Posted on 12/14/2005 11:05:36 AM PST by neverdem
The death of a dissolute soccer star sends England into a frenzy of ersatz grief.
The death from alcoholism at 59 of a famous soccer player has proved that the mass hysteria that followed Princess Diana’s demise was by no means an aberration in British life but rather a permanent feature of it.
Born into a working-class Northern Irish Protestant family, George Best was possibly one of the most talented soccer players ever. Slight in build, he was extremely handsome and once had considerable charm. He played for Manchester United and sometimes was called the fifth Beatle.
Unfortunately, his abilities began to decline as he started to live the high life. He was at his peak for perhaps four years. He soon became an alcoholic. Later, rather disarmingly, he said that he had spent a lot of money on drink, women, and gambling—the rest he just frittered away.
His long decline was in fact extremely sordid. He was violent to women, none of whom could tolerate him for long. He frequently appeared dead drunk in public and once went briefly to prison for drunk driving. He never gave up drinking, despite having had a liver transplant at 56.
The outpouring of ersatz grief that followed his death was extraordinary. His death filled the press and the airwaves of Britain and Ireland for days. No reference to him was complete without the word “genius.” No one dared say that soccer, however well played, remains relatively low on the scale of human accomplishments, just as no one dared say, in the days after Diana’s death, that her life had not been a model of selflessness.
Journalistic intellectuals fell over themselves to see deep positive significance in Best and his soccer game, placing him at the forefront of 1960s liberation. One journalist said that he made a whole generation feel that anything was possible, and another said that he was the first rock’n’roll soccer star (on the same day, this journalist’s newspaper reported that a fifth of British girls self-mutilate, no doubt as a result of their liberation).
He received the biggest public funeral since Princess Diana’s: hundreds of thousands turned out for it; mountains of flowers and teddy bears piled up at several locations.
In the immediate aftermath of a man’s death, we should doubtless overlook his faults for a time or at least treat them with charity. But it is surely disturbing that a man who possessed for only a few years a major talent at a minor accomplishment, and whose subsequent life became a prolonged descent into squalor, both physical and moral, should have provoked such a public outpouring of emotion over his death. It is a sign of deep shallowness and emotional emptiness. More surprising, perhaps, was the absence of feminist protest at the secular canonization of a man who mistreated women on an almost industrial scale.
Why is it that popular icons of the sixties’ counter-culture seem exempt from all criticism?
Rue Brittania!
I agree. Whatever happen to British stoicism--and standards?
Because their peers control most of the MSM.
He was still the best player I ever saw. What a shame he wasted such talent.
Sports fanaticism gone too far. Reminds me of my senior year in college, as the OJ trial was winding down, and the eventual verdict. It wasn't as much a black vs. white thing as it was a sports thing. Maybe it was just my perception of people in my immediate vicinity, but diehard football fans seemed to give him more of a pass than the rest of us.
"Why is it that popular icons of the sixties’ counter-culture seem exempt from all criticism?"
Because, more than 2000 years later, we still love our gladiators.
It's not any different from the millions who worshipped Mickey Mantle, even though he drank like a fish, cheated on his wife, and was terrible to the fans.
It actually remains relatively low on the scale of sport accomplishments as well.
just as no one dared say, in the days after Diana’s death, that her life had not been a model of selflessness.
No one dared say that she was a slut, either.
*DING*
It's all the same as when any high-viz person gets HIV, he is hailed as "courageous."
How does getting infected with HIV show courage?
Whatever.
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I'm going down to Memphis Memphis, Tennessee I'm going down to Graceland Thinking about the King Remembering him sing About those heavenly mansions Jesus mentioned Can't you just imagine Digging up the King Begging him to sing About those heavenly mansions Jesus mentioned He went walking on the water He went walking on the water He went walking on the water With his pills Can't you just imagine Digging up the King Begging him to sing About those heavenly mansions Jesus mentioned |
Whatever happen to British stoicism--and standards?
They were actually Victorian-era holdovers, and most were already passe by 1960. In fact in modern Britain, vulgarism and extreme moral decays seem to be the rule of the day. Want anything remotedly Victorian in values? Go to America.
Maybe it is due to the pendulum effects?
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