Are we as a society basically broken?

Max_Headroom_3

Listening to the news at lunchtime about the poor chap that was kicked to death after going to the aid of somewone being attacked.

If you look at the kind of stories you hear regularly, kids knifing other kids, people attacked in the street, old people being mugged, rising drug problems, prisons unable to cope resulting in people not going to prison when they should (and more to the point knowing that they're not going to go to prison for certain serious offences), benefit reliance (people going straight from school onto the dole and housing, via a couple of pregnancies), rising teen pregnancy, parents unwilling/unable to control or disipline their children, gangs of kids on street corners, etc etc.

You eventually have to ask, is in fact society effectively bankrupt, not just the financial system?

Are we as a society just going to get pulled down by the ever rising cesspit of humanity in much the same way that the banks (cornerstones of our societies financial wellbeing) are being pulled down by the cesspit of irresponsible lending/borrowing?

Is what we see happening to our financial world merely a metaphor for what's happening in society?

I believe most people are socially and financially responsible, but an ever rising "want it now/get rich quick/live the dream" element are dragging us all down. Is this not the case with society in general?

abaxas

Beating bankers to death is a 'basic human right' INNIT

That is the problem with society, everyone wants rights but not the resposibility.

Cannon_Fodder

I suspect that through history you will find peaks and trough in society's behaviour just like bust and boom in the economy.

Maybe some bright spark can define a graph which demonstrates the link between the two...

Painful to sit through it, as its seems such a slow evolution, maybe in 10 years we'll look back and think how lucky we were today...?

Or it could be said for the merging of the gene pool, we are moving towards the lowest common denominator. i.e 'intelligent couples' wait until they can afford it, and keep to 2 kids. Chavs don't stop to think, pop 4 kids out at 16-19, and their children have got kids by the time the 'intelligent' ones start...

Higher proportion of chavs into society becomes a self-generating whatsit.

rizla01

Or is it that we live in an age where news travels instantly and any illegal occurance is brought to everyones attention.

I think most of these problems have been there for a very long time but have gone unreported. Just like a lot of TV programming we seem to thrive on hearing about the bad and not the good.

90% of the interest in the 'X factor' (And Big Brother, The Jungle Etc Etc.) is taking the pi55 out of the idiots. Not revelling in the pleasures of listening to the good few. They then make the contestants suffer by deliberately dragging out the results - just to see the poor sods squirm. That is the society that we have become!


When did you last hear about that Good Samaritan?

You didn't, because it doesn't sell newspapers - themselves the dregs of society.

Realy

Lack of being able to discipline (against their human rights apparently) has made children not fear/respect adults, police, teachers etc.
They then take this thinking through to adulthood.
We are just getting the first full crop of labour teens.:rolleyes:

Max_Headroom_3

Realy wrote: »

Lack of being able to discipline (against their human rights apparently) has made children not fear/respect adults.

Is it not being able to, or not wanting to? I know a perfectly respectible middle class family with two young kids that just basically run amock because the parents (by their own admission) simply cannot bring themselves to tell their kids off. It's like they want to be their kids friends, not parents, and fear upsetting them.

I saw this for the first time when their olderst was about 4. We were out in public, this little brat was running amock and they were trying to admolish him by saying "now you must behave otherwise a policeman will come and tell you off". I remember thinking, what's wrong with mum or dad telling him off?

Best of all was when one of them later said to me (after moaning about the little darlings errant behaviour), "he's starting school in six months, we're hoping that will straighten him out a bit". So it's the schools job to instil some control in your child now is it!?

Of course these kids also get whatever they want and the best of everything, which no doubt will lead to big financial problems for the kids when they leave home and expect that sort of consumerism to continue.

I think this is rife in society and the oldest of kids "brought up" this way now have kids of their own, and I think the two issues of problems in society and problems in the financial world are linked as this type of person expects to do what they want, and have what they want.

luvpump

I think Social tensions may come to a boil once unemployment Sky-rockets in the coming months, perhaps years , & manifest themselves in the form of riots & crime increases.. who knows..hope not but it wouldn't suprise me ..

pickledpink

Here's a perfect example of how vile some people in society have sunk.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1065033/Troubled-teenager-threw-multi-storey-car-park-roof-onlookers-told-jump.html

And it seems some of the people who post on this site are from the same gutterscum breed.

Realy

Max_Headroom wrote: »

Is it not being able to, or not wanting to?.

As far as I know teachers and police can not discipline children in the old way.

If parents don't, that is up to them but they are failing their chidren and society has no back up as per above.

avinabacca

Pickledpink - you do know that newspapers like the Daily Mail are themselves partly responsible for a lot of problems, right?

Lots of moaning, hand-wringing and blaming - but action taken to address the real issues?

None whatsoever.

We're all people - if there's a problem, it's all of our responsibility to address it and do something about it.

See something wrong? Call it. Do something. Don't sit on your ar*e whinging about it.

SingleSue

This is one of my biggest moans just recently.

I have a 15 year old son (or he will be on Friday anyway) plus two younger ones and I constantly despair at the standards his friends are being brought up by.

I don't smack my children but do they get away with being rude, disrepectful, nasty etc? No way!

I have taught my children to help others and how they must earn respect and not expect it from doing nothing and if they want anything in life that they have to work for it but it is a constant battle when they see their friends just being given things to quiet them down or curry favour between divorced parents.

Yes my children have the normal taunting times like any other but I don't let them get away with it and they know it is not the behaviour that I or society expects from them (they call me naggy mum when I get going) but to my pride, virtually everyone who meets them tell me (in some surprise) how polite and helpful they are.

They know it is wrong to steal, they know that they must be law abiding and they know to get anywhere, they need to be polite...they also know that if they break those rules, that dear old mum will have their guts for garters! :rotfl: A fate worse than death I think in their view.....