CONNECTED: The Olympics, once venerable, are now venal. Doping scandals have grievously wounded most of the major sports, of course, but familiarity too has damaged the games, writes Eddie Holt.
They seem - claims to antiquity aside - very 20th century and, in general, passé. Mind you, they are not alone: contemporary culture appears to be fixated on remoulds rather than originals.
Consider cinema. Recent remakes of, for instance, Starsky and Hutch, The Stepford Wives and Thunderbirds are remoulds of 1970s hits. In pop music, Madonna, the toast of the 1980s, will perform her first Irish gig at Slane on the last Sunday of this month. The gig will be part of what the singer and her publicity Solomons have named her "Reinvention" tour. Madonna is now 46.
Look at the plays running in Dublin theatres at present. The Abbey has The Playboy of the Western World; the Gate has Pygmalion; the New Theatre is performing The Hostage. The Gaiety is showing a production of Riverdance. There is, presumably, demand for these shows - all, in fairness, are classics - but their prominence also bespeaks cultural torpor.
For years, The Rose of Tralee was Ireland's ratings-topping television programme. It will be screened again next week even though it's clearly withering. Even the Leaving Cert and A-level examination results this week, though as momentous as ever to those affected by them, seemed to lack the (albeit largely bogus) gravity formerly associated with them.
A recent poll in Britain found a cross-section of viewers considered the 1970s to be television's golden decade. This result is, admittedly, highly questionable because along with some gems there were mountains of rubbish too huge to remember, yet too awful to forget. The crucial point however, is that contemporary TV audiences believe they are being short-changed.
The idea of a lost Golden Age is seductive and, of course, dangerous. It often says as much about the person pining for lost youth as about the reality of the past. Perhaps there was as much recycling in the putative Golden Ages as there is now. No doubt there was some, but the irony is that despite the innovations of the present, there seems to be a dearth of creativity.
Equally ironic is the observation that when science was an especially prized subject to study, there appeared to be more artistic creativity - genuine as well as codswallop. Now that students are chasing places in humanities disciplines and ignoring science (too dull, too difficult, too trainspotting) we might reasonably expect a glut of art and a dearth of technology. Not so, however.
The overwhelming sense is that contemporary culture is weary. Granted, such a feeling is related to age. For most 18-year-olds, the world presumably remains young and vibrant. Yet in spite of the trumpeted changes of recent decades - more money, greater liberalism, Christianity in decline - abject sameness, as shown by the Olympics, Madonna, cinema and theatre tell another story.
There are always cultural cycles, of course. W.B. Yeats believed these unfolded in 2,000 year episodes: he was always a man for the grand mythological vision, thinking in aeons. He may or may not have been correct and his anti-democratic hatred of the "filthy modern tide" is suspect. But recycling is not just a Green Party obsession now; it's the cultural market's too.
A cynic might denounce the diagnosis of cultural torpor as simply a case of nostalgia not being what it used to be. Nonetheless, the evidence contradicts this. Showbusiness, like all other business, has always chased loot but now it appears petrified of innovation because profits cannot be guaranteed. In a world of brands, the big brands with the most hype prosper.
That is . . . until they bore. The interlocking Olympic rings - blue, black and red across the top with yellow and green ones underneath - are among the best-known brand logos ever. See the five rings, representing the five continents, and you will automatically think "Olympics". After that, most people nowadays will automatically think "drugs, bribes and corruption".
It may well be that television, which from the mid-20th century gave the Olympics huge and growing audiences, is now itself too passé and has outgrown, at least in wealthy countries, its ability to enthral.
TV in Europe, America and Australia - three of the five rings/continents - is now at an age when its hitherto youthful excitement is, like riveting Olympic finals, merely a memory.
Then again, August inevitably induces feelings of torpor. It almost certainly potentiates any similar feelings regardless of source. But just look at the almost empty venues in Athens for many sports - despite wonderful performances from the top competitors (whether "assisted" or not) - and you cannot fail to see an Olympic movement in decline.
New cultural energy will undoubtedly spring up - and probably from where it's least expected. For the moment, though, as we watch attempts to alchemise sport and art into money, we are condemned to a state of torpor. Maybe Yeats was right about those 2,000 year cycles. Whatever the truth, the re-threads are wearing thinner by the year.