiritual link between the ancient Olympicspirit and the modern Olympic Games. The "suprahistorical" character of "ancientOlympism" should give modern Olympism a mythical character and thus insure itseternity. Keeping to the unhistorical approach to antiquity, Coubertin "overlooked"the fact that Hellenic society already experienced a degeneration of the original(religious) Olympic spirit, which had begun at the time of Solon with thecorruption of the Games,
(6)
only to end with the Macedonian invasion and in theRoman period. "The immortal spirit of antiquity" perished within ancient societyitself. The "true Olympic Games" moved into the sphere of myth, which becomesthe basis of a critique of the established "Olympic" reality. Homeric Hellas, turnedinto a legend, was the real source of the original Olympic spirit, which in Greeceitself was to be distorted and destroyed. When Greece became a Roman province,the Olympic Games lost their sanctity and, organized according to the principle
 pan
e
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e
t 
c
i
r 
c
e
n
c
e
 s
, became a banal demonstration of Roman "internationalism".Thus the Hellenic cultural heritage was abused for the spiritual integration(colonization) of the conquered peoples into the Roman Empire.Coubertin subordinated his relation to the ancient Olympic Games andHellenic civilization to the creation of a positive man and positive society. In thatcontext, one of Coubertin's key views is that the old Greeks "were little given tocontemplation, even less bookish",
(7)
which became the starting point for hisdealing with the Hellenic spirituality and philosophy. Trying to deprive man fromthe possibility of confronting the existing world, Coubertin eliminates fromHellenic culture - the spiritual cradle of Western civilization - all that can induceman to pose crucial questions on his human existence, the world and his relation toit. The pivots of the ancient religion (philosophy) were not only the Olympic andother playgrounds (Delphi, Eastham, Corinth), the
 g 
 ymnasion
and
 pala
e
 st 
r 
a
, but,above all, the temples, the shrines, the mysteries, the cults, the academies, thetheatres, the public forums, the sophists' teachings, the poets' word, the works of sculptors and architects, the Homeric poems and the accords of the harp... It isonly in the light of their spiritual and contemplative life that we can grasp thedepths of the ancient conception of life and the Olympic mystery. By reducing thelife of the Hellenes to a primitive physical agonal activism, Coubertin failed to seein the Olympic Games the highest religious ceremony that represented the crownof the spiritual life and the philosophy of living of the ancient world and thus theclimax of the ancient
a
 g 
on
. Milo uri writes about that: "For, all the forms of 
of 00

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04 / 28 / 2011<span class="translation_missing">en_US, this_document_made_it_onto_the</span>Rising List!
Nebojša

This is Duci’s new E-mail address: comrade@sezampro.yu The old address : simonovic@simonovic.info is no more valid!

reply12 / 23 / 2007
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