Affluenza

yes. I don't think prohibition of anything is good. We have these 'alcohol free zones' in town...prohibited areas...so now, instead of hanging about town, under good street lighting and cctv, the kids go into the residential areas, or down the canal - drunk! Hmmm....nah! The local businesses in town are happy - so are the police - but not the kids or the townsfolk. Just an example. We should look to europe for ideas as opposed to the country we're intent on becoming as deranged as. Good points about family values. I believe that we should also deport many many people tomorrow :~) When the power of love overcomes the love of power, we'll find peace. - Jimi Hendrix

'We need to reintroduce manners which were and still are ways of making others feel comfortable and unthreatened.We need to make eye contact, queue,shake hands, and stand up as a teacher enters the room.' But all these things are present (according to my friend Jeong) in S. Korea where the gunman lived most his life. Everytime this happens (which is fairly frequently) a public debate opens as to who or what is to blame - the parents, Marilyn Manson, Kermit? It's just the result of gunpowder mixed with teenaged testosterone. Gun ownership being commonplace is not looking likely to change with the middle aged pistol-toting right wing mad on their 'right to arm'. And since there will always be angry young men, this will keep happening. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

My friends all have manners! I think we might overreact to surly tweenagers being gobby on the bus but I was probably worse myself and grew out of it. I am a bit skeptical that everyone was so much better behaved in the 'good ole days' and everyone had manners. Mods and rockers brawling, the murder carried out by Mary Bell, and you only have to watch Quadrophenia to see that teenagers were rude and bolshy 50 years ago or watch Oliver Twist to see kids were cheeky, robbing little blighters over 100 years ago! jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

... although I think there is a difference - and that is children have no fear of the law, their parents or teachers and corporal punishment was to an extent, effective. But I know so many people, mentally scarred for life by physically abusive parents, (or even sadistic teachers) who meated out violent punishment, usually coupled with humiliation and emotional abuse. I don't want this country to go back down that road, so what's the answer? I don't know. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Not sure of the connection between the latest US shootings and the belief that's it's all gone to the dogs in the UK. I don't think the shootings have a wider message. They are a personal tragedy for the people involved. "It is amazing that Americans can contemplate banning/giving up smoking, but not guns." I support gun control but these are very different arguments. You can protect yourself very well from an intruder with a cigarette. Not really clear what you're suggesting in terms of the UK.

Camilla, what you're talking about, I think, is the reintroduction of social taboo. These are things that everyone just 'knows' that you don't do. Wether these social taboos are positive or negative thing depends on your individual situation often. Drinking on the street was once taboo. Now, in most places, it isn't. That's negative when you see people lying on the pavement hammered at 10.30 in the morning. That's positive when you and your neighbour share a nice can of beer in the street after they've helped you dismantle your shed and put it in a skip on a Sunday afternoon. There was once a taboo about swearing in front of women. That's positive when you see it from the point of view that it's nice if people extend their vocabulary and use language more expressively. It's negative when you see it as something that divided communication between men and women into seperate spheres and reinforced differences between genders. I'm fairly sure that the reason why people eat in the street, listen to music on the tube, don't queue, spit in the street etc. isn't that they are unaware that there is a general feeling that this stuff just isn't on. It's more likely that they: a)have discarded the taboo because they feel it doesn't apply to them b)have a sense of themselves belonging to a smaller group to whom the general rule doesn't apply c)know exactly what they're doing and wish to wind you and others like you right up It might be about selfishness, or it might be about the exercising of personal freedom. I'm fairly sure, though, that the taboo regarding the impolite nature of shooting people still stands though. Cheers, Mark

Has there ever been a mass killing that involved a knife?

Camilla, reading your post up thread, one thing chimed a very odd note for me: "Manners have been dumped and why because it is classist? Manners belong to the despised middle class. " Who decides it's classist? And who's despising the middle class? Very posh people of established have very different manners from 'the middle classes'. As do people who would once have been referred to as 'working classes'. It's the middles classes that are obsessed with the notion of manners. If you're accusing them of dumping manners, that's an interesting argument and I'd like you to clarify it. Also, if that's you're argument, then is it the middles classes that are despising themselves? Again, a very interesting idea. The thrust of what you're saying, it seem to me, is that 'the middle classes' have abdicated their position as a dependable, moral, steering and directing force in British society. Is this what you mean? Cheers, mark

There is something disturbingly remote about pressing a trigger. I once shot a friend with an air pistol. It hurt, well, when he punched me it did. But we wuz crazee fuckas in t' country.

I think I agree with the core of what Camilla says, if not the reasoning behind it: that to live in a populous society one has to learn (and to have enforced, possibly) a sense of social responsibility, which includes courtesy toward others and restraint of one's less 'civilised' (for want of a better word) impulses, at least in public. I agree about the raising of well-mannered children: many children these days aren't even taught to consistently say 'please' and 'thank you', which are small, but very valuable, courtesies. The gun thing is more complicated. Getting rid of guns doesn't get rid of idiots who want to kill other people; they are just able to kill fewer at a time with other weapons. It's not the guns, or even the 'freedom' to own a gun, that is the problem. The problem is that it is *too easy* to buy a gun, and purchase laws are inconsistent from state to state. If a person feels that the world is so threatening that they need to buy a handgun, they should be able to, but there should be a rigorous pre-screening, skills and safety testing, and licensure. I'm talking about handguns here, and hunting rifles for those who like to kill Bambi. Assault rifles should have even more rigorous investigations prior to purchase, and I think the potential purchaser should be able to provide a legitimate, *documented* reason as to why they need one. The paperwork itself will be a deterrent to a large proportion of the population, but I don't see, in reality, how a country the size of the US, with two international borders, could possibly enforce all this, 100%. Britain is a very different society, and for all that people grumble that Britain is becoming a less-obnoxious clone of the States, there are some very fundamental differences between the two societies that prevent them becoming identical. Britain is far older as a nation and a society, and has evolved in some ways, much further than its younger cousin. While Britain has its share of social ills, they are not really of the same nature as those in the States. The attitude toward mental illness is one very big difference, and despite the dismal state of MH services in some parts of Britain, they are a sight better quality than services of a similar nature in the States, especially for the poor and/or homeless. Aeons apart, really. So hey! It ain't all bad!

Camilla, for your reference, an overview of the Unicef report to which you refer: http://tinyurl.com/2vxa6n It's worth looking closely at the indicators that are used in the report to measure each of the six areas that the condition of young people is measured by. A large component is young people's perception of measured factors. It's not as clean cut as you'd think. Also, our population is increasing because more people are being born and surviving, and more people are living longer and not dying. That's a good thing, isn't it? It might cost a lot, but I like the fact that more people are alive now who would have died in previous periods of history. I'm a little puzzled by your statement "What is presented on TV is often London or some other city and quite often not what most of us experience but is taken as truth by many." Could you explain it a bit? The most recent statistics I could find on migration are for 2005: http://tinyurl.com/22frl9 In that year there were 185,000 more people entering the UK than leaving it. So, for that year at least, there wasn't a balance leading to more people overall than there had been in the previous year. As for us being not terribly happy, how would you measure this? I'm not terribly happy sometimes, but I'm unsure that it has anything to do with the things you've outlined. like the kids in the Unicef survey, what I feel about things might bear no resemblance to the actual reality of them. I'm not an astronaut, as I hoped I would be when I was eight, does this meaning the county teeters on the brink of calamity? What do you think would make us, as a country, more happy? Cheers, Mark

"We also have increased our population to the highest it has ever been and now include large numbers of people who not only come from other countries but who don't even speak English.What is presented on TV is often London or some other city and quite often not what most of us experience but is taken as truth by many." Not clear what you're saying here. Increased population and inward migration of people who don't speak English are both things that London expereriences more than any other area of the UK. I don't think either of these things is necessarily bad, though. I think the Unicef report that Mark has linked has started some quite strange debates. We've got people on the political right arguing that society's gone to the dogs because of declining moral values and people on the political left saying the society's gone to the dogs because of the evils of capitalism and consumerism. The 'everything's terrible for the kids' argument, combine with 'the kids are worse than they've ever been, ever' argument allows both sides to come together and agree that each other are right and that everything's worse than it's ever been before. I think modern Britain is quite good. It's not perfect but there aren't many countries or time-periods I'd rather live in.

I agree very much with Bukh about Modern Britain being quite good. I have said it before - I am very happy. I only get depressed when I read the newspapers and other people are telling me it's all gone to the dogs. My own experience is very different. I live on a notorious London sink estate with high levels of unemployment, lone parent households and folk without much English - but they mostly smile at me in the lift and hold the door open for me! I can live at the bottom of the slag pile and still be optimistic. Okay, probably because I know I won't be there for ever, but even so! jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

"We work too long for there to be time to relate well .I don't think the stories of French kids learning to drink en famille are just stories.They have the time and include their kids in adult lives." I you're locked in a 'grass is always greener' mindset. The French attitude to drinking might be broadly more sensible than the English attitude. I'm not sure that French people are necessarily any more likely to 'include kids in adult' lives than English people. And as a nation, France is in a desperate state at the moment. Unemployment is massive. There's regular riots in their suburbs - which are the equivalent of our inner cities. And while I've got a lot of problems with the UK's flexible labour market, there's some pretty big problems with France's inflexible labour market. The basic situation there is that people who've got jobs get decent pay and conditions and are virtually impossible to sack, while millions of other people have no hope of getting a job at all.

again 'I think what would make us more happy ...' is making this assumption that everyone is desperately miserable. As has been said 'that' survey uses quite a narrow set of indicators. Another recent survey of people who live in 'Acacia avenue' i.e. suburbia indicated that over 90% described themselves as 'happy' or 'very happy'. What is it that is making you unhappy - is it just the doom and gloom of the Daily Mail? My mother is an immigrant (she came over from S Africa as a nurse in the 1960s and all six of her children have taken hold of the opportunities this country has and all are 'doing very well' as they say. Needless to say, we all contribute to society not only in taxes but my sister is a deputy head teacher and does a lot of additional after hours stuff (unpaid) with the kids, my bro who works for the Welsh Assembly is a school governer - an unpaid position and I have a small voluntary job as well as my paid job. Maybe she should have been kept out because of the risk that she would have had six mentally ill children who just spat out their gum on the pavement. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

"What is it that is making you unhappy - is it just the doom and gloom of the Daily Mail?" I think, to be fair to the Daily Mail, they're by no means the only party responsible for the current bout of 'all gone to the dogs-ism'. The BBC are just as bad. For example, there was a bizarre report on BBC news a week or so on the decline of 'the nuclear family', that bemoaned the number of people now living alone but provided no empirical evidence that 'the nuclear family' had ever actually been the dominant social structure in society. Whether or not the dad goes to work, mum looks after the house, long walks in the fresh air on a Sunday afternoon model is a good thing, it's never been predominant. There's always been a mixture of working parents, single parents, children sent to boarding schools and looked after by nannies, children sent into domestic service or apprenticeship. There's an incessant media drive for us to mourn the passing of things that most of us never had.

Whatever has been or could be... Politeness, good manners and generally being nice to one's fellow human beings... seem, at present, to be largely seen as old-fashioned and generally irrelevent. Why is this? Or am I wrong? Is a society, or can it be, worthwhile and valuable if rudeness and selfishness dominate? What are we living and striving for, if not to improve the state of happiness and contentedness for ourselves and our "neighbours"? Selfishness and economic growth for its own sake were central tenets of, in the UK, Thatcherism. Has anything truly changed since that time? What is society for if not to improve the (emotional/spiritual) lot of society? Rudeness, selfishness and endless economic growth will, it seems, ultimately only destroy our physical environment and the humans within it - isn't altruism the better long term solution for the continued survival of our species? pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)