Crime on the rise / is society f*cked?

threespires said:
There was definitely a sea change in the 80s where we swung increasingly towards a more individualistic approach and away from whatever bits of collectivist thinking had existed in the previous few decades.

Despite her 'no such thing as society' comment, I think Thatcher drove this predominantly from a purely economic ideological perspective (I say ideological because there was no evidence to support that her policies would work it was simply an act of faith) with actually very little thought about the broader societal and cultural impacts. She wasn't a deep thinker she was a doer and she thought she had a plan to fix stuff that needed to be fixed. However in becoming enthralled with the likes of Friedman and US thinking as a driver for fixing what she viewed as broke, she failed to recognise that though the US and UK were both predominantly individualistic societies there were some significant differences between the two.

Fast foward a few decades where generationally the consequences of that sea change has manifested itself and you have a country (mostly England in fairness) very ill at ease with itself.

The UKs brand of strong individualism is fairly specific to these islands, it's shot through with contradictory or balancing concepts of fairness and shared values and intolerance of certain behaviours (i.e the kind of group think more commonly found in more collectivist societies). In my opinion this slightly uneasy dualistic approach had served us well in recent history.

However we now have a couple of generations where the economic changes and attendant changes in the workplace have driven changed personal thinking too and that collectivist pull back at unfettered behaviour is dissolving.

The sad irony of this is that those of an older generation who retain some of these (imo) good values around what constitutes socially acceptable behaviour and shared living and who get upset by the apparent lack of shared values in younger people were the ones who enabled the dismantling of those values in their electoral choices.

For a while this country had it's cake and ate it but that has gone now. Now we are faced with two choices I think.

The simplest of which is continued journey down the path to a completely individualistic society along the lines of the US model.

The tougher choice is to try to reclaim that uncommon and often fraught mixture of the individual and the collective and to recognise that uneasy accommodation was actually the best of both worlds. There are many things that create barriers to that happening not least of which are policitians who would rather we took the first choice. Technology platforms whose business models work on polarisation and echo chambers don't help either.

Personally, I really hope we can find a way to get out of the trap of shouting at each other long enough to recognise what we have lost and to create a will to reclaim our dual identity.

Glad I got that off my chest, now for the dippers!
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Very well articulated mate. I agree with much of that.
 
Bluemanc100 said:
I’m gutted that our original plan to leave was scuppered by SWMBO’s health.. The best we can hope for now is a few months away over winter.. This country is only going to get worse as we pander to every wish from the latest generation..
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The latest generation? Surely it's the older generation who voted for brexit and vote in tory government after tory government that has led this country to ruin?
 
Been on the rise since COVID vaccines were introduced. Coincidence?
 
I personally find life goes through eras. I’ve lived all over the country and experiences have been vastly different. Hereford was ridiculously close minded and slow yet London diverse and 24/7.

I’d go back to Wales but many areas are dead. Holiday homes everywhere, high unemployment and it’s a nightmare to get around.

Keeping your nose clean generally ensures you get through life unscathed but you can get unlucky. It hurts my pride to walk away if someone cunts me off in a pub but it’s wise.
 
feedmpenzaandhewillscore said:
The country is broke at the moment money wise so not exactly more resources putting more police on the street. We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis as well, there’s a lot of haves and have nots amongst the population, which means the more hard up of society will look to crime to make ends meet. Example being this scruff who got sent down for shooting a 9 year old girl in Liverpool. He was washing cars and working on fair grounds in North Wales before he decided to start dealing.
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Nope, his shooting spree was to protect his £5000 per week business, nowt to do with the Government or his upbringing.
 
Smack heads looking for something to sell. It's happened to me. To their credit the police did attend and tried for fingerprints but nothing found. It was a taxi and they assumed I'd left my takings in the car.
 
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