A Sense of Detachment

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation; Jeremy Bentham

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question; John Stuart Mill

Well over 35 years ago I used to read a considerably greater number of books than I do now. Partly it was because I had sufficient leisure time to sit a while and voraciously devour the printed word, but mainly it was an insatiable desire to intellectually better myself as a prelude to escaping the NE10 culture bunker. Consequently, in the period 1981 to 1983, I was never away from the literature section of Gateshead Central Library on Prince Consort Road, while I took the concept of reading around the subject to world record levels. For my A Level English Literature, the exam board were insistent on examined texts being chosen from a set of common themes, rather than allowing a solid overview of the canon, with a reading list comprising regular multi-era and multi-genre stops from Chaucer to Hardy, as had been the case in years prior. Perhaps they were responding to the decisions made by universities, or more likely polytechnics, to offer great specialism at undergraduate level than had been the case. I’m not saying we didn’t get a proper literary grounding, as the three options we were presented with were all of intellectual merit: Revenge Tragedy (Othello, Faustus and The White Devil), the Victorian Novel (Jane Eyre, Hard Times and Jude the Obscure) and 1950s Drama (Look Back in Anger, The Birthday Party and Waiting for Godot), the latter chosen instead of the Romantics, rather implausibly, but it does seem somewhat perverse we didn’t study any poetry doesn’t it? Probably that’s why I took it upon myself to become as well-read as I could, though in a somewhat scattergun way.

Predictably, I didn’t seek to particularly broaden or deepen my knowledge of Jacobean 

dramaturgy or 19^th century prose; my obsession became 20^th century plays, whether that meant those drenched in home grown Kitchen Sink reality, continental surrealism in the tradition of the Theatres of Cruelty and the Absurd, or transatlantic, dynastic tragedy by the likes of O’Neill and Williams. Ignoring almost all other literary genres, I immersed myself in 6 decades of modern drama, as well as dramatic criticism by the likes of John Lahr and Bamber Gascoigne. Aged 17, I was as familiar with the works of Stephen Poliakoff and Barry Keefe as I ought to have been with Shakespeare or Keats, for instance. Having abandoned my earlier veneration of existentialism, as learned through the works of Camus, De Beauvoir and Sartre from mid-1979 onwards, I had allowed my head to be turned by the trenchant ideologies of the likes of Albee, Brecht and Hare. No longer was it my ambition to craft taut, enigmatic, cerebral prose; my stated aim in those heady, class conflict-soaked days was to become a revolutionary dramatist and actor. Through the force of my words, I wanted to write and to perform in plays that created the conditions necessary to bring down capitalism. There was no doubt about it; the stage was my calling and from it, I would foment insurrection. The future was written; I was off to London, to Goldsmiths College or North London Poly, to take a degree in drama and theatre studies. An actor’s life for me? I can scarcely credit I believed it possible. And a playwright; goodness, dialogue is the aspect of my writing I’ve always felt least satisfied with. In the end, I abandoned my theatrical dreams having become transfixed by Ulysses around the 100^th anniversary of Bloomsday and headed to County Derry and a degree in Anglo Irish Literature. I’ve never regretted that decision for one second.

But back to the early 80s; when I wasn’t reading, listening to John Peel or displaying incompetence with a guitar in my hand or football boots on my feet, I did watch a bit of television in those bygone halcyon days of gore. Mainly Open University sociology programmes, but also those stalwart pillars of left-wing pretension, Arena and the South Bank Show. Regardless of subject, I kept the diary clear on Sunday evenings, in the years before even VHS, to immerse myself in the world of the arts, as refracted through the reassuring, Cumbrian nasal tones of Melvyn Bragg. One particular episode in the spring of 1981 involved a lengthy interview with John Osborne, who had just published his first scabrous, vindictive volume of autobiography, A Better Class of Person. This was a must-see, on account of the fact I was studying Look Back in Anger, though I’d already denounced Jimmy Porter as a politically vacuous bourgeois dilettante to the utter disinterest of the rest of my class.

My contempt for the Angry Young Man of Straw seemed well founded, as Osborne puffed complacently on fine Cuban cigars and guzzled expensive fizz in the bucolic garden of his charming rural pile in Worcestershire, while issuing bile-flecked tirades against all those, mainly women, he felt had wronged him. Intercut with the interview, scenes from a revival of his ostentatiously offensive, dramatic disaster A Sense of Detachment seemed almost mild in comparison. Idee fixes characters, such as a pornography obsessed grandmother and a drunken lout in a football scarf were Osborne’s ham-fisted attempts to embrace Peter Handke’s doctrine of Insulting the Audience.

It’s not a play that has been remembered warmly, if at all. However I do wish the supporters of Newcastle United would take a hint about how to respond to the club’s recent on and off field events from the title of Osborne’s theatrical turkey, rather than basing their reactions on the immoderate outbursts of the characters therein. Personally, I’ve had about as much as I can take of the dull, internecine, pettifogging, grandstanding, self-publicists who comprise a significant proportion of the active NUFC social media profile and their equally vapid foes from other clubs. So many of them hail from South Tyneside, which appears to give them a sense of attachment based on insecurity regarding their black and white credentials; so much so that they seek to justify themselves by venturing some of the most illogical, foolish, immoderate opinions imaginable about Newcastle United. Presumably their hope is that they become recognised as the You Tube channel and podcast generation version of shock jocks; a lamentable aim.

Over the Festive Period, subjects as varied as: hospital visits to sick children by Newcastle and Sunderland footballers, the murder conviction of Sergeant Alexander Blackman, claims that the FA were either heroic victims of hectoring FIFA intransigence in allowing England players to wear poppies on their shirts in November,  or corrupt persecutors with an anti-NUFC agenda after banning Jonjo Shelvey for a volley of abuse directed at Romain Saiss, not forgetting the relative demerits of racism versus paedophilia have been used as kith and kindling for the vast bonfire of vainglorious babel that is the internet. In short, the season of goodwill to all men has been characterised by ranting, ill-informed tirades about crime and punishment, with retributive attitudes, as ever, shouting the loudest.

In some ways, I welcomed the Shelvey Tribunal’s verdict, as the abhorrent news vacuum created by the fixture gap after Burton away on December 17^th had allowed the most farcical of non-stories imaginable to gain traction. As has been the case for as many years as I can remember, players from football clubs visit the children’s ward of their local hospital in the run up to Christmas, dispensing gifts and hopefully learning a thing or two about humility and grace while they’re about it. This year, as ever, cameras followed Newcastle’s players into the RVI; no big deal, as it’s a story I’ve seen on the box dozens of times before. The problem, according to some on Wearside, was that Sky cameras accompanied the NUFC party this year, rather than local news reporters. Now if they were accusing the Mags of wanting to score cheap publicity by affecting a more compassionate than thou stance, I could possibly see where they were coming from; however, the righteous red and white ire was occasioned on the basis that Sky didn’t film the SAFC squad when they went visiting poorly bairns in the Royal Hospital. The suggestion was made that Sky Sports and Newcastle United were working in concert in an attempt at downplaying the deeds of the Black Cats, by denying them a similar level of televised exposure. It wasn’t and to pretend otherwise was simply the kind of pitiful, paranoid, point-scoring that does nobody any good and devalues the conduct of players and involvement of both clubs. Surely we’re all better than this? Then again, why am I surprised at senseless, false outrage?

After two losses in three league games by Newcastle United, all of which Shelvey has been suspended for, resulting in Brighton taking over at the top of the table and, more ominously, Reading closing to within 6 points with a game in hand, the chucklehead tendency on Tyneside are questioning whether Benitez should be shown the door (no really, there are some saying that). Such buffoonery has enacted the emergence of a diametrically opposed response that inflexibly denounces the nay-sayers, then goes even further by denying all supporters the right to express any criticism or dissatisfaction, with Benitez or many of the players, on pain of the Doubting Thomases or serial bedwetters being branded as traitors to the cause. My favourite pataphysical morsel from this astringent broth of stupidity, launched in the NE33 or NE34 postcode you’ll not be surprised to learn, was the proposition that stated Benitez must not be criticised because he has united all fans. Well, presumably apart from the ones who are criticising him that is. 

Sadly, as the EU referendum and the evils of democratic centralism show, binary thinking isn’t really thinking at all; it’s kneejerk, posturing populism. Our glass doesn’t need to runneth over, though nor does it have to be dashed against the rocks of despair and used to slash our collective NUFC supporting wrists. Let’s be adults about this and acknowledge this wobble is a trifle concerning, because Shelvey is apparently so indispensable as we lack any effective replacement for him. Remember it is acceptable to say we’re disappointed to have lost 7 league games thus far this season, that we feel certain players have (temporarily?) lost their power to influence play or are not really good enough now, never mind in the future, but that we trust Rafa Benitez to sort things out, providing we get a few more bodies, of the required standard to get us promoted, through the door and take the chances early on in games to put teams away. Most of all, we would appreciate it if the Twitterati  stop responding to every minor setback like Macduff learning the fate of his family in Act IV of the Scotch Play.

From my perspective, it seems that the one person who has been absolved of any blame for the club’s recent dip in form is the very person whose absence is presumably the main reason for it; Jonjo Shelvey. Back in November, I wrote a piece after he’d been charged with abusing Saiss (http://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/moroccan-roll.html), in which I stated I’d been reliably informed he’d described the Moroccan player as a fucking cous cous nonce. Now I was told this, in confidence, by an impeccable source who has subsequently explained he’d been “deliberately misinformed” by a member of the Fourth Estate. The report of Shelvey’s hearing discusses the nature of his abuse of Saiss in depressing detail and is in the public domain, so if you fancy depressing yourself a tiny bit more, go and read it yourself.

Unbeknownst to me, the huge(and I mean huge) number of hits that blog post got was mainly on account of the immoderate social media reaction of someone I know slightly, but who I didn’t think had a problem with me. Thankfully, after asking him directly about it, he apologised most profusely for his conduct and I wish him well for the future, especially in his search for a job. Statistics wise, I suppose I should thank him for the publicity.

Of course, to discuss the minutiae of the fallout from my blog is again to allow Shelvey’s responsibility to disperse into the ether. This must not happen, as the facts are clear: he was found guilty of using abusive language that was racially motivated in content and did not seek to appeal against this decision, despite claiming not to have used the terms ascribed to him. As far as I’m concerned, the main problem with Shelvey’s refusal to accept any wrongdoing, much less to display contrition, is that he has accepted the ban, which the tribunal said was meted out because of the “clear and compelling” evidence against him, rather than appeal against the decision. If Shelvey felt he was wrongly convicted, remembering that in an FA hearing like this, the verdict is reached on the balance of probabilities, unlike being proved beyond reasonable doubt as in the criminal law, he should have appealed. As he did not, he must be regarded as guilty, regardless of his futile protestations otherwise. Otherwise, the whole basis on which the FA disciplinary code is founded, namely a modified replication of the English legal system, is utterly invalidated. If we accept democracy, in the shape of free speech, human rights and the right to a fair hearing, we must embrace it in its entirety, rather than simply cherry picking the elements we agree with.

At this point, I feel it would be a good idea to suggest Rafa’s next 2 signings should be a pair of top quality utilitarians; Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. They may not adequately solve the creativity drought NUFC are suffering in Shelvey’s absence, but they can explain the logic behind why he is banned, as well as why Adam Johnson and Marine A are both in jail. As, in the absence of any appeal, we must accept Shelvey is guilty, then the next question to be addressed is what punishment is required in this instance, to maintain a sense of order in society as a whole and the professional game of football in particular.

Theories of punishment can be divided into two general philosophies: utilitarian and retributive. The utilitarian theory seeks to punish offenders, in order to discourage, or deter, future wrongdoing, while the retributive theory seeks to punish offenders because they deserve to be punished. Utilitarianism is the idea that the morally correct act is the one that produces the most benefit to society as a whole; therefore laws should be used to maximize the happiness of society.  The utilitarian theory is consequentialist in nature, recognising that punishment has consequences for both the offender and society and holds that the total good produced by any punishment should exceed the total evil. In other words, punishment should be firstly a deterrent to both the person who committed the crime from any recidivistic urges and any others who may be tempted to follow suit. Shelvey has been issued with a 5 game ban and fined £100,000; this should act a financial and personal punishment for him, as well as acting as a deterrent for others. The idea behind such sanctions is to ensure players think twice about the possible consequences of their actions, both for themselves and the potential victim, before issuing any volley of abuse at opponents.

However, of rather greater importance is the notion of rehabilitation in the utilitarian rationale for punishment. The noble goal of rehabilitation is to prevent future crime by giving offenders the ability to succeed within the confines of the law. Rehabilitative measures for criminal offenders usually include treatment for afflictions such as mental illness, chemical dependency, and chronic violent behaviour. Rehabilitation also includes the use of educational programmes that give offenders the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the job market and society as a whole. This is why Shelvey has been instructed to attend an FA education course on cultural sensitivity, which to me is of the utmost importance, as I hope he may come unilaterally to understand why his words were unacceptable and deserving of censure. I think what he was found guilty of saying was racist, but born of ignorance rather than malice; hence I believe this punishment, rather than sacking, is an appropriate sanction.

If Shelvey does embrace the fact he has done wrong, then perhaps Newcastle United fans who have hung onto his claim he didn’t say the things he was accused of, as their clear and compelling evidence of his innocence, will grasp the complexities of the case. Similarly, the Sunderland fans who accused Newcastle of hypocrisy, by seeking to compare the criminal wrongdoing of Adam Johnson with Shelvey’s conduct and demanding a parity of retribution for these unrelated cases, may begin to see the crucial illogicality inherent in their demands, providing they haven’t already worked out which is the more severe crime on the basis of the differing punishments handed down; 6 years in jail or a 5 match ban. Not only that, Shelvey’s outburst was done in a fiery anger of temper, while Johnson’s calculated abuse was characterised by the ice cool demeanour under which he cloaked his grooming.

The counterpart to the utilitarian theory of punishment is the retributive theory which states that offenders are punished because they deserve it, as their criminal behaviour upsets the peaceful balance of society. Retributive theory focuses on the crime itself as the reason for imposing punishment, which can be based on notions of vengeance that insist punishments should fit the crime. Where the utilitarian theory looks forward by basing punishment on social benefits for all, the reassurance of victims and the rehabilitation of offenders, the retributive theory looks backward, seeking to provide the victim and society with retribution and removing the human rights of the offender that utilitarianism seeks to defend. Retribution, at its most elemental level, can be seen as little more than cold-blooded revenge.

The Shelvey verdict sparked a couple of further crazy claims by internet weirdos, seeking to draw risible parallels with both FIFA’s fine on the home nations for wearing poppies on their shirts and making official, choreographed displays in the stands, in the November international series and the Ministry of Defence’s treatment of Alexander Blackman. I’ve said this before, but ten years ago these two were non-stories, before the Help for Heroes veneration of militarism, as the first wouldn’t have happened and the second wouldn’t have been regarded as newsworthy. For instance on May 8^th 1995, the 50^th anniversary of VE Day, we played away to Blackburn and a minute’s silence was observed before kick-off. The only obvious display of conspicuous patriotism I saw in Ewood Park that night was a small, plastic Union flag, presumably from a child’s beach toy, held aloft by a bloke a couple of rows in front of me. Before the referee’s whistle, he had taken the folded, plastic A4 flag from his back trouser pocket, smoothed it out, then held it aloft. Nobody commented; perhaps, like me, we were all a trifle embarrassed and unsure what to say. Those days are long gone. At the current level of nationalistic fervour, the 75^th anniversary of the end of WW2, as observed in football grounds, will be more akin to May Day in Red Square circa 1975 than anything so understated as a simple moment of reflection. Surely we’re getting things out of proportion here?

As a pacifist I don’t, won’t and never will wear a poppy, but it didn’t offend me that England, Scotland and Wales did in the recent internationals. As an Ireland fan, I thought the commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of the Easter Rising on shirts for the friendly with Switzerland was a wonderful gesture of remembrance. I also knew as soon as I heard about it, that FIFA would fine the FAI for the use of a political symbol in a sporting context, which they did to the tune of about £5k. Now, that was back in March 2016, while the poppy games were in November, long after FIFA had already turned down a request from the English and Scotch FAs to allow a poppy motif on their shirts. Furthermore, FIFA had warned the respective FAs not to make any political gestures before or during games. This instruction was ignored and inevitable fines, far higher than Ireland’s, were imposed. Let’s be clear about this; the reason for that was to punish the two associations for ignoring a clear instruction, not for commemorating the sacrifices of those who had bravely fell in fray. Now the choice is clear for the panjandrums at both St. George’s Park and Park Gardens; either pay up, having made your point, then put forward a resolution to FIFA, ask for them to clarify the regulation regarding political symbols, or fail to pay the fine and get kicked out of international football, like a Sunday pub side obtaining a sine die ban until they pay off the money they owe for yellow cards. Obviously, the account, as well as the dust, has been settled, though I do find it deeply depressing how, in the minds of the ultra-Brexit new nationalists, the FA were able to go from being bastions of poppy armband wearing, patriotic fervour, to contemptible, politically correct witch finder generals when it came to punishing Shelvey.

The craziest of all opinions was the one comparing the fines the English, Scotch and Welsh FAs had imposed on them for wearing poppies with the case of Alexander Blackman, but not in the way you’d imagine.  As has been pointed out, the home football associations all knowingly broke FIFA rules, by displaying what could be regarded as political symbols in their stadia, while Blackman himself admitted immediately after the murder of an the Iraqi civilian that has caused his incarceration, "I just broke the Geneva Convention." Therefore, it would logically seem that guilt is the common factor; au contraire in the Twittersphere. Apparently what binds the home FAs and Alexander Blackman with either Jonjo Shelvey or Adam Johnson, depending which football team is forced to endure the ludicrous patronage of the terminally hard of thinking, is that they are all victims of tragic miscarriages of justice and political correctness gone mad. Now considering Blackman has had his sentence for cold-blooded retributive murder reduced from a fairly modest 10 years and has another appeal pending, I think he has been treated remarkably leniently when compared to a common or garden killer in Civvy Street. One wonders just what the hell Stuart Mill and Bentham would make of such illogical, anti-syllogisms.  For a start, they’d be rightly nonplussed by the insistence on finding points of commonality between football and military invasions. Presumably they’d then suggest the world would be a much better place if we all shut up and did some thinking, before attempting to comment from a slightly more informed perspective than is the norm these days.