Arthur's Blog: The Olympics Offer a Lesson in Nations' Single-Minded Pride in Their Own Achievements

I was still at Oxford at the time of the opening ceremonies for the 2012 Olympics in London on Friday evening, July 27, and saw only the last 15 minutes or so on a small television set in the medieval college where I was residing. I was stunned by how weird and incomprehensible those ceremonies seemed.

Yet on the next morning, the British press was ecstatic over the quality of what had been presented, exulting in what they regarded as a striking and memorable illustration of British history. Their reaction was diametrically different from what the New York Times and other foreign newspapers were reporting. They -- the British journals -- were so overawed by the feat of the ceremonies' creator, film director Danny Boyle, that one or two London papers were demanding that he be knighted.

This difference in national attitudes was apparent in the days ahead. Every evening, after touring various British attractions throughout the day, I would turn on television to an endless succession of reports on British victories. On B.B.C. and on Britain's I.T.V. channels, one rarely saw the astonishing performances of Chinese gymnasts or American swimmers. The only coverage was of those rather special contests in which British athletes excelled: races by one-man sailboats, kayaks careening through turbulent waters, equestrians.

I now see that what British television did was a near duplicate of what American television is presently doing: almost always confining their cameras to the victories of our own national heroes. Returning to New York, I have recently seen the feats of numerous American Olympians, with only an occasional shot of Japanese or Australian or Brazilian athletes. Apparently, every nation is intent on displaying the virtues of their own contestants, and rarely does anyone witness the achievements of other nations. I am willing to bet that Dutch television, broadcast from Amsterdam, is filled with the occasional victory of someone from The Netherlands -- and little else.

So we are not really "One World." We remain a collection of proud nationalities. And therein, I guess, lies some of the fascination of travel. We fling ourselves abroad to view the odd differences in lifestyles or appearances. We enjoy being aware of the different tastes of national food specialties, watching different methods of dancing, listening to strange languages, witnessing unique lifestyles. We are constantly aware of national differences.

On the other hand, the novelty of these travel experiences is accompanied by a sense of tolerance and growth. We often see, through travel, that people from other nations do quite well for themselves, that there is more than one way to live, that there are lessons for us to derive from how other people solve their social and urban problems. I hope my reactions are comprehensible; they are still evolving as I watch more of the London Olympics.