Is It Immoral To Watch The Winter Olympics Given China’s Humanitarian Violations?
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(OPINION) There’s nothing pious about the modern Olympic Games, although it should be noted that the original version created by the ancient Greeks certainly viewed them as a religious experience. The modern version, organized by the International Olympic Committee, is more spectacle than spirit.
Which brings us to the upcoming Winter Games that will open on Feb. 4 in Beijing. I have always been a very big fan of the Olympics, especially the winter version — since there’s so little to do in February because of the cold Northeastern weather. It also provides a spotlight for athletes who don’t usually get the mainstream media attention they deserve — most notably those who toil in obscurity training to excel at figure skating, ski jumping and curling.
The looming Winter Games, however, have triggered a reaction among some that has large moral implications — are you a bad person for watching the Olympics?
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Good and bad, for many of us, are notions guided by morality. People’s morality can come from their culture and the people around them but, more importantly, is very often informed by faith. For those in the Judeo-Christian tradition, morality comes from the Ten Commandments. It comes from Bible stories. It comes from the word of God, the teachings of Jesus and writings of famous theologians. Sin is a moral evil. Sin is, in the Jewish and Christian traditions, the deliberate violation of the will of God.
This very notion was explored, debated and answered in a New York Times opinion essay by Sasha Mudd, an assistant professor of philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Her essay dealt with the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Games, the Summer Olympics that were actually held a year later — this past summer. Here was the heart of her argument:
The Olympic Games in Tokyo have been even more fraught than usual with ethical issues. Alarm over the rising number of COVID-19 cases and the Games’ deep unpopularity with Japanese people sit atop perennial concerns about corruption, cheating, the abuse of athletes and the environmental impact of mounting such an enormous event. These problems have fueled debate, hand-wringing and even demands to end the Olympics altogether.
Despite all that, the Games are underway, and for most of the world’s population, there is only one moral decision left to make: To watch or not to watch? If you are one of the many who view the actions of the International Olympic Committee, the television stations and sponsors, and the nations competing as morally wrong, is it ethical for you to tune in?
Of course, viewers aren’t watching the Games to intentionally endorse a corrupt system or the idea of profit over public health. They’re watching to celebrate our common humanity, to be awed by athletic excellence and to witness the drama of Olympic dreams being dashed or realized. But by opting to watch the Olympics, do we give a tacit thumbs-up to the entire spectacle, ethical problems and all?
At the heart of this worry is the idea that merely by choosing to be entertained by something that involves wrongdoing, we become complicit in it. But just how worried should we be? To answer this question, the idea of complicity needs unpacking.
The Beijing Games offer a similar concern. Not since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, overseen by Adolf Hitler in the context of a totalitarian state, have questions been asked about the moral standing of a host nation. Even advertisers have laid low in the weeks leading up to these Olympics, with ad agency executives predicting that viewers should expect sponsors to downplay the location and ignore politics.
In the case of the Summer Games and COVID-19 infections, Mudd concluded, “Watch away.” In a recent Substack post, basketball great Kareem Abdul Jabaar summed up the feelings of many of us regarding China:
I’m uncomfortable criticizing China because it can serve as justification for knuckle-dragging racist blame-bots to harass Asian Americans. Unfortunately, we shouldn’t let childish Flat-Earth mentality stop the adults from having necessary discussions about important world affairs.
We can’t ignore China’s attacks — both overt and subtle — on the United States, nor can we ignore its oppressive policies. China is like Jason Bateman’s character in Ozark: smooth and charming on the outside, but everyone he touches either becomes corrupt or dies.
Should people watch these Winter Olympics? What does religion say about such an issue? Would watching be akin to supporting the country’s communist regime’s genocide against the Uyghur population and other mostly-Muslim ethnic groups in the northern region of Xinjiang and repression in Taiwan?
Certainly, my hope is that the journalism we see around these games is an honest one. In the U.S., NBC, the official broadcaster, can’t be limited to puff pieces. They have a journalistic duty to report on both the good and bad, but will they? We already know that corporations and pro sports leagues like the NBA care more about making money than anything the Chinese regime is doing to violate the human rights of its citizens.
The Golden State Warriors were forced to distance themselves recently from comments made by billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya, a part owner of the NBA team who proclaimed “nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs.”
Palihapitiya made the comment on the “All-in Podcast” after co-host Jason Calacanis brought up President Joe Biden's “very strong” stance on the human rights abuses faced by the Uyghurs.
Nobody cares about what's happening to the Uyghurs, OK? You bring it up because you really care, and I think it's nice that you care. The rest of us don't care. I'm just telling you … a very hard, ugly truth. Of all the things I care about, yes, it is below my line.”
The team reacted with a statement of its own:
As a limited investor who has no day-to-day operating functions with the Warriors, Mr. Palihapitiya does not speak on behalf of our franchise, and his views certainly don't reflect those of our organization.
Certainly, Palihapitiya has no issue watching these Winter Games. Will you?
I am torn over this issue. I also know there are degrees of sin. The issue has gained widespread debate on social media forums. On Reddit, the debate raged during the Tokyo Games, largely around the little clothing some of the athletes wore. That won’t be an issue during winter sports.
The athletes won’t be able to speak their mind, something China said will not be allowed. Yang Shu, the deputy director general of the international relations department of the Beijing Organizing Committee, said, “Any expression that is in line with the Olympic spirit, I’m sure will be protected. Any behavior or speeches that are against the Olympic spirit, and especially against Chinese laws and regulations are also subjected to certain punishment.”
Speaking during an online news conference hosted by Human Rights Watch, Rob Koehler — director general of Global Athlete, an athlete advocacy group — said athletes have been advised against speaking up on human rights issues while in China and that the IOC “has not come out proactively to indicate that we will protect and make sure everyone is safe.”
We know the Chinese government will use the Olympics as a propaganda tool. There’s little a viewer sitting at home watching on TV can do about that. What we can do is use whatever platforms we have to speak out against human rights violations wherever they take place.
As for these Olympics, I will be watching some of the events, but not nearly as much as I would have during past games. In the meantime, I hope that the proper scrutiny — on the part of athletes, politicians and the news media — will be paid to a tyrannical government accused of violating human rights. Anything else would be immoral.
Clemente Lisi is a senior editor and regular contributor to Religion Unplugged. He is the former deputy head of news at the New York Daily News and teaches journalism at The King’s College in New York City. Follow him on Twitter @ClementeLisi.