Brexit & Cods Wallop

cods-wallop-brexit

In most traumatic situations, it’s helpful to zoom out. In a week, for example, when the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union and England lost to Iceland, I recall a conversation I had with my father-in-law late last year when Vladimir Putin was advancing on Ukraine. As a committed historian, I asked him how long he estimated it would take humanity to zoom out and focus on, well, humanity.

“Oh, another 4,000 years.”

It’s disappointing to see your national team flounder so confusingly, but there’s some solace in how much England’s 2-1 defeat to Iceland will have truly devastated those who voted ‘Leave’ for horrible reasons.

In David Mccandleuss’ new book Knowledge is Beautiful, an infographic of the future notes that if civilisation collapses today, then in 1,000 years time, most buildings, bridges and dams currently upright will have fallen. It also projects that due to the rapid evolution of languages, no single present day word will have survived. The ‘SEE EU LATER’ and ‘COD HELP US’ headlines will need to be translated, via artificial intelligence, to a more enlightened readership.

Whatever it was that happened to kick off the cognitive revolution 70,000 years ago, civilisation came to be because we developed an imagination. This, combined with supple language, meant that for better and worse we started to discuss things that weren’t real.

If we were only able to speak about real things, like rivers, trees and lions, then we would not have been able to create nationalities, churches, legal systems or scathing editorials that zoom in unfairly on a few but ignore the longstanding faults of many.

Inventing stories is relatively easy, but the hard part is getting people to believe them. When they do, strange, powerful and dangerous things happen, like Britain leaving the EU, or people pointing fingers at Sterling, Kane and Rooney.

So, what do we do now? I’m not well equipped for Brexit. I don’t know who is. How nasty – and xenophobic – the spirit of the leave campaign was. For all Jean-Claude Juncker’s curtness in the European Parliament this morning, it was in the face of the ugliest crowing by Nigel Farage. What a mess.

But I can talk about football. Last week, I attended a course by the World Football Academy and led by Raymond Verheijen. Verheijen is divisive, but this course was the best of all the classes, lectures, conferences or seminars I’ve ever attended. The attendees all agreed to secrecy about the content, but this morning Verheijen took to Twitter to make some suggestions for what next for England. Dear FA, here are three places to start: