Cultural Crisis

Why Can’t We Talk About the Water We Swim In?

The response to Gareth Southgate’s recent BBC lecture focused on his comments about violent misogyny online – but the media doesn’t grapple with bigger questions about our society or how it problematically contributes to the culture in which we live, writes Hardeep Matharu

On a July evening in 2021, after missing a penalty and handing victory to Italy in the Euro 2020 final, a distraught Bukayo Saka was consoled on the pitch by Gareth Southgate. The England manager wrapped his arms around his teenage player, who rested his head on Southgate’s shoulder, in tears.

It was poignant. Like many others, I remembered watching the Euro 1996 semi-final at home with my family and seeing Southgate standing alone, looking down at the pitch, with his arms cradling his head, after he had missed an England penalty against Germany.

How did Southgate get from one to the other?

That was the topic of his recent Richard Dimbleby lecture for the BBC, which made headlines for his comments about the online radicalisation of boys and young men – but which also raised searching and urgent questions about the type of culture we cultivate and the ideas we collectively internalise within it.