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LadyEllen -> RE: Britain battles drunk, violent youths (8/16/2007 2:27:00 AM)
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I'm sorry NG. You tell us at one and the same time that you have little experience of these sort of incidents, yet then feel able to attempt to quell the very real fear about the whole situation? And for the record, I'm not interested in 19th century sociological comparisons - the UK today is very different to the Great Britain of then. Yes though, there has always been street violence, but this is of an entirely different flavour to any other we have seen.
The main difference? A total lack of fear for any consequences whatsoever; from authority, from parents and from ordinary people in the street. The reason for this? The granting of adult rights to those not mature enough to handle them alongside a diminuition in terms of consequences by way of the same rights. Children are no different to adults in this way of course - a certain proportion will welcome their rights and respond accordingly - others will run wild. And by children, I think really we can assume up to age 21; becoming an adult at 16 was all well and good in the "good old days" when one left school at 14 to start work, but we should not expect the same today when we keep our offspring as children - that is dependent, until far later.
We must also consider the refrain of MC (and myself) about the Thatcher era, which destroyed not only society but also any sense of what is fair and right - a nebulous idea to be sure, yet one we all seem to share. The outcome of her disastrous rule we are experiencing now, in a culture which has been taught that its OK to do whatever as long as one can get away with it. And more than that, that its good to get away with it and to make the biggest noise in doing so. Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg, for the housing policy of the Thatcher years is also haunting us now I believe with young people unable to get housing and finding it pointless to save, they use all their disposable income on being loud, getting drunk and being proud of it.
And then, there is the definite ending of the era of rebellion that started in the 60s. For decades there were figureheads for rebellion, political messages to attach to rebellion and things worth struggling against and for. And there was a sense of what the country was, British identity was, against which to define rebellion. In the days of personality politics and a pea soup of policy indiscernible between movements, a lack of any common identity, with the ending of class war (so say) there is nothing to identify with or to define onesself against. Meanwhile, the classless society does exist, if we are to exempt from that view that there is a strong underclass and an elite of super rich "stars" whose fame is their claim to fame to which the young aspire. It could be you, after all - but it aint likely to be. But in the meantime they all seem to feel they only wait for opportunity and should be entitled to special treatment and allowance now, as super rich stars of the future.
All this contributes to the difference in the type of violence and obnoxious behaviour we are experiencing in our towns and cities these days. This violence is not for monetary gain, its not about any issue. Its about the breaching of a sense of entitlement these youths feel they have to run amok with no come back from anyone. Intervention brings not resistance, but indignant and vicious assertion of entitlement.
Until we deal with children as children, provide adequate deterrent - not through the courts but through wide societal censure, acquire a sense of who we are as a nation and what we stand for, resolve the inequities brought about by the rampant consumerism we live in, provide futures for people and sort out our politics (PR would be good), we can only expect more of the same.
And God help the first person who intervenes and wins the fight with these youths, ' cause the justice system surely will not.
E
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