Among The Thugs Again: Devotion Curdling Into Violence

"We look forward to Saturdays, all week long. It's the most meaningful thing in our lives. It's a religion, really. That's how important it is to us. Saturday is our day of worship"

Richard in Among the Thugs

When does it go off?

When does devotion turn into fanaticism? When do the intense feelings of devotion, the one-pointed approach to someone or something, fueled by what Freud describes as an "oceanic feeling", beyond the pale and the mundane, the aching desire for meaning, fulfillment, happiness, and seeming sense, curdle into the kind of fanaticism which then fuels any and all means of violent expression? 

In Bill Buford's Among the Thugs, The English Football Saturday is the weekly religion of the bloke, the young English man, struggling to get by in an increasingly corporatized and globalized world, yet still full of the all of the privilege centuries of empire and colonization can buy. The bloke claims that the ritual of the Football Match, where he is a supporter of the Football Club, the totem of civic pride, is simply an event of communal enjoyment giving deep meaning in an increasingly meaningless world. The bloke/supporter simply is there "for the laugh...and the drink and the football."

Yet, in the context of Thugs, in the 1980's English football world, where Buford, as an American journalist, decided to immerse himself in the world of English football supporters, sometimes it goes off. Sometimes the devotion of English Football Saturday becomes the setting for literally skull and rib-cracking violence, committed against anyone who can be labeled the Other.

Buford describes a trip with a group of very drunk, very sunburnt, very half-conscious Manchester United supporters to a 1984 UEFA Cup-Winners Cup match in Turin, Italy against Juventus. The initial problem with this trip by the blokes was that the blokes were not supposed to be there. Because of a stream of violent incidents preceding them everywhere that they went, their own Club, the very totem of their devotion, had banned them from traveling to away matches, especially to away matches in other parts of Europe. 

Yet the blokes, to a man, as Buford was able to shed off a bit of his American foreignness and earn the trust of the blokes, told him that they were simply there for the laugh and the drink and the football. They were adamant that they were simply supporters of the Club, devotees of the Club, there for a very important European match, there with no intention of creating the kind of violence which on every level can be considered psychotic and terroristic.

Yet Buford will next horrifically recall and reveal, with a literary panache which makes you feel and sense and smell the physical crack of the violence itself, how it went off. 

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In Hindu/Vedic sacred and philosophical texts, the art and act of devotion, like nearly every element of material existence, can be framed through the three gunas, or modes of nature. The practice and expression of devotion for someone and something can either be in the guna of sattva (goodness/peacefulness/nonviolence/contemplation), rajas (passion/intensity), or tamas (darkness/ignorance/violence). Yes, ideally devotion to the Divine, as also explained in texts like the Bhagavad-Gita, is actually beyond these gunas. This ideal devotion is explained as the practice of bhakti-yoga, or the yoga of selfless love. 

A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, one of the preeminent contemporary scholar/teachers of the Gita, describes that the mode of goodness, sattva, is the platform to practice our devotion in a more loving and selfless way. He writes that "when the mode of goodness is developed, people will see things as they are...when they are actually educated in the mode of goodness, they will become sober, in full knowledge of things as they are. Then people will be happy and prosperous."

Yet, when we consider the history, philosophy, theory, and practice of religion, we are confronted with the mystery and the reality that our devotion often curdles into these other gunas. The passion of our devotion can so easily lead into a vision of the world where our sober and clear understanding of our inherent interconnectedness with all other planetary beings curdles into a conviction of Otherness towards those who do are not our immediate kin or who don't share our exact convictions of devotion. Our devotion then enters into tamas, where we find ourselves thinking and feeling, to the seeming core of our being, that we are justified committing the worst violence against those we consider the Other.

Mark Juergensmeyer, in his book Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, writes:

"Since public violence is a display of power, it appeals to those who want to make dramatic statements and reclaim public space. In moments of social transition and uncertainty it can simultaneously hold both political currency and religious meaning...This is one of history's ironies, that although religion has been used to justify violence, violence can also empower religion."

The intersection of religious feeling and violent expression is one of humanity's most intense crises, whether we consider this intersection in more "traditionally" extremist religious veins such as the presence and phenomenon of ISIS, of Buddhist violence against the Rohingya community in Myanmar, of Hindu violence against Dalit communities, and Christian histories of Crusades and more contemporary expressions against, for example, the LGBTQ community worldwide, or in more out-of-the-usual religious box extremist veins such as the religion of white supremacy committing violence against black bodies/bodies of color or, as in our current case, the religion of the English football thug against everyone who does not represent their exact flavor of thuggery. 

This crisis is of deep existential import, for it not only threatens the most vulnerable members of our human family, but also the very fabric of our planet itself. I don't think we can deepen our understanding of this crisis, and our understanding of how to solve this crisis, until we attempt, as Buford did, to enter into the very experience, the very hearts and minds, of those whose devotion has completely curdled into violence. 

Our instinct, when faced with people using their devotion to commit violence against that which we hold dear, is to Other them, to make them the enemy in return, and this sentiment has immense truth and justification behind it. We are never to coddle or excuse those who commit such violence, but I argue that if we dehumanize them in return, the crisis of devotion-into-violence will only increase. The mystery of why devotion curdles into violence exists in the hearts and minds of human beings who feel completely justified in their ways and means. We have to confront their justification with all of our courage and condemnation, yet we have to hold them, in a kind of compassion which seems impossible but which is all too necessary, as fellow human beings with the same fundamental desire and concern for meaning, love, happiness, and fulfillment as we have. To make it plain, we have to try to know them as we know ourselves. 

In our next blog, we will follow Buford deeper into his immersion and experience as he reveals what it means when it "goes off", when the devotion of the Manchester United supporters becomes violence against everything which is Other to them. Shockingly, their violence is both chaotic yet deeply and distinctly structured, completely illogical yet intelligently explained, and never disconnected from the very fabric of their devotion. 

The Gordie Howe Hat Trick as a Religious Practice

I would be remiss not to mention the passing of Gordie Howe, the legendary Detroit Red Wing known as "Mr. Hockey." As I was born and raised in suburban Detroit, the sport of hockey is indeed hallowed and holy to my own life. Detroit is self-styled as "Hockeytown" and the proof is empirical ("Detroit is still the best hockey city in America")

Gordie Howe, by so many measures, is considered the best hockey player of all-time. He is the only professional hockey player to have played in six decades, debuting with the Red Wings at the age of 18 in 1946 all the way to a special one-time appearance with the Detroit Vipers in 1997. His actual last full season as a pro hockey player was in 1979-1980 at the age of 52 for the Hartford Whalers, playing with his sons Mark Howe and Marty Howe, where he scored 41 points-15 goals and 26 assists-and played in the 1980 NHL All-Star Game at the newly christened Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

In his 25 pro seasons, he was an All-Star 23 times, and he was in the top 10 in scoring for 21 consecutive seasons. He won the Stanley Cup, the ultimate team prize in the sport, with the Red Wings four times. He won the Hart Trophy, for league most valuable player six times, and the Art Ross Trophy, for league leading scorer, six times. Only "The Great One" himself, Wayne Gretzky, has scored more goals over the course of an entire career.

Following Gordie's passing on June 10th, two main narratives have emerged from his life and career. First, how incredibly skilled and tough he was on the ice. The quantity of his numbers has a direct correlation to the quality of his toughness. The sharpness of his elbow, the paunch of his punch, and the snakiness of his stick play (all adorably demonstrated on Keith Olbermann in this classic "This is Sportscenter" commerical) was his mad game. Hockey is still one of the most physical sports on the planet, but the classic toughness of Gordie Howe has been tempered for many different reasons, especially the NHL's own concussion crisis which has come about as players have become bigger and stronger and quicker than ever. 

The second narrative which has come out of Gordie's passing was his incredible humility, openness, and graciousness in his relationship to his many, many fans and well-wishers. It's not hyperbole to say if you lived in Detroit you either had a wonderful story of meeting Gordie or knew someone who met him. My uncle John and my cousins Jacob and Johnny, the most devoted and talented hockey players in my own family, met Gordie once and spent nearly an hour with him talking shop and getting encouraged to be the best players and people they could be.

It wasn't so much that Gordie went out of his way to make time with his fans and well-wishers. The time and energy he spent, his graciousness and humility, was his way. My hometown Detroit Free Press has a ton of great articles which reveal this part of Gordie's legacy, so check out the links to learn more: From Jeff Seidel, Helene St. James, Mitch Albom, Drew Sharp, Scotty Bowman, Steve Yzerman, Wayne Gretzky and more great tributes from the eulogy at his funeral by his son Murray Howe, and so many of his fans, friends, and well-wishers. 

Gordie also became famous for what became known as the "Gordie Howe Hat-Trick", getting a goal, assist, and having a fight all in one game. I was shocked to learn from Katie Baker, the great hockey journalist from The Ringer, that Gordie himself only accomplished this feat twice in his career. Of course what we do here at Sports Theology is stretch the bounds of sport and faith to see if they can fit together, so in that spirit, in Gordie's spirit, let me briefly explain how the "Gordie Howe Hat-Trick" can be a kind of daily religious practice.

1. Goal: What are we trying to accomplish in the practice of our faith? What is the goal? Are we trying to escape the world? Save the world? Find ourselves? Lose ourselves? Escape from other people? Save other people? In the Bhagavad-Gita, one of the classic wisdom texts of the Hindu/Vedic spiritual tradition from India, the nature of action and the motivation behind our action is explained as such: "You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty."

How to understand this seemingly contradictory instruction in a colloquial way? In performing action, and in being motivated to perform action, we must understand our sense of duty and obligation in performing right action, or dharma. However, in performing that right action, we must not be selfishly attached to the results of our actions. If we cling to these results in a destructive self-absorbed way, we are no longer performing right action. We must also understand that the results of our action are always the result of collaboration and community, even if the effects of this collaboration is subtle. Our ancestors and predecessors have always laid the path and the way for what we do and what we accomplish. We have a responsibility to them and to all living beings to perform our right action for the benefit of all. That is the goal of our right action.

2. Assist: The goal of our right action is the way our right action assists all living beings in performing their own right action. Both Hindu and Buddhist traditions talk about the concept of seva, or selfless, devoted service, ideally done with love and devotion, or bhakti, for the pleasure, benefit, health, and well-being of everyone we encounter. Our goal actually is to always assist others in the performance of right action. Our duty to assist places us firmly in the chain of right action which is the active and immanent presence of the Divine in the world all around us.

3. Fight: One of the greatest modern advances in theology has been the conviction that knowledge of the Divine must always correlate and create righteous action of justice for the most vulnerable living beings in our society and on the planet. From the "Social Gospel" to liberation theology to Womanism, we understand that the way we think and act as people of faith must never be disconnected from the suffering of our neighbor. Theology without this connection to the righteous action of justice is not actually theology, for it only represents spaced-out abstractions rather than the spark and flame of resisting injustice and oppression which is the actual reality of Divine knowledge.

As Gustavo Gutierrez writes in his classic tome A Theology of Liberation, our freedom in faith comes from our willingness to fight against what oppresses and separates us. He writes:

"The freedom to which we are called presupposes the going out of oneself, the breaking down of our selfishness and of all the structures that support our selfishness; the foundation of this freedom is openness to others. The fullness of liberation-a free gift from Christ-is communion with God and with other human beings."

I won't say Gordie Howe was a theologian or a saint, but when we recall his life and the way he related to so many people, we see someone who understand this simple Divine truth of opening up and going out to others. He leaves behind so many living memories and for all Detroiters and hockey fans everywhere his spirit remains ever-fresh.