KILL THE REDEEMER
I was reading the sports page of the Sun newspaper after England's football defeat by the Ukraine last week. Most of the talk was about Rio Ferdinand's mistake that triggered England's demise. (For those of you who don't follow English Football, England were beaten 1-0 by the Ukraine after being reduced to ten men when one of their players was sent off for a foul)

The thing that struck me about the resulting media commentary was the sheer venom of the delivery and the unbelievable lack of compassion for a man who had given his all not only for Manchester United but also for the English national team.

The man in question, Rio Ferdinand has given incredible service to both club and country over the past ten or fifteen years. Infact, Ferdinand has singlehandidly saved Manchester United and England from defeat countless times not only through great defensive play but also with goals that he scored himself. I think most people would agree that for the majority of his career Ferdinand has been a tremendous ambassador for English Football.

One of the ways the human ego makes itself bigger and stronger is with criticism of others. "THEY ARE IDIOTS, THEY DIDN'T DO IT LIKE I WANTED....... EXACTLY THE WAY I WANTED...... AND NOW I'M GOING HOME WITH MY BALL AND I'M NOT PLAYING ANYMORE". Character assasination is a favourite passtime of the human ego.

One mistake, that's right, just one 'human' mistake and the hounds were at Ferdinand's door. They called for his head, they screamed at him "Useless, finished, over the hill, a disgrace" ....... it really is incredible how the human ego turns nasty when things don't go the way we demand. It almost seems like many of us are simply waiting for those people we 'supposedly' support, to make a mistake so we can unleash a barrage of insults and criticism to bolster our own ego.

England supporters? It seems to me that we would like nothing more than to see Rio Ferdinand destroyed, rotting in the gutter crying, reduced to a failure? Maybe Ferdinand's incredible success over the past fifteen years makes us feel so small in comparison that the only thing we can do to stop us from feeling like 'losers' is to assassinate Ferdinand's character and get him down to 'our' level. If we can't make it up to his level then lets get the bastard down to our level.

If Rio Ferdinand made a mistake why don't us people who 'supposedly' support England get behind him and give him our support? Surely if we want England to win we must know that making Ferdinand more nervous with a barrage of insults isn't going to help the team, infact it will make it worse. Or maybe those of us who critiqued Ferdinand are not interested in the success of the England team after all and are simply jealous of Ferdinand's success because it makes us feel small. Again, if we can't make it up to his level then lets get the bastard down to our level. They killed Jesus for the same reasons.

It's no secret that those of us who criticize others feel 'lesser' than the people we are criticizing. People who are successful get criticized much more than those that aren't. We criticize more when we don't feel good about our own lives, often when we are having difficulty in our own personal relationships. Criticism has a direct correlation with a lack of self esteem. We shun responsibility and blame others when we don't feel good about our own lives.

It's a strange concept but humans seem to need idols....... yet when we put people on a pedestal it's only a matter of time before we have to knock them down. We idolize people and mistakenly give them supernatural powers, they become ideal figures in our minds. When they eventually turn out to be mere ordinary 'humans' we pounce on them and viciously rip them to shreds....... even though most of the time they didn't ask to be on the pedestal in the first place. No doubt, criticizing others says far more about us than those we are criticizing.

There is a fantastic story that clearly describes this part of the human nature. It is the story of two homeless people talking to each other on the street.

The first homeless guy says to the second homeless guy "How did you end up on the streets"? The second home less guy said "I lived in a small town that was very poor. No one had anything. Then one day I invented a type of fertilizer that could quadruple the crops. The town started to use my fertilizer and because of the bumper crops the town became incredibly wealthy. I exported the fertilizer world wide and I shared everything I had with all the members of the town. Everyone got rich because of my fertilizer. There was no more poverty in the town because of my fertilizer. There was no unemployment in the town, everyone was rich because of the shared profits, we had the best schools in the country and all the pupils had the best results because we could afford the best teachers. People were actually living longer lives in the town because they were so healthy and happy. There was no more crime, people were less sick, people worked less hours and got paid eight times what the rest of the country got paid for the same jobs, people had six holidays a year and........."

"HOLD ON, HOLD ON" said the first homeless guy "If you did all that for the people of the town how on earth did you end up homeless on the streets?"

The second homeless guy looked him in the eye and said " I fucked that one pig".

If someone makes a mistake it seems rather cruel and vicious to judge their entire character on such a small part of their person. We instantly forget all the good they did in their life and destroy them for NOT LIVING UP TO OUR IDEALS. Yet, no one can live up to our ideals because they are ideals! They are not based in reality.

The next time we criticize someone or character assassinate them, maybe we should all have a think about where we are unhappy in our own lives and why we need to drag these people down to 'our level'.

Rio Ferdinand is a decent human being. He has worked hard and been a great servant to his club and country. We should leave him alone.