Post by Joe K on Sept 10, 2012 10:02:14 GMT
One of my favourite quotes (aphorisms?), even above Evelyn Beatrice Hall's one about Voltaire, is that of Francois Guizot: "Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head".
In Guizot's time, with the monarchy being overthrown, 'republican' meant radical, so if one replaces the word with 'liberal' or 'idealist', it's easier to understand. I've become sadly all too conscious of my fine altruistic sentiments, even from a few years back, taking a battering as those public figures I used to agree with sound ever more grating to my ears. Environmentalists, for example. I still believe in the precautionary principle when it comes to global warming, but I also know that some people in the AGW 'lobby' are just as unscrupulous as the 'deniers' say they are. They don't 'want heart', and their hearts are telling them that the end justifies the means, and if the end is saving the planet...
So I get that I've become a little more cynical in my advancing years, but what Quizot didn't say was that I would also become more of a dick. That was predictable, too, I guess. It's the 'grumpy old men' thing, and probably the other, tarnished side of cynicism. 'The worst are full of passionate intensity'. Worst because they're passionate about the wrong things. Was I really somehow irritated by a northern accent at the Paralympics closing ceremony? Am I going out of my way to be disagreeable?
It's the Paralympics, certainly, that has done most in recent weeks to rouse my ire. It's common garden variety cynicism that prompts me to think that all this talk about these games changing things for disabled people is hooey. Most people would probably agree, if they don't say it.
It's the over-compensation that gets my goat, though. Paralympians are so dedicated, and so inspirational. John Finnimore did a brilliant de-construction of this 'dedication', albeit with the 'normal' Olympics, on his Radio 4 'Souvenir' programme, when he portrayed an athlete who unashamedly didn't want 'inspire' other people because he only wanted to be the 'best', and that was why he had practically wrecked his body with intensive training and sacrificed a normal social life. On the Today programme this morning, I happened to hear an athlete say, 'A tiny error has ruined four years of my life'. Well, that and the 'dedication' that kept you going for four years.
So a disabled person spends years training to be a Paralympian, and may beat a bunch of other people who have spent years training to be a Paralympian, and this helps disabled people around the country in what way at the end of the day? Are disabled people in the countries whose Paralympians didn't win signficantly more buggered than they were before?
Someone Tweeted yesterday that at the closing ceremony a guy was climbing a mast with no legs while John Terry wouldn't play with a 'sore ankle'. As if everybody should just ignore medical advice and get on with it because Paralympians are so inspirational.
I suppose the upshot of this media onslaught is that we really shouldn't think of people with physical disabilities as 'cripples', which is fair enough, but perhaps we should also be giving more time to those more well-rounded individuals who get on with life, and aren't defined by either their disability or the overcoming of it. I know I'm now opening myself up to the cannard of, 'Those individuals don't get much of a look-in at any other time, so how dare you use them to criticise the Paralympics?' Well, I was just writing a post about my incipient grumpiness, and it got away from me a bit at the end there. Can we still be friends?
In Guizot's time, with the monarchy being overthrown, 'republican' meant radical, so if one replaces the word with 'liberal' or 'idealist', it's easier to understand. I've become sadly all too conscious of my fine altruistic sentiments, even from a few years back, taking a battering as those public figures I used to agree with sound ever more grating to my ears. Environmentalists, for example. I still believe in the precautionary principle when it comes to global warming, but I also know that some people in the AGW 'lobby' are just as unscrupulous as the 'deniers' say they are. They don't 'want heart', and their hearts are telling them that the end justifies the means, and if the end is saving the planet...
So I get that I've become a little more cynical in my advancing years, but what Quizot didn't say was that I would also become more of a dick. That was predictable, too, I guess. It's the 'grumpy old men' thing, and probably the other, tarnished side of cynicism. 'The worst are full of passionate intensity'. Worst because they're passionate about the wrong things. Was I really somehow irritated by a northern accent at the Paralympics closing ceremony? Am I going out of my way to be disagreeable?
It's the Paralympics, certainly, that has done most in recent weeks to rouse my ire. It's common garden variety cynicism that prompts me to think that all this talk about these games changing things for disabled people is hooey. Most people would probably agree, if they don't say it.
It's the over-compensation that gets my goat, though. Paralympians are so dedicated, and so inspirational. John Finnimore did a brilliant de-construction of this 'dedication', albeit with the 'normal' Olympics, on his Radio 4 'Souvenir' programme, when he portrayed an athlete who unashamedly didn't want 'inspire' other people because he only wanted to be the 'best', and that was why he had practically wrecked his body with intensive training and sacrificed a normal social life. On the Today programme this morning, I happened to hear an athlete say, 'A tiny error has ruined four years of my life'. Well, that and the 'dedication' that kept you going for four years.
So a disabled person spends years training to be a Paralympian, and may beat a bunch of other people who have spent years training to be a Paralympian, and this helps disabled people around the country in what way at the end of the day? Are disabled people in the countries whose Paralympians didn't win signficantly more buggered than they were before?
Someone Tweeted yesterday that at the closing ceremony a guy was climbing a mast with no legs while John Terry wouldn't play with a 'sore ankle'. As if everybody should just ignore medical advice and get on with it because Paralympians are so inspirational.
I suppose the upshot of this media onslaught is that we really shouldn't think of people with physical disabilities as 'cripples', which is fair enough, but perhaps we should also be giving more time to those more well-rounded individuals who get on with life, and aren't defined by either their disability or the overcoming of it. I know I'm now opening myself up to the cannard of, 'Those individuals don't get much of a look-in at any other time, so how dare you use them to criticise the Paralympics?' Well, I was just writing a post about my incipient grumpiness, and it got away from me a bit at the end there. Can we still be friends?