Remember There’s an Off Button
That said, there is a part of me that wishes we could evolve to a point where we simply learn to ignore people whose only motivation is to wind others up. That’s not restricted to football, by the way, but it’s human nature to react to a newspaper, a columnist, a TV or radio presenter, a shock-jock, a politician etc that says something that goes against what we would consider decent and even human.
The Howard Stern effect. More listeners hate him than like him but the ones who hate him can’t help but listen so they can be offended and complain. Without this significant portion of the audience they become less effective. The same way that if the coverage of a particular newspaper offends you, the best way to deal with it is not to read that newspaper. Writing about it, directing people to their website etc, seems counter-productive to me. If you know it’s a piece of shit with less morality than a room full of child killers, why allow yourself to be wound up by it and, in the process, wind up others?
It’s a Utopian thought, I guess, that we can simply choose to ignore that which we find reprehensible, and in some cases it’s probably not the best way to deal with it, but the simplest and most effective way of existing without these people is not to pay any attention to them. If there’s a website you don’t like, don’t visit it. If there’s a Twitter account you hate, don’t follow. A radio show you can’t stand, choose another station.
Free speech is great but the ability to not listen to free speech is even better. We have that choice and we should use it more often. And I say this as somebody who believes there’s a sanitisation of football which is not always positive. There is a need for rivalry, for tribalism, for wit and humour borne out of that, but at the end of the day these people are just pantomime villains.
This is an entry regarding the collapse of Patrice Muamba this weekend at the Tottenham v Bolton match. 23 years old, cardiac arrest and heart stopped for 2 hours.
Anyway the entry addresses some very negative and hateful comments made about this player after the incident and continuing the last 2 days. I think they are very relevant to political discussions just as they are to anything else.