Like most of you, I suspect, I’ve spent the past couple of weeks focused on two events. The first is the Olympics; the second is the rapidly rising number of COVID-19 cases fueled by the delta variant and especially the reluctance or refusal of millions of Americans to get vaccinated. The combination of these two concerns got me thinking about nationalism.
First, the Tokyo Games. The modern Olympics was originally intended to be a collaborative celebration that transcended nationalism, with amateur athletes from around the world coming together to compete on the athletic field rather than the battlefield. A nice idea, perhaps, but it became just another arena of national competition almost immediately as different countries sought to win medals to demonstrate the superiority of their political and social orders. Not surprisingly, governments competed to host the Games and used that role to burnish their international image as well.
