From transferring footballers to AI talent, we over-value each other

Building our value on cashflow crumbles our self-esteem

Jamie Mulvaney

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

Three Manchester United footballers with their arms around each others backs.

Mert0804, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Premier League footballers not only have millions of pounds, but millions of accountants. Yes, that's right: I've had my morning coffee and the editor didn't miss that sentence. There are millions of armchair accountants. You know, the bean counters many of us effortlessly transform into when it's transfer season.

Pick your channel - everyone seems to be asking 'is Rasmus Højlund really worth that much?' Your heart mightn't bleed for him - as he is handsomely compensated - but at least spare a thought for him and the crushing weight of critics and their expectations of his performance.

Footballers aren't alone. Whether it's bankers' bonuses, the excesses of the offers to top AI engineers… OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims that Meta have offered his employees bonuses of $100 million to recruit them. Other recent valuations of companies have raised $1 and $2 billion. The Economist says that AI valuations are 'verging on the unhinged’.

Armchair accountants actually look a lot like jurors. But who are we to judge? The figures might seem silly money, but the stakes are higher than fantasy football or Monopoly. In Build the Life You Want, Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey call out the way we objectify people at work over performance or pay:

'It’s pretty easy to see why we shouldn’t objectify others. Less obvious but equally troubling is when the objectifier and the person being objectified are one and the same—when you objectify yourself.'

Building our value on cashflow, Instagram likes and the like crumbles our self-esteem and all the health and social issues that come with that. In the arena of our own workplace, they write that self-objectification 'is a tyranny. We become a terrible boss to ourselves, with little mercy or love.’

You only have to peer into the comments section any any online article (not just sport) to see how callous and unforgiving apparently polite, middle-class society has become. It's hard not to have the sneaking suspicion that our devaluing of others thinly veils the way we've devalued ourselves.

The way out of this is to detach our value from our pay and work. So, take Rasmus Højlund, transferred to Manchester United in 2023 for £64million. I would argue his worth is a lot more than £64 million. But that is because his performance, for this exercise, is irrelevant. This is not a new notion. For millennia, the Christian notion of grace is not only the entry-point of faith, but the operating system, with perfect performance already having been achieved by a saviour. The 'ultimate price', paid by God, is of such immeasurable worth and value that Rasmus, or any of us, are worth significantly more than £64million.

But then the problem arises that Christians can still struggle with feeling like an expensive disappointment, unable to live up to the spiritual 'transfer fee'. Is it really worth me accepting the biblical claims of the price paid by Jesus on the cross if I just pile on guilt? Well, if you feel like a star signing, you've probably missed the point. But equally, if you feel like a flop, there's the need to recognise that value and worth was never rooted in your performance in the first place. There's a very different set of rules. It's not a zero-sum game of competition where players and managers are ruthlessly eliminated. The Bible paints the picture of a God not so much ruthless as he is reckless.

When Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son, squandering his father's wealth, only to be welcomed, restored and celebrated with open arms, the word 'prodigal' that's been attached to this parable even more appropriately describes the father: 'recklessly extravagant' and 'having spent everything'. Whatever our own estimations – or those of others – actually don't matter. £64million might feel like an absurd and unreal amount of money – but it isn't Monopoly money. Those figures have actually been transferred. And just because we can't see or feel the price that has been paid, doesn't make it any less real or consequential. Not only is your guilt traded away from you, but your rights to self-judge.

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War & peace

9 December 2024

6 min read

So, what are the prospects for peace and good will?

2025 will need the reconcilers, and their pain.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson Csorba works in deep tech, following experience in geopolitics and energy.

Two people down a table turn and listen to someone closer talk, against a wall mural.

Reconciliation event, Northern Ireland.

Telos Group.

As we approach 2025, a series of skirmishes are erupting that warn us of impending danger. In Syria, Turkish-backed rebel forces have overtaken Aleppo, taking advantage of Russia’s focus on Ukraine. Pro-Europe protestors in Georgia demonstrate at the country’s parliament in Tbilisi. And South Korea declares martial law in response to purported North Korean threats. President-elect Trump jokes – with much truth in jest – about Canada becoming the 51st state.

As the world awaits the inauguration of President-elect Trump on January 20, 2025, we are in an in-between state. But there is more feeling of foreboding than of future peace. A ceasefire has been agreed between Israel and Hezbollah, but with rocket fire continuing to be exchanged and Israel yet to respond to Iran’s October missile barrage while Iran pursues nuclear capability. In the United States, Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel warns of Chinese ambitions to take Taiwan not in 2027 – as commonly believed – but rather in 2025.

Even if only temporarily, there will be a pause in early 2025 from the conflicts we have been accustomed to over recent years. The inauguration of President-elected Trump will, in all likelihood, put an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russian agreement for peace will be secured, however, only in exchange for Ukrainian territorial concessions. Israel will maintain a ceasefire with Hezbollah while American support helps to remove the remnants of Hamas in Gaza. With American backing, Israel and Saudi Arabia will restart the historic Abraham Accords process as we enter the Spring.

Yet this pause and these short-term successes will be ephemeral and deceiving, an interlude prior to the much greater threats in store. Antonio Gramsci’s ‘The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters” is often quoted with a tinge of optimism, as if the monsters are here for a moment, but soon to be overcome. Unfortunately, the monsters of our times are well-entrenched, and they are gathering energy for their next acts. And they appear from all sides, as the lesser rather than greater aspects of men and women take centre stage in our politics, whether in the political West or Global East.

In this world of monsters, division and difference is the default approach to human relationships. We have become numb to these words, but what division and difference signify is a profound weakness in modern men and women bereft of love. Too many men and women prefer basking in their own and others’ flaws, to a striving to overcome these in favour of what we may individually and collectively achieve – if only we tried. We are living in a period of darkness seeking to dampen the light and diminish the spirit of those pursuing the good.

Division is easy. It is natural. It is emotional. Its focus is the lowest element of ourselves and of others. In comparison, togetherness is faith. It sees the hidden potential of another. Togetherness is unnatural. Togetherness flows from faith and is the unseen-become-reality. It recognises the seeds of good in another, understanding that each person is composed of many contrasting sides, some bad, some good, but the good the more powerful of the two. Togetherness is a choice. It is a choice to water the seeds of faith with patience, to see what these seeds might become with time, consistency, and effort (while maintaining balance of personal space and social connections, as both are vital for emotional wellbeing).

There is no bridging of divides, no reduction of division, no togetherness, without pain. This is a lesson for the world’s current and future reconcilers across all walks of life.

In an age of growing division and conflict, togetherness is barely visible. Yet reconciliation remains possible. In fact, it is precisely in these times, when the odds are against the peace of togetherness, that reconcilers in politics, business, academic, non-profit and community sectors are called to step forward with purpose. It is precisely when there is little faith or hope in the future that reconciliation – an act of love – is demanded.

Reconciliation is the restoration of a favourable relationship between oneself and others. It is achieved through sacrifice. The reconciler experiences pain in order to restore relationships. Reconciliation is built on love for other persons, in spite of their flaws and their continuous resistance, as well as their lack of faith, love and hope at many times. It requires a healthy self-love, in which we seek the fulfilment of our own good as a basis for doing so for others.

Next to love, the main ingredient of reconciliation is pain, because those who have become estranged fight, they resist, they go back on what they said they would do, they vacillate between good and evil, and they contest the reconciler. The reconciler will die, or come close to dying, at certain points in the reconciliation process. And yet the reconciler is raised following death, defeat only a stepping-stone to the triumph of togetherness.

The reconciler turns the pain involved in bringing together otherwise conflicting groups, peoples or nations into something much more positive. They internalise pain, incorporating it into their being. This is achieved through love, which enables patience, always seeing the bigger picture and the potential of people. Love is the basis for action to bring others together and keep them together, appealing to their better sides, despite the human tendency to corrupt the good.

People talk nowadays about the need to ‘bridge divides’ and that we are ‘better together.’ We need, for instance, to bridge divides between regions and capitals, such as between Alberta and Canada, or Québec and Canada in the Canadian context, or between the North East and London, or with Northern Irish reconciliation, in the United Kingdom. But these are easy things to say. More difficult is realising that the process of reconciliation is painful and that leaders seeking reconciliation – at local, regional or national levels – must first become experienced in suffering.

This experience can only be the result of a prior education in the value of pain, knowing that the joy of togetherness is most profound when preceded by a patient and humble suffering. There is no bridging of divides, no reduction of division, no togetherness, without pain. This is a lesson for the world’s current and future reconcilers across all walks of life, as we enter a world even more replete with conflict. And in reconciliation, it is always unclear what the outcome is going to be. A person’s efforts could be all for naught, faithful efforts then a matter of failure and bitterness, rather than of sweet accomplishment.

Anyone seeking reconciliation in a more dangerous world must first die to their previous lives of division. They must leave this self in the past, shedding it. They must become new persons, imbued with love, believing in human potential, who want others to succeed and who are ready to fight to achieve this success. But reconcilers must always fight with love as the foundation of their efforts, and with faith that they will win in their fight, that their efforts will be successful. This faith goes against what is seen – the odds are rarely if ever in reconcilers’ favour.

We need reconcilers in our day and age. These individuals are in short supply, but they are key to the futures of nations and to the health of our geopolitics. They are the politicians - elected and those behind the scenes - the businesspeople, and the local community leaders who can see the bigger picture and articulate it, keep focused on the potential of those around them, and bear the suffering involved in fulfilling potential.

The present wars and skirmishes as we enter 2025 will temporarily lessen. They will even pause. We should not be surprised when these re-emerge with more intensity over the next year. This is precisely when many will be called to strive for togetherness in the face of division, knowing that reconciliation is strength in the face of the reality of human weakness. Reconciliation is always a possibility.