I think most Americans genuinely look forward to the Olympic Games every two years; though we have no clue as to why. We dutifully watch U.S. mens and womens teams compete in summer and winter sports we have virtually no interest in, and in some cases genuinely cheer when our teams are victorious or are disheartened in defeat. We sport our red, white, and blue tee shirts, pretend to know what a good beam dismount or triple axel looks like, watch the nightly coverage with Bob Costas and attentively keep track of the medal count. And, at the end of it all, I think all of us look at the Olympic Games and wonder What is the Point?

The stated goal of the Olympic Movement is,

to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

The Olympic Charter goes on to note the Games are intended to steward the harmonious development of humankind promoting peace and human dignity. Would that have been your honest first-guess based on the coverage you have seen of the Games in Rio or the Games in Sochi or London or Beijing?

I am in my early 30s, so I dont recall the high-stake Olympics of the 1980s between the U.S. and the USSR, the boycotts and bans over South African apartheid through the 1970s and 60s, the terror of the Munich Games, or the civic activism of Olympians long passed. I cannot speak intelligibly on those Games or that history. I have not seen the Games as symbolic of a progressive movement towards a better global future or as a sporting battle ground for competing ideologies between nations with nuclear weapons.

For my generation, the Olympic Games really only represent three things: the stability of capitalist political and economic order of the day, the commercialization of every single aspect of society, and the last vestiges of nationalism. The point is to sell things. all kinds of things; in the promotion of a system that sells thingsall kinds of things. For us, the Olympic Games seem only to represent globalization and commercialization. The spectacle, every time around, looks more and more like The Hunger Games and less and less like something I would want my child to strive to become a part of or represent.

The Games Olympicnot Hunger - do still provide, to those willing to pay attention, insight into global politics. The banning of Russian athletes for doping was an embarrassing notice to Russian citizens that their leadership is out of step with the order of the day: the Refugee Team an affirmation of the failures of the most powerful in the global system to protect the weakest: the soaring medal count of China and the U.S. a statement of technological and military superiority over everyone else. These and other tokens of nationalistic rivalries are on display.

What seems ever clearer, to even the casual observer, is that my generations Olympic Games are not the projection of a movement to better humanity and promote human dignity. Instead, the Games appear to be a faade of these values promoted by a globalized, capitalist system of commercialization aimed at selling watches, soft-drinks, fast food, and apparel. The Olympic Games, as noted by branding and commercialization specialist Kennth Cortsen ,

have become a significant benchmark for how rights holders and commercial assets like athletes, sponsors and the media can join forces and move market shares and customers.

The Games are a mega-sporting event representing global capitalism and the event is used to sell thingsthat is the point. To present themselves as part of the functioning economic order, Olympic host nations are willing to tolerate massive amounts of debt, continue on with the Games even in the face of tumultuous economic/political decline, face down protests from their own citizens, ignore corruption, and invite criticisms on their culture and their politics, and tolerate development from hegemonic powers that be. It is a system out of touch with the general population and, more importantly, out of touch with the intention of the Games. It is a system buckling under its own weight. Perhaps, that is the lesson our Olympic Games can teach us.

The Olympic Games are not simply a capitalist (and perhaps conspiracy theorist) faade; they are a mirror that tell us about ourselves the Olympic Games reflect us. They reflect the growing divide between the ruling class and the ruled. They reflect the revolt of Brexit against the march of globalism and the anger in the U.S. over a political system that seems out of touch and unresponsive. They represent the corrupting influence of capitalism and commercialism as they engulf every aspect of every life on the planet. Through the Olympics Games we can see the tremors and the threats to our system, and we see them ignored through a whitewash of advertisement. Our Olympics might not showcase competing ideologies under the threat of war or rally civic activism...but they do reflect the expansion of a global capitalist order, and it is a reflection we should take a long hard look at. Not everything is meant to be sold. The point of the Olympic Games should be to inspire; is that the reflection we are really seeing?

Gazing into that Olympic mirror, I think my generation should ask What are those things that legitimize our rulers and what can be done to prevent the system from buckling under its own weight? How do we reinvigorate, not just the purpose of the Olympic Games, but rather, the grand purpose of unity and responsiveness in our political system?

The solution, I have no clue, but I am left with the words of Pope Francis speaking on the greater prize of the Olympic Games before their start in Rio,

the construction of a civilization in which solidarity reigns and is based upon the recognition that we are all members of the same human family, regardless of the differences of culture, skin color, or religion.

Love and respect of one another. Now there is an idea I wouldnt mind building a system around.