An Olympic Legacy for 2012

AN OLYMPIC LEGACY FOR LONDON 2012?

"We can no longer take it for granted that young people will choose sport. Some may lack the facilities.  Or the coaches and role models to teach them. Others, in an age of 24-hour entertainment and instant fame, may simply lack the desire.  We are determined that a London Games will address that challenge. So London's vision is to reach young people all around the world.  To connect them with the inspirational power of the Games." 

(Lord Coe, Singapore, 6 July 2005)

"At the moment I don't see the policies being put in place that will build on the inspiration of the Games for young people and that will change their lives for a lasting sports legacy … There are too many schools still on two hours or less of sport a week, with no links to the local communities and clubs and volunteers, and that is a missed opportunity in the last six years. Politicians of all parties have the responsibility for setting policy and we have not seen that vision delivered."

(Lord Moynihan, chairman ofthe British Olympic Association, 19 November 2011)

[Note: Despite first impressions, it is not the case that everyone in the United Kingdom is a Lord!  There are also Ladies, Sirs and Dames.  And, of course, their servants]

It is widely held that the UK’s somewhat surprising victory in the competition to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games was at least partly the result of its representative’s ability to articulate a compelling legacy for the Games, that went far beyond the glories of two weeks of elite sport in July.  The Olympic Games is the biggest sporting and cultural event in the world – in the language of sport economists, it is a ‘mega-event’ – but there is an increasing expectation for hosts to provide more than just a sporting spectacle.

As can be seen from Sebastian Coe’s comments, taken from his rousing speech before the final decision of the host city was made, the UK bid was premised on using the Games as a stimulus for long-term social, economic and environmental change.  Likewise, London First, which represents big business in the capital, has asserted that,

“the 2012 legacy must be much more than a successful tournament and the regeneration of the Olympic Park site itself.  The Games must enhance London’s reputation as a dynamic, international city; catalyse the physical transformation of East London; and contribute to a step-change improvement in the skills, aspiration and employment of some of the country’s most deprived communities”.

But there have been increasing numbers of dissenters who have questionned successive governments’ commitments to the wider agenda of the Games.  Colin Moynihan’s statement is most significant, perhaps, because it came from someone very much within the UK’s sporting establishment.  And his is not a lone voice of concern.

The idea that major sporting events should seek to provide such a legacy has become commonplace in recent years.  Commentators usually refer to two examples as instances of successful legacy.  The Barcelona Games of 1992 has been hailed as a great success at almost every level, especially in terms of social and economic regeneration in the region.

But it was the Sydney games in 2000 that set the standard in terms of long-term and diverse effects.  Aside from the considerable improvement in sports performance in the host nation (Australia’s medal tally went up from 41 to 58, and stayed beyond the pre-Sydney level at Athens), its really significant benefits are more intangible.  The international perception of Sydney, and Australia as a whole, as a tourist and business destination has been transformed in the years following the Games and, according to some, the Olympic ideals - such as inspiration, friendship, fair play, perseverance, mutual respect, unity and joy in effort – somehow managed to bring about a reappraisal of attitudes to human and social rights.

Whether or not the Beijing Games can be considered a success depends, to a large extent, on whether or not we think that these political issues, especially human rights, matter in sporting events.  Seb Coe apparently does not think they do.

Of course, the selection of these cities to make the case for the Games is deliberate.  It would be naïve in the extreme to suppose that the hosting of a mega-event necessarily  results of regeneration.  For every success there are many more empty stadia, economic crises and lost opportunities.

In this respect, there are lessons to be learned from the analyses of Bent Flyvbjerg and his colleagues into the planning of megaprojects, such as tunnels, bridges and transport schemes.  They conclude:

“Rarely is there a simple truth … What is presented as reality by one set of experts is often a social construct that can be deconstructed and reconstructed by other experts” (Flyvbjerg, et al, 2003, p.60).

Flyvbjerg has demonstrated that on numerous occasions the advocates of such huge projects systematically misled the public in order to secure support and funding.

However, every case presents a possibility, and it is hard to deny the multifaceted potential of a well-planned, well-executed, well-supported Olympic Games for the host city, region and country. 

The Institute for Public Policy Research and Demos outlined five dimensions of an Olympic legacy for the London Games:

1) The social legacy – sport can in certain circumstances, provide an opportunity to involve a diverse range of people in delivering projects;

2) The employment legacy – there is little doubt that the London Olympics will generate a large number of new jobs, but there is a need for a more nuanced understanding of the employment potential of the Games than in terms of simple claims of numbers of jobs created;

3) The environmental legacy – there are fairly obvious environmental challenges presented by any mega-event, such as accommodating vast numbers of visitors, traffic and transport demands, energy and waste management;

4) The cultural legacy – culture as well as sport is supposed to create the foci of the Olympics.  The 2012 Games has the potential to focus international attention on the areas distinctive cultural assets.

5) The sporting legacy – the Games could act as a vehicle for stimulating increased participation, funding and facility development.

Yet, for all of the gushing excitement of politicians in London, many questions remain unanswered.  The research base on the wider effects of large-scale sporting events is still incomplete.  Academics have been critical of the misapplication of economic data by the promoters of such events for their own ends.  For example, whilst it might be the case that certain Games have resulted in the generation of more jobs in the region, critics have argued that the great majority were short-term, low-paid, or both.  And, of course, there is the danger of focusing on the benefits of an event without weighing up the costs.

Numerous groups have expressed concern at the growing expenditure associated with the event, at last count about £10billion, and the organisers of the 2012 Games have been criticised for their seeming reluctance to discuss their financial management and plans with external agencies.  Others have been critical of the relative investment in elite performance and the other aspects of London 2012.

Certainly, for a proposal based explicitly on young people’s participation and social transformation, discussions of actually implementing strategies have been negligible.

In an essay in Prospectmagazine, David Goldblatt presented a compelling case for Britain to start to take sport seriously.  More than three billion people tuned in to watch matches in the football World Cup in 2006, and the Olympics, for all of its faults, remains even more significant internationally.  No language or religion has sport’s scope or participation.  So the potential impact of the London Olympic Games in 2012 could be massive.

But if advocates for sport are to start to realise the sort of cultural importance that the arts have taken for granted for years, they will also need to be judged by the standards of planning, delivery and accountability that are normal in public life.

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DARWIN’S DELICIOUS IDEA

If the voice of the people is indeed the world of God, then Winston Churchill is the Greatest Briton. Brunel comes in at Number 2 and Princess Diana is third. My choice was Charles Darwin, who was ranked fourth, so it shows how much I know.

This was the result of a BBC poll a few years ago. Across the country parents and teachers rung their hands in anguish for the appalling job they’ve made of children’s education. Churchill is, perhaps, a reasonable choice. The engineer Brunel, although a surprise, at least DID SOMETHING in his life. But not many of us living in the twilight zone of reason would have guessed that Diana was a more significant person than Shakespeare, Newton and Faraday. In my book, she’d come some way behind Lily Allen, Timmy Mallett and that woman from the Shake-&-Vac adverts.

But I digress.

I wanted to take the luxury of this blog to reiterate the case for Charles Darwin, who 200th Anniversary is being celebrated this month.

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An apocryphal story tells of a prominent English Victorian lady, the wife of a bishop, who exclaimed to her husband, after hearing of Darwin’s theory of natural selection:

“Oh my dear, let us hope that what Mr Darwin says is not true. But if it is true, let us hope that it will not become generally known!”

What Mr Darwin said is true, at least in general terms. Zoological, archaeological, molecular chemical and anthropological evidence all support his central claims. And this is despite 150 years of the most heated challenges levelled at any scientific theory. But even more remarkable is that the extraordinary advances in biology since Darwin’s insights all seem to corroborate and compliment the central tenets of his theory of evolution by natural selection, including the other major component of modern biological thought, genetics.

I agree with the American philosopher, Daniel Dennett, when he said:

“If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had, I’d give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else. In a single stroke, the idea of evolution by natural selection unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law. But it is not just a wonderful idea. It is a dangerous idea.”

However, despite its near universal acceptance among the scientific community, Darwin’s dangerous idea continues to cause controversy. Copernicus and Galileo may have moved us from the centre of the universe to a small and peripheral body, circling a remote star. But Darwin has moved us from the centre of God’s creation to a tiny twig on an enormous tree of life, with all of the twigs connected by descent, and the entire tree growing by a natural and undirected process. Moreover, the tiny twig that is the human lineage has been around for only the briefest fraction of the time that life has been on earth.

Those of us who accept Darwin’s dangerous idea can find themselves in danger, too. Evolutionary theory is attacked by religious fundamentalists, because it undermines their cherished creation myths. And it is attacked by people concerned that, by embracing this scientific truth, we run the risk of losing long-held comforts: that humans are special, and uniquely so, and that there is some greater meaning in life than simply the here and now.

And also it has been attacked, it ought to be acknowledged, because the concept of evolution has been used and abused by the fascists and the eugenicists, who saw in it a scientific justification of their plans to ‘improve’ the human race, and to rank people within an ‘evolutionary league table’, with (rather like our contemporary league tables) with white, middle-classed Anglo-Saxons at the pinnacle. But ‘Social Darwinism’, as it used to be called, has simply appropriated a scientific name to bolster unscientific nonsense.

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Difficulty with accepting Darwinian evolution cannot be attributed to its complexity. Indeed, it must surely rate as the simplest of the great ideas in science. In fact, it can be whittled down to three key facts, followed by a logical inference:

FACTS
I. All organisms produce more offspring than can possibly survive;
II. All organisms within a species vary from one another;
III. At least some of this variation is inherited by offspring
INFERENCE
Since only some offspring can survive, on average the survivors will be those variants that are better adapted to the local environment. And, since offspring will inherit the favourable variations of their parents, organisms of the next generation will, on average, become better adapted to local conditions.

So, perhaps, we can understand Thomas Huxley’s alarm when reading Darwin’s Origin of Species for the first time. He is reported to have said: “How extremely stupid not to have thought of that myself”.

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We are, whether we like it or not, primates. Genetically, anatomically and historically, we are very close relatives of the great apes. We share something of the order of 99% of the active genetic material of chimpanzees and bonobos (my favourite animal, aka the pygmy chimp), which a closer degree of relatedness than tigers to lions, or horses to zebras. Most of us, when we watch wildlife programmes or visit Howlett’s Zoo are happy to admit that we are like apes. We seldom realise that we are apes. Zoologically, there is no natural category that includes chimpanzees, gorillas and orang utans, but excludes humans.

In truth, not only are we apes, but we are African apes. If you do not exclude humans, this forms a natural category. So, perhaps the most accurate label for humans is ‘The Third Chimpanzee’.

We are also, in very many ways, very unlike apes, having created unprecedented knowledge, technology and forms of social organisation. We, alone, have created socialism and liberalism; art and literature; space shuttles and digital watches. Even so-called traditional hunter-gatherer societies are characterised by degrees of social and technological complexity that are entirely absent in the rest of the animal kingdom. These are novel features, and they set human life history on a unique path.

This path is as explicable as any other: all species are unique. The Homo sapiens species is a cultural animal. It may well be the cultural animal. But culture is a result of evolution just as much as eyes and ears. It is unique, unprecedented and unpredictable. But it is not magical.

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I was first introduced to Darwin’s delightful idea thanks to Richard Dawkins’ book, The Selfish Gene. It is, perhaps, noteworthy, that I was not introduced to it through school (and English children today are still deprived of an appropriate presentation in the National Curriculum).

Aside from Dawkins’ wonderfully clear explanations of the blind and purposeless processes of adaptation and selection, I was most struck by a passing comment in the introduction:

“The full implications of Darwin’s revolution have yet to be widely realised .. even those who choose to study it often make their decision without appreciating its profound philosophical significance. Philosophy and the subjects known as ‘humanities’ are still almost as if Darwin had never lived”. (1976, p. ix)

I suspect that this is still broadly the case. Although there has been a revolution in our understanding and acceptance of Darwinian theory in recent years, there continues to be large-scale resistance to evolutionary explanations of matters that are close to home for us humans. Many social scientists continue to believe that biological explanations are simply incapable of helping us to understand the richness and diversity of human existence. And, moreover, that they are just not very nice.

Perhaps there is a concern stated by Jerome Bruner: ‘Culture imposes revolutionary discontinuity between man and the rest of the animal kingdom. And it is this discontinuity that creates the difficulty in extrapolating directly from evolutionary biology to the human condition’.

But, without an evolutionary foundation, explanations of human development will inevitably be incomplete. This is because human science and its subject matter are Homo sapiens. The nature of this species ought to be of enormous relevance, indeed urgency, to those of us working in the human sciences.


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