We’re together, for now, 91 nations with pandemic fatigue and several with growing animosity, taking in a gauche Olympics for the second time in six months. The world will never be the same, but the Games are aloof and incessant, trying to mask the International Olympic Committee’s money-grubbing intentions, hoping to present the next 2½ weeks as an international emotional cleansing.

The theme complements the grandiosity: “Together for a Shared Future.” During the Opening Ceremonies here Friday night, Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou offered an elegant orchestration of that vision. He used a cast of children as his muse to make a dream seem real, tauntingly real, for a little more than two hours.

The aspirational message, though expected, tugged briefly at the heart nonetheless. If it weren’t so antithetical to reality, perhaps the boost would have lasted longer.

The Beijing Winter Olympics won’t stir visions of a blissful tomorrow. The events may be an entertaining reprieve, if you can codify enough ignorance about all the trouble swarming society. But for all the spirit Zhang portrayed in directing the curtain-raiser, the night couldn’t shed an ominous feeling.

It seemed more like “Together for a Shared Ruse.” The original motif doesn’t reflect an evening in which the standouts among the heads of state in attendance were Xi Jinping, the president of flagrant human rights abuser China, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who threatens to invade Ukraine and test the peacekeeping resolve of the United States and its NATO allies. With the United States and many other countries declining to send representatives in a diplomatic protest of China, the presence of Xi and Putin and perceptions of their allegiance intensified the anxiety of an already uneasy world.

Inside a half-empty Bird’s Nest, all our problems might as well have joined the Parade of Nations. There was little in Zhang’s script that covered how to bridge them and arrive at unity.

You can’t live foul and then declare a pursuit of unity because it fits the moment. The messengers are most relevant, and you cannot trust Xi’s hand when he extends it for appearances. Sadly, you cannot trust the IOC’s motives at any time but especially now as it preaches negligent sports diplomacy again in defense of its decision to ignore the atrocities of the Chinese government and make Beijing the first city to host a Summer and Winter Games.

These are not the kinds of people who will unify the world. On Thursday, IOC President Thomas Bach lamented “the dark clouds of the growing politicization of sport on the horizon.” That’s what he thinks of athletes who have concerns about humanity. In the past two Olympics, Bach has led an organization terrified that too many human beings might protest the inhumanity in our messy world, pointing his finger at Rule 50 of the Olympic charter and casting their desires to act on such empathy as in opposition of the sanctity and universality of these Games.

“We also saw that in some people’s minds, the boycott ghosts of the past were rearing their ugly heads again,” Bach said, describing in the most cumbersome and embarrassing way possible this time in which a new generation of athletes have gravitated to activism. “This is why we have been working even harder to get this unifying mission of the Olympic Games across to as many leaders and decision-makers as possible.”

The “growing politicization of sport” is a stick-to-sports fear reserved for those who think the world is fine as it is and who wish to trivialize the influence of popular athletes. It’s a manipulation of sport to whitewash sins. Force its power to be used only for felicity, and it becomes a potent emotional narcotic. All the feel-good posturing allows for easy escapes from scrutiny.

At its best, however, the passion of sport is funneled into an appropriate reflection of society. Watching provides a prism to view people and possibility, a stage to understand the constant need to strive for better. Listening to its participants talk about real life often reveals invaluable insight about a better way to coexist.

If these Olympics play out as planned, with nearly 3,000 athletes scared silent and the IOC acting as if it bestowed a blessing upon the world, we will exit tranquilized — rather than inspired — by the experience. Maybe that would be acceptable if Bach trumpeted the Games solely for their volume of athletic brilliance. But he can’t laud the Olympics as having transcendent geopolitical meaning without leaving room for the Olympians to breathe as influencers.

Despite the circumstances, the athletes will compete. And captivate. And make the leaders of the Olympic machine believe they have justification for their boldest claims.

“Beijing 2022 will be the start of a new era for global winter sport,” Bach declared.

It’s a grand new era that begins with Chinese Olympic organizers vowing simply to pull off a “streamlined” Games. Yet it’s enough for Xi to talk even bigger than Bach.

“The world is turning its eyes to China,” he said while addressing the IOC on Thursday, “and China is ready.”

Xi is ready, as expected, to propagandize China’s greatness. The IOC is ready, as expected, to enable the paid advertisement.

We’re together, for now, in a pandemic with no exit, in a country whose government has no tolerance for dissent, in a bubble with no atmosphere. This is unity, streamlined.

Enjoy the goodwill while you can. We won’t be together for long. Our shared future looks to be full of division.