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Holiday musings
Well, I'm back at Debatewise after a double of whammy of holidays; a week in Italy followed by a lovely August Bank Holiday at home, lovely! Whilst I was away I spent a bit of time watching the Olympic Games and was both surprised and amused at the coverage the event was given on Italian television. Like the BBC, they devoted pretty much the whole daytime schedule to the games, but there the similarity ended. They were only interested in events featuring at least one Italian competitor and any Italian victories were endlessly replayed, while other main events were ignored. This meant I saw the final of the men's Taekwondo (Italians got silver) about five times, but missed Usain Bolt breaking the 200m record because the coverage cut to the Italian team doing synchronised swimming.
I already knew that Italian TV is hilariously bad, but watching their version of the Olympics got me thinking about perspective. The games were a major international event, but they mean very different things from different points of view. For many they were a display of sporting excellence,or an expression of international cooperation: for others they're just an expensive waste of time. In the UK we watched the games thinking about our own prospects for 2012; for other nations their own athletes' success is the most important thing. No matter what the issue, everyone sees it differently from their own particular standpoint, depending on their own beliefs, prejudices and experiences.
That's what makes Debatewise such a great endeavour; it's somewhere that all those diverse points of view can come together to give a full picture of the issues that matter.