Another scene from the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics
Fr Ian comments:
Here's a link to the full article for anyone who might fancy reading it:
Augusto Del Noce was an Italian philosopher who died in 1989. Over recent years Carlo Lancellotti has translated three of his books from Italian into English. I bought them at the time they were published, and they're hard going!
Below are a few sample paragraphs from Dr Rourke's article. It does seem that there was more to the Olympics opening ceremony than a celebration of French fashion and the like!
"[The Paris Olympics opening ceremony] was in complete continuity with the eroticism that is already at the heart of Western culture. Most readers are already painfully aware of the details, so I will simply summarize a few points recognized even by the mainstream media. There was a prerecorded element featuring an “androgynous poly throuple” preparing to engage in acts of “casual polyamory,” which manifest a ”liberating queer polycule.” Then there was the widely discussed drag queen portrayal of a hypersexualized The Last Supper, amidst other novelties such as a bearded woman dancing provocatively and a naked smurf with an erection, all with child dancers nearby.
I guess we can all ask when such a display might have landed the practitioners in Western jails. But the larger point is that all of this simply proceeds from philosophical premises already in place in the West: the old order of morality is repressive, particularly to “sexual minorities” who must now be liberated. All the old rules about sexuality are without foundation, even clear distinctions between male and female. Moreover, there is no reason to exclude children from seeing any of this.
The way the media “covered” the ensuing controversy merits a separate article, so I will be brief here. When people complained, the media immediately turned to those responsible and asked for an explanation. Much of what was said was outright lies. For example, although Thomas Jolly denied there was any attempt to suggest The Last Supper, some of the actors admitted the obvious truth that it was indeed the intended idea. We had the further absurdity that the intended portrayal of the Greek God Dionysius was an attempt to show the folly of violence, unaccompanied by any explanation of how such an interpretation might arise in the mind of a rational person.
And of course there was the standard appeal to an undefined “diversity.” How the Greek God Dionysius, the god of frenzy and excess, would be linked in the average mind to civil peace in any context was left unexplained. The biggest takeaway from all of this is that it is now clear that the secular media accept with great seriousness the hypocritical claims of the art world that there really is no such thing as an objective interpretation of a work of art. Of course, this is belied by the obvious fact that the organizers had a very clear message to communicate, which they did. But this claim of relativist interpretation is always pulled out of the hat as the preferred, though dishonest, way of dealing with criticism.
In the eyes of the media, we were left with two competing interpretations of the parade, without a clear way to resolve the differences, yet the two interpretations were not really equal. If we look further, we see that there is the reading of the educated and sophisticated contemporary art world, which contends that the message is world peace and diversity. Then there are the right-wing, clearly artistically clueless band of angry and out-of-touch Christians who read what they want into things as part of their broader narrative of hate, reaction and frustration at the progress of enlightened France. This is what is left of what used to be called a fair and unbiased mass media."
The first of Del Noce's books to be publshed in English, in 2015
Below are a few sample paragraphs from Dr Rourke's article. It does seem that there was more to the Olympics opening ceremony than a celebration of French fashion and the like!
"[The Paris Olympics opening ceremony] was in complete continuity with the eroticism that is already at the heart of Western culture. Most readers are already painfully aware of the details, so I will simply summarize a few points recognized even by the mainstream media. There was a prerecorded element featuring an “androgynous poly throuple” preparing to engage in acts of “casual polyamory,” which manifest a ”liberating queer polycule.” Then there was the widely discussed drag queen portrayal of a hypersexualized The Last Supper, amidst other novelties such as a bearded woman dancing provocatively and a naked smurf with an erection, all with child dancers nearby.
I guess we can all ask when such a display might have landed the practitioners in Western jails. But the larger point is that all of this simply proceeds from philosophical premises already in place in the West: the old order of morality is repressive, particularly to “sexual minorities” who must now be liberated. All the old rules about sexuality are without foundation, even clear distinctions between male and female. Moreover, there is no reason to exclude children from seeing any of this.
The way the media “covered” the ensuing controversy merits a separate article, so I will be brief here. When people complained, the media immediately turned to those responsible and asked for an explanation. Much of what was said was outright lies. For example, although Thomas Jolly denied there was any attempt to suggest The Last Supper, some of the actors admitted the obvious truth that it was indeed the intended idea. We had the further absurdity that the intended portrayal of the Greek God Dionysius was an attempt to show the folly of violence, unaccompanied by any explanation of how such an interpretation might arise in the mind of a rational person.
And of course there was the standard appeal to an undefined “diversity.” How the Greek God Dionysius, the god of frenzy and excess, would be linked in the average mind to civil peace in any context was left unexplained. The biggest takeaway from all of this is that it is now clear that the secular media accept with great seriousness the hypocritical claims of the art world that there really is no such thing as an objective interpretation of a work of art. Of course, this is belied by the obvious fact that the organizers had a very clear message to communicate, which they did. But this claim of relativist interpretation is always pulled out of the hat as the preferred, though dishonest, way of dealing with criticism.
In the eyes of the media, we were left with two competing interpretations of the parade, without a clear way to resolve the differences, yet the two interpretations were not really equal. If we look further, we see that there is the reading of the educated and sophisticated contemporary art world, which contends that the message is world peace and diversity. Then there are the right-wing, clearly artistically clueless band of angry and out-of-touch Christians who read what they want into things as part of their broader narrative of hate, reaction and frustration at the progress of enlightened France. This is what is left of what used to be called a fair and unbiased mass media."
2 comments:
Gosh, reading the above, I am clearly very naive and lacking in imagination. All I saw whilst watching the controversial scene at the Olympics opening ceremony was a colourful depiction of part of French historical culture. Fashion parades and rather decadent social entertainment - ie Moulon Rouge / Follies Bergette. Now one can argue about the appropriateness of all the mixed dressing and vague sexual identity. Its not my cup of tea, I'm just plain boring heterosexual, but it is nevertheless part of French (and wider human culture: as it has always been). I'm not sure that it is very helpful to anyone or any faith, to bring religion into the mix. Jesus, wisely and notably, never mentions the subject, even though it was very much an accepted part of Roman culture, and no doubt existed on an underground / hidden part of Israelite life. Is anyone going to claim that there were no homosexuals or cross dressers pre the 1960s. Hidden maybe, but certainly present.
Scientists tell us that male testostrone levels have dropped significantly in the past 70 years, and many reckon it is because of all the chemicals we chuck into the environment - oestrogenitic chemicals. So perhaps we are all responsible for the reality of who we are, including our sexuality. Perhaps we all need more cold showers! Roland
Ancient pagan gods, polyamory, parodies of the Last Supper - we can handle all that. But naked smurfs??!! That really is going too far!
On a serious note, it appears that the creators of the spectacle, as opposed to the organisers of the Olympics, were fairly explicit about their intentions to mock the Christian faith. So Christians who objected to the attack on their religious sensibilities weren't imagining things or over-reacting, they were accurately discerning the real purposes of the 'artistic directors'.
My own faith is such that I don't get very disturbed by the fairly frequent acts of mockery towards Christianity in modern society. I don't think anyone should be be-headed. The perpetrators are usually too philosophically and spiritually shallow to bother with. But I'm also under no illusions about the hostility towards religion in general and Christianity in particular that characterises our cultural elites, and the need for dissidence on our part, not accommodation.
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