Outsiders often see the truth about a culture that the denizen cannot.
Sociologists refer to a process called a “common sense inventory”.
Basically the newcomer has to ask questions because they don’t know the rules of the culture, those historical set of assumptions that have been transmitted from childhood.
Alex Thomson is an alien who landed on Planet Fitba earlier this year.
His lack of comprehension of how things are in Glasgow has been highly instructive.
One of the things that Alex has been introduced to is the extent to which the “RFC underclass”, as he styled them on twitter, are allowed to bully and intimidate anyone who irks them.
The only remarkable thing about his blog yesterday on the Channel 4 News site was that it has taken this long for someone in the UK media to stumble upon Planet Fitba’s dirty little secret.
Alex felt no need to genuflect to the “Old Firm” fiction that there was some Rorschachian symmetry in the crime count between the two soccer tribes in Glasgow.
He simply outlined the facts and it is impossible to tell this story within the “one side is as bad as the other” framework so the Glasgow media ignore it.
As anyone in the public agencies in Glasgow will tell you privately it is the blue half of the city that is overwhelmingly the source of the city’s anti-social football problems.
Their Herrenvolk swagger imbues them with a sense of entitlement that they can behave with impunity.
They are hardly deluded in this matter as heretofore they have largely escaped any sanction from the state.
A klan apologist could argue that this is small scale stuff and people should man up.
However, broken windows can eventually lead to broken lives.
When I reported the threats against me in 2010 to An Garda Síochána were highly professional and that is because they know what the outcome can be when scum start threatening a journalist.
Subsequently, they have a Zero Tolerance approach to such “banter”.
My NUJ colleagues in Northern Ireland have met with a similar professional response from the PSNI.
These two police jurisdictions have reasons to take such things seriously, Veronica and Marty, lest we forget.
When little crimes are ignored they are, in effect, tolerated.
The perpetrator can then become the serious criminal of tomorrow.
What is needed is for everyone who is threatened by the Ibrox klan to report it to the police immediately and demand the protection of the law.
This fascist underclass needs to have manners put on them, that is why there are police and courts funded by the taxpayer.
I suspect that is what any outsider would expect a mature democracy to do with such people.
