Seduction

Dropping out of the world entirely for two hours? Tuning out, switching off, and blocking out wars, crises, and conflicts? Staring—alongside 70,000 fans in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium—alternately at a tiny figure on stage and two giant screens, while your feet dance along involuntarily—is that possible? Is it permissible, legitimate, and justifiable given a present that is hurtling, virtually unchecked, toward a self-inflicted abyss—one that serves as a textbook illustration of Sigmund Freud’s theory of the death drive? And for that matter: how much art is there in this thoroughly commercial event, taking place right in the middle of a scorching North German heatwave in late June?

A host of questions that vanish into thin air in an instant—dissolving, as it were, into the surging crowd that ...