Then this afternoon I was chatting to a PA from South Africa who commented that, despite the constant threat of car-jacking and gang rape at home, at least "the young people aren't like the thugs you see here."
"I blame the permissive Sixties," I replied. "It stems from the moral relativism of back then when everyone was raised to question, if not attack, the status quo. Maybe it was due to the loss of empire whereby the middle class, finding itself without a role, so to speak, turned on itself in an orgy of self-loathing. In any case, it meant that all the traditional figures of authority were mocked to irrelevance..."
Well, something like that anyway... although of course the middle classes simply deconstructed the old elite to become, well, the new elite. It was the working classes that went on to truly turn their backs on the old culture of deference... and hurl water bombs at me and thee.
What's telling though is that you don't really see the same kind of behaviour anywhere else. Certainly not continental Europe where, despite the trauma of war and occupation, the young mostly grow up as reasonably law abiding, respectful citizens who wouldn't be out of place in 1950's England...
So is it empire, class, hippies, out-dated licencing laws, conscription, the birch, ASBOs, Maggie Thatcher, Rupert Murdoch or Richard Littlejohn who is to blame? Or is it none of these? Is it, rather, a return to our natural state? Haven't the English always been in reality the opposite of their stiff-upper-lipped international stereotype?
A cab being sent for, six of us crammed in.... we had got to Covent Garden when Pott, thinking the driver was not going fast enough, damned his blood and bid him move on. The driver made a gruff answer, which offended Bob, who poked at him through the front window. The driver instantly returned the complement and Pott, in a violent rage, plunged through the window and started pummeling the fellow with all his might. After a sharp but short conflict, they tumbled together off the box into the street. A mob collecting, a general engagement ensued. The battle ended with the three of us being seized and dragged to the watchhouse...
The constable of the night, upon seeing us brought in abominibly intoxicated, said, with great good nature: "Come come, this is, I perceive, a drunken frolic. You must therefore pay for your folly and go quietly home to sleep off the effects of too much wine."
William Hickey, 1770.
Passionate, romantic, creative, violent, tempestuous, sentimental... isn't that who we really are, more Elizabethan English than Victorian Britons (who, let's face it, always had too much of a whiff of the buttoned-up Scot about them)? After all, how else did we get to forge an empire? Certainly not by good manners...
So maybe it's not so much society's breakdown, but reformation... just as we've always been an irreligious lot - the irreverent, pagan spirit of the druids never quite surpressed by Christianity - so too the end of empire and all its puritan hypocrisies meant not only the liberation of its subject people, but the English themselves... from the Scots!
A quick one in The Salisbury then?
2 comments:
Nick, you’ve got a girlfriend!! I’m right chuffed for you.
Anyhow, since I became a SAHM (stay at home mum) and began to notice how many delinquents weren’t actually being taught by my colleagues, I have been able to give this very topic a lot of thought. Even more so since my partner is staunchly working class (steel worker – rare breed – picketed with the miners etc etc) and I don’t want my sons to grow up to be the kind of yobs I’ve had the misfortune of teaching.
What you experienced, in essence, was a group of young people who acted in an inconsiderate way. Why did they act so inconsiderately? Because nobody has managed to convince them that to act in this way is wrong. If you watch any of the parenting shows on TV they are all about teaching children that there are limits to behaviour. Unless you are drunk/mentally ill/being paid as a hitman you tend to behave in a way that lets others get on with their lives so that you can get on with yours. In other words you put others before yourself so that you can function effectively (anthropologists have got a good word for it but I can’t remember what it is). It’s how the human race has operated for a very, very long time.
The young people who cause The Sun (Lawless Britain Campaign TM) so much consternation act the way they do for a myriad of reasons but ultimately they have never been taught how to behave to a standard that the rest of society finds acceptable. Initially this was due to poor parenting (or no parenting at all) but as the child becomes older the rest of society must take the blame. From male friends and relatives who leave single mothers to cope with boisterous boys to the passer-by who lets a child drop litter without showing them where the bin is, we all share the blame for letting our young people not know how to behave so that the rest of society can welcome rather than fear them.
To sum it up, the general population isn’t assertive enough to question kids’ behaviour and kids only know how to behave in inconsiderate and aggressive ways because they know that we’ll let them get away with it.
Why has society let this happen? I have at theory. The two world wars created the first generations of young men without male role models and also increased the numbers of women in paid employment outside the home. Add to this the liberal sixties and seventies when the birth rate began to plummet and education became child focussed along with raising the school leaving age. This meant that children were indulged. They were taught about their rights but there was nobody at home to mentor them when it came to their responsibilities.
We have created a society where children are place on pedestals (not least by those in marketing who know how to get money from parents’ pockets). We try to protect them from everything that can possibly go wrong but in the process we have destroyed our relationship with them so that incidents like the one you experienced can happen on a regular basis.
Well said! Though, personally I think a short sharp shock would probably do them the world of good!
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