Emotional Inflation?

Interesting article from a Middlesborough evening newspaper.

"At the end of the minute's silence before the Arsenal game a gentleman of the press who had stood solemnly with head bent in quiet reflection leant over and asked a colleague: "Who's that one for?"

The scribe had stood silently and gone through the motions without even knowing the reason for the sham reverence - and that speaks volumes about the way a once rare mark of respect at grounds has been completely devalued.

And that is not a comment on the fittingness of the Pope to be granted a tribute at a club in a town with a significant Roman Catholic population.

It is more a comment on the ephemeral ten-a-penny nature of what was once an extremely unusual event and one that was invariably 'impeccably observed'.

Now they feel almost weekly. A colleague recently clocked up three in one weekend.

Of course, in the past the minute's silence was almost exclusively reserved to mark the memory of a stalwart servant of the club: a former legendary player, long serving manager or chairman.

Back then the silence was a public expression of loss within the family and a chance for the fans to pay their respects to someone who they had a deep personal relationship with and real memories of. It was an intimate and moving private occasion and one supporters expected and welcomed.

Now, however, as a new climate of touchy-feely empathy dominates society, grounds have become just another venue for the public display of conspicuous compassion.

Public institutions are expected to take part in co-ordinated emotional responses to events outside their own universe. It is part PR, part social engineering and part fear of being branded callous.

Now fans are expected to join tributes to ever more distant figures that have nothing to do with their club and often little to do with football.

Holly and Jessica's only connection with football was the Manchester United tops they wore. Ken Bigley's footballing allegiances were unknown.

Genuine public outcry over these issues was co-opted by the game in a ham-fisted and inconsistent way that sets an awkward precedent.

For instance, if the Soham schoolgirls, why not other gruesome murder victims?

If Ken Bigley - in Iraq at his own risk earning big money - why not the dozens of British servicemen killed in action?

You can have sympathy with, be shocked about, feel a sense of loss, without being expected to display that publicly in an arena that for many is an escape from harsh reality.

There is now a great danger of an emotional inflation that is losing all grip with reality.

The usual rate is a one minute silence. Yet Ken Bigley warranted two minutes (the same as 9/11 and twice what the Pope got) and the Tsunami was worth three minutes.

Where do you go from there? What price the Queen?

Familiarity breeds contempt. Now silences are marked by defiantly unswayed supporters quietly swigging lager in the concourse or silently texting jokes to their mates... or by outright, vocal dissent.

The silence for the Pope at Hearts v Celtic was disrupted. Perhaps it was no surprise as given the sectarian politics in Scottish football it presented an easy open goal. It is a good job they weren't at Rangers or there would have been a riot.

It is time for a return to sincerity. Clubs should ensure that moments of silence are not cheapened and are reserved for those with a real connection with their fans."

 

I blame it all on Diana myself.

Bob

 

I am not a royal myself, and don't like the queen, tbh, I couldn't really care if she should live or die, and I was quite relieved at diana's death, bit callous, but I do find them an irrelevance.

I would rather Charles be king, sooner the better, at least he sometimes speaks his mind.

Get to the point!! ok, what I am trying to say is, I dread for the queen to cop it in reality, imagine the furore? it will be terrible.

point taken and I concur wholeheartedly, its part of the media manipulative culture. I am sure they revel in their power to control our emotions.
Its almost becoming an in thing to be seen on telly either sucking off johnny wilkinson or the rugby victory, or ellen mcdyke ahhhm I mean mcarthur or mourning some famous person. I find this hero worship celebrity obsessed culture quite unpleasant.

I feel sorry for bigley, but everyone who dies deserves the same respect. I found the media coverage unbeleivable.

where is our british stiff upper lip going?

 

The thread about the pope's death showed a large degree of secularism here.

I think the idea of death is devalued. There are several points to this...

1) we've grown used to it. Turn on your television (if you have one) and you will see death. Maybe glorified, maybe horrifically false, maybe a report of thousands of dead. We are used to watching people being killed for our entertainment (ok, so it's not really REAL, but the special effects and such mean that could you really tell? Would you be able to tell the difference between a scene from a hollywood movie and a real piece of footage of someone being shot?). So when it actually happens, we go "oh, seen it before".

2) We live in a culture of now now now. Everyone wants everything buy now pay later. This is driven in no small degree by the celebrity culture, people wanting to dress like beckham, etc and they buy things they can't afford because they can pay for it over 10 years. The easy availability of credit makes this easy. The upshot of it is that people are thinking only of pleasing themselves in the now. They don't think ahead to later and that means they don't think ahead to their own death (perhaps related to the rise in secularism).

So, when something is blown up by the media (Soham, Terri Schiavo) people realise, in this shallow culture, that they have to show grief even though they don't feel it. A minute's silence is cheap and easy. All moral guilt satisfied, they go back to lusting after Gucci.

I think in the past the grief the nation felt at the death of the monarch was genuine because they had some role in people's lives, just as the pope did.

If David Beckham died in a car crash tomorrow you would see a much bigger outpouring of grief (and no doubt ever boy racer's car would fly a black flag) than you have seen in this country for the pope. And the grief would be genuine because that's who has a role in people's lives now.

 

didn;t boris johnson get tarred and feathered when he made similar observations just a few months back?
cheers


julian.

 

Diana's death was the most sickening displays of the media whipping up a frenzy that I've ever seen. Had they not made such a fuss there would have been a tiny percent of the outpouring of grief that there actually was. They too had a massive part in the Bigley affair, we are so media driven, and as Isaac so rightly said so shallow that people value celebrity more than actions. Like him or loath him the Pope was a bigger cog than that deranged ex-princess, he achieved more, and gave hope to more people. The Queen's death wil not cause half that fuss, because it won't be as glamourous. It will be treated with the pomp and cermony the Pope's was, not hauled through the gutter like Diana's.
Boris Johnson was actually right I thought, it however unfortunate that he felt the urge to target one particular city, and one particular incident, one that is particularly emotive for many reasons of course, not least because of the tragedies associated with Liverpool.

 

I rather like Boris... I think he'd be a great PM.

 

Must agree, I think we could do with a few more like Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to brighten up the day.

 

My vote is with borris, Ive got to say (controversy coming here) he hit the nail on the head over the Liverpool issue. Go there now and ask the people the name of that guy who was killed in Iraq, I cant remember it, I bet very few can and yet you'd have thought one of the beetles had be murdered. Sorry, Mr Harrison passed without a blink of the eye, I dont remember a thing happening in Liverpool. The press make him out to be a dithering fool yet he has a very strong educational background and the Spectator can be immensley cutting at times. He's also good on Have I Got News.

The original posting makes a very good point. When I went started to watch Blackburn on a regular basis in the late 80's as a youngster I honestly cant remember a minutes silence except for the Hillsborough disaster, now we have them every other bloody game. Bloody innocent millions get murdered every year, millions are born into poverty at the mercy of a corrupt regime, we can watch a city like bagdhad get bombed within an inch of its life, all live on the telly, whilst some gameshow is on the other side and yet we have a minutes silence, pages in the national press and the attention of the government for one ex-scouse who was earning £10,000s tax free in Iraq, what the hell?

 

My housemate burst in on me while I was listening to tunes (loud) on headphones to tell me Diana'd been in a car crash (this was before she died mind you). I was quite rude in my reply... ...and this for the one Royal I almost had respect for. As for the Queen, a Thunderbird puppet'd have more of an opinion. I'm with the Sex Pistols and Smiths personally... In fact, we played "God save the Queen" followed by "The Queen is dead" at midnight on New Years....

...mind you, I hope Maggie Thatcher carks it first - I'll be breaking open a bottle of bubbly when that bitch snuffs it. And you can quote me on that!

On Diana though - my mum's had dinner with her twice (early 90s, when mum did volunteer work for an AIDS respite centre) and she was apparently quite down to earth in the flesh. As for the media whipping up a frenzy - that's flippin' ironic since it's them that put her in the casket in the first bloody place!!!

Oh - was this thread about football? Sorry - never understood football and never want to! Mind you, am seeing Egham FC playing this weekend and if nothing else, the chants at the ground ALWAYS crack me up! 2001 we saw them play Staines, and the chant of choice was "We'd rather bomb Staines than Iraq" - if you've ever seen Staines, you'll know why I found THAT one amusing...

 

I like Boris, too, he's a good guy!! I am from liverpool and found the whole thing contrived.
It isn't consistent, like you say loads cop it, even on our screens every day, and don't even warrant a mention.

Anyway, Dom, when I used work around the area, I asked a guy from staines where he would live if he won the lottery...he said he wouldn't move, staines was his ideal place

SAdly, now the two most talented Beatles are now dead, all that is left is mcartney, some of whose music is a bit twee, and Richard Starkey(Ringo) from the Dingle, who wrote octopus' garden and yellow submarine...nuff said

 

He didn't write Yellow Submarine. Apart from Octopuses Garden, the only Ringo compostion the Beatles performed was 'Don't Pass Me By' on the White Album. (and what a pile of shite etc etc)