POST-TRUTH SOFT-FEET FOOTBALL

The tribes are out again.

Fifteen years ago, my friend and I ran a youth club where the boys would come to play soft-football inside the church, just after school. It was sweaty work, racing around the carpet in socks (no shoes allowed), chasing a sponge ball between goals - but the lads we were working with loved it.

There was always controversy at those indoor footy afternoons. Every week there was at least one eruption of unfairness when a boy would complain about something that either had or hadn't happened. We had to be fair referees (while still playing, ourselves) who had to see it all and know how to deal with it within a second of it happening. Often it blew over within moments of the howl of despair, the flailing arms and the outcry against us. Occasionally, it would lead to the beginnings of a fist-fight between them.

I remember marvelling at how brazen the lies were. Kids would 'swear down' that a thing didn't happen, just after I'd seen happen with my own eyes. Then they'd cleverly switch the parameters of it to make themselves right - it was all about being rewarded for being in the right, for being convincing, even when they knew they were in the wrong. Other times, they'd say we were dry as biscuits for not spotting a thing that had happened - even though we could never be sure ourselves.

"Penalty! Oh come on, how's that not a (expletive) penalty? Are you (expletive) blind, man? Ah, you're so bad at this."

Count 1,2,3 and it's then too late to change your mind. The other team will go krakatoa if you dither now, even if you're standing there doubting yourself in your socks. But are they right? Or are they angling for a ridiculous advantage?

What I didn't expect, what I never expected, was grown ups who behave in exactly the same way. Yet here we are - stuck between the tribes while they shout in the street about who's right and who's wrong. And they are vociferous about it today!

I've also found myself falling in to the trap - you read an opinion on Twitter, and the first question you ask yourself is 'Which team are they on?' rather than, 'Are they right?' I feel as though I'm constantly questioning people's allegiance, their history, their leanings, so that I can then knowingly say: "Well of course they'd think that! They're on the red team, or they're in the blue corner." When did tribalism start trumping the truth? When did we start justifying behaviour based on allegiance, rather than actual truth?

This is where we land in the tribal economy - because everyone needs to have a tribe and a label, so we can process their thoughts and judge them without doing too much of the heavy listening. Isn't that dreadful? It's post-truth soft-feet football, but it's everywhere. The entirety of debate is black or white, and there is no grey any more. A misspoken error is always a 'lie' (or at best, an incompetent understanding of the truth) and a cheater can worm their way out of it with enough cunning and connections. There is no nuanced view - no middle ground available, you're required to pick a side in every tiresome way, and the competition for being a powerful voice on your side of the fence is feirce.

These days, those same boys push their young children to Lidl in prams and pushchairs. I see them sometimes - not always to say hello to - but I do see them, looking for all the world like real grown-up men with 13-year-old faces. I wonder whether they have to somehow arbitrate with their own children while they squabble about what happened. I wonder whether they ever think back to how they themselves were all those years ago.

And I wonder too, whether we'll figure it out as a society. It'll be tough while we have leaders who proclaim 'fake news' at every story they don't like, and news outlets that keep printing stories with a certain bias against them. That dichotomy makes all of us, all the voting grown-ups in the equation, try to figure it out. We're in a perplexing position! We're standing in our socks, trying to work out what's right and what's fair, knowing full well that we probably can't win, either way.