I disagree with you but let's not get into name-calling, unless all you have to offer is insults
Your attempts to cover up the fact that you refuse to read the news doesn't mean those links didn't happen.
The way I can see it, you can continue to be just like Shifty and attempt to ignore the massive amount of information I'm pulling down here so you can yammer on some more about BOOTSTRAPS, or you can actually respond to them and offer news of your own.
|
But then that is what happens when left-wing intellectuals decide for the masses what is good for them.What happens when right-wing intellectuals decide for the masses what is good for them?Removal of limits on "the market", corporations bribing their way to immunity from prosecution, destruction of trillions of dollars, centralization of wealth on an enormous scale, the masses treated as imbeciles or ignored, and let's not forget kept frightened, while the few, media-controlling (or owning) right-wing intellectuals, party and flaunt what the rest can't have.
Something like that?
If you are talking about the current problems, it is worth pointing out that the crisis was caused by a banking system that is, and was, and will be highly regulated, with more regulation causing perverse incentives to the markets at large. Then those liabilities were taken on by the state in a further frustration of market forces, rather than being allowed to resolve themselves through transparent mechanisms of default and bankruptcy. So I really don't see the current situation as emerging from "rampant market forces" or "the market set free to screw me and mine". Rather, politics has trumped economics - well, until it gets so bad that ther problem is magnified beyond the funds that even states can muster. I agree - we are all screwed, but I blame the politicians, not the market.
As for treating the masses like imbeciles - well, the masses seem to like it, and want to spend their money on acting like imeciles. That's simply called consumerism, and is fundamentally democratic - would you want to be told what to do with your money? The fact that common-denominator culture is fairly moronic is probably down to falling standards of education, which I have alluded to above.
Never mind the intellectuals, just make society as open and transparant as reasonably possible, with plenty of support for everyone who wants to work or learn.
Certainly don't disagree there.
|
|
I disagree with you but let's not get into name-calling, unless all you have to offer is insultsYour attempts to cover up the fact that you refuse to read the news doesn't mean those links didn't happen.
The way I can see it, you can continue to be just like Shifty and attempt to ignore the massive amount of information I'm pulling down here so you can yammer on some more about BOOTSTRAPS, or you can actually respond to them and offer news of your own.
<sighs>
Actually, I read the Economist, and the Financial Times, and the Times. But, like I said, I'm interested in debate. Instead, you offer chunks of news text, the odd insult, and no argument at all. And I'm, like, in London. I grew up in London. I work in London. I really don't need you telling me from your ivory tower on another continent about what conditions are like on the ground here. I can see the smoke from my office window, thanks.
So, OK, what is your prescription for solving this current problem?
The way I can see it, you can continue to be just like Shifty and attempt to ignore the massive amount of information I'm pulling down here so you can yammer on some more about BOOTSTRAPS, or you can actually respond to them and offer news of your own.
What you mean you think making personal attacks on people, discrediting anything they say as 'lies', and then telling them even if you are wrong that they are still wrong, and linking in a ton of elitist, racist, lefty leaning claptrap you are making a point?
Wow, just wow.
Some of the people in here don't need to link to articles written by third party journalists, they have actually lived the life and got to see first hand. I can understand your logic in wanting to simply link articles, as perhaps you simply haven't had the first hand experience vener having vetured far from you middle class neighbourhood, so I can understand your misunderstanding.
Anyone who agrees with your very blinkered view (by your opinion) is a top person, anyone disagreeing or challenging your self serving viewpoint is 100% WRONG (and even if they are right ther are WRONG - that was my favourite of yours) and is simply to be discredited and abused in a racist, classist, elitist matter.
Shame on your racist posts, shame shame shame.
Puerile behaviour.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you are talking about the current problems, it is worth pointing out that the crisis was caused by a banking system that is, and was, and will be highly regulated, with more regulation causing perverse incentives to the markets at large. Then those liabilities were taken on by the state in a further frustration of market forces, rather than being allowed to resolve themselves through transparent mechanisms of default and bankruptcy. So I really don't see the current situation as emerging from "rampant market forces" or "the market set free to screw me and mine". Rather, politics has trumped economics - well, until it gets so bad that ther problem is magnified beyond the funds that even states can muster. I agree - we are all screwed, but I blame the politicians, not the market.But then that is what happens when left-wing intellectuals decide for the masses what is good for them.What happens when right-wing intellectuals decide for the masses what is good for them?Removal of limits on "the market", corporations bribing their way to immunity from prosecution, destruction of trillions of dollars, centralization of wealth on an enormous scale, the masses treated as imbeciles or ignored, and let's not forget kept frightened, while the few, media-controlling (or owning) right-wing intellectuals, party and flaunt what the rest can't have.
Something like that?
You can tell the story from the point of view of the Bush administration relaxes rules on the banking system. If you want to. Or from the point of view of stste interference. If you want to.
This debate has reached the point of ideology, which gives me a headache and only causes problems. When Left and Right are too busy sniping at each other to care about their country you get the deepest problems of all.
I'm old school: "Nothing too much."
And that includes Left and Right.
I think it's interesting that these young hoodlums getting their kicks from trashing businesses are basically re-enacting the behaviour of the Prime Minister, Mayor and Chancellor when they were Bullingdon Club members at Oxford.
What I am now finding sickeningly fascinating about this is the eruption of bile against 'chavs' (not here, but across social media). I've always regarded other people as like me, only with different tastes and more/less money.
Lots of Brits seem to regard 'chavs' as some kind of feral subspecies that does not deserve the same rights as normal citizens.
Lots of Brits seem to regard 'chavs' as some kind of feral subspecies that does not deserve the same rights as normal citizens.
With rights come responsibilities; chavs are happy to deny you your rights, and ignore their responsibilities.
|
|
I think it's interesting that these young hoodlums getting their kicks from trashing businesses are basically re-enacting the behaviour of the Prime Minister, Mayor and Chancellor when they were Bullingdon Club members at Oxford.
That is interesting. A former Met commander came on Sky News and he made the point that rioting is actually very good fun. The antics of the Bullingdon Club kind of make that point too. It is also suggestive that maybe there is less than meets the eye to this supposed protest, and is more about youth being youthful (and stupid).
A former Met commander came on Sky News and he made the point that rioting is actually very good fun.
Yep.
As I have maintained all along, its more for kicks and giggles.
Between the catharsis of trashing something, and the very real prospect at being able to seeimgly daringly stick it up the authority figures with little to no chance of reprisal.... intoxicating stuff.
And that's exactly it. In a society where its all "take-take-take" and "life owes me ______" - the lack of respect, and as Shifty mentioned responsibility, is frankly stunning.
These rioters are criminals; they're the joyriders and happy slappers - same "buzz" mentality crimes. There's no socio-political motivation - although it is a handy excuse and fuels the bleeding hearts to push "society" to do more for these poor, unfortunates.
Meanwhile the real unfortunates - the individuals with jobs, with lives, with businesses, with aspirations and the drive to actually do something about it... they watch it all burn or be stolen by these scum.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
That said, I don't necessarily see the chavs / underclass / whatever you want to call them as being entirely culpabale in a broader sense. Clearly no one has forced them to go out rioting. But broader social policy iover the last few decades hasn't helped.
I believe that there is a "cycle of dependency" which needs to be broken. If you go to a crap state school in a sink estate (there should be no crap schools and it is a scandal that there are, and no one really seems to care) that does not provide you with the skills to deal with the modern work place or the motivation to get those skills; if you are then provided with a life of moderate, if not fantastic, comfort on benefits and subsidised social housing, which effectively infantilises you so you don't have to go out and get a job or take responsibility for your actions; then what are your options? There is an element of personal responsibility, but if you lack ambition it's probably a reasonable, fairly hassle-free life. You won't starve. Your kids will be looked after at someone else's expense, and if you don't bother looking after them someone else will. We are all economic actors and it can be in your interests, if you don't have much going for you employment-wise, to just take the handouts and do what you feel. I don't believe that many people think like this, but then it doesn't take many who do to cause a lot of problems (a lot of anti-social behaviour and crime is caused by a small number of people).
But the policies which have led to these outcomes were well-meaning but flawed social policies that have run out of control - handouts for temporary illnesses becoming permanent, the granting of subsidised social housing for life which discourages people to move to where the jobs are, and so on - which have caused a lot of this. Breaking this up, of course, impacts on vested interests, not least in the bureaucracy that provides a lot of this, and the recipients of it. And what do you do about the cohort who have been through this sorry system, and brought up kids through it?
So it's not about bootstrapping as such - the system can be loaded against people such as these so they lack a level playing field. There is a role for reviewing benefits, housing, education and social policy to make things better (which is why I have no sympathy for middle class students complaining about having to pay fees to go to university - they have had the benefit of a good education and will benfit from going to uni, whereas surely the more pressing problem is dealing with badly performing primary and secondary education for those who don't have those advantages). But I also don't think that trying to protect people from "the market" is the answer either - instead, they need to be equipped to deal with it. Protecting them via the nanny state has led to these problems.
|
|
Fair enough. I think they still had it in Northern Ireland till more recently, that may be where the confusion lay. Interesting take on it too. I would have been opposed to it, but if what you say is true then I'd have to reconsider. Over here we don't have any real differentiation of second-level education. There are secondary schools and there are technical schools, but they teach the same curricula and either can lead to any kind of post second-level path. I'd be curious to see how that affects mobility.
I think you may be right about Northern Ireland, but they have had different systems (as has Scotland, though different again) to England & Wales for some time. Ironically, despite having what is considered perhaps the best educational system in the country, Sinn Fein are quite keen on abolishing it (again, for ideological reasons linked to sectarianism rather than anything to do with what is good for kids).
(It should be added that I'm not very up on the debate about schools in NI, and to whom the spoils of the education system, inasmuch as there is a sectarian dimension, went.)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you go to a crap state school in a sink estate that does not provide you with the skills to deal with the modern work place or the motivation to get those skills; if you are then provided with a life of moderate, if not fantastic, comfort on benefits and subsidised social housing, which effectively infantilises you so you don't have to go out and get a job or take responsibility for your actions; then what are your options? There is an element of personal responsibility, but if you lack ambition it's probably a reasonable, fairly hassle-free life. You won't starve. Your kids will be looked after at someone else's expense, and if you don't bother looking after them someone else will.
You're right, we should reverse that. Literally let the poor starve to death without housing, that's what they get for not finding a job. Steal their children and put them to work.
Listen to yourself.
With rights come responsibilities; chavs are happy to deny you your rights, and ignore their responsibilities.
What do they owe a society that has disenfranchised them?
I'd link yet more evidence of the riots being rooted in socioeconomic crises, but you've ignored everything else I've posted in favor of your incredibly privileged worldview. I guess I'm posting it for the people who read the thread but don't comment.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm amazed that people can say "They aren't disenfranchised" and then immidiately turn around and dehumanize them.
No, not amazed. It's entirely, entirely familiar. Hello, privilege.
When polled in the 1960's in America, more then three fourths of white families said that they didn't think racism was a problem anymore.
Edit: If you're constantly told by society that you're worthless scum, then you'll have no self respect. Without that, the golden rule (do unto others as you would have done to yourself) does not function. You expect to be treated like s##@, you'll treat everyone else like s%$$, including your own neighbours. It really is that simple.
This isn't hard to understand.
|
|
If you go to a crap state school in a sink estate that does not provide you with the skills to deal with the modern work place or the motivation to get those skills; if you are then provided with a life of moderate, if not fantastic, comfort on benefits and subsidised social housing, which effectively infantilises you so you don't have to go out and get a job or take responsibility for your actions; then what are your options? There is an element of personal responsibility, but if you lack ambition it's probably a reasonable, fairly hassle-free life. You won't starve. Your kids will be looked after at someone else's expense, and if you don't bother looking after them someone else will.You're right, we should reverse that. Literally let the poor starve to death without housing, that's what they get for not finding a job. Steal their children and put them to work.
Listen to yourself.
With rights come responsibilities; chavs are happy to deny you your rights, and ignore their responsibilities.What do they owe a society that has disenfranchised them? It is easy to spot a problem, less so to do something about it. If I'm wrong, then presunably you know what it right?
I'd link yet more evidence of the riots being rooted in socioeconomic crises, but you've ignored everything else I've posted in favor of your incredibly privileged worldview. I guess I'm posting it for the people who read the thread but don't comment.
If you bothered to read what I wrote, I agree that there are socioeconomic causes for it (not that the second comment is mine anyway). Nor do I suggest any of that moronic claptrap you caricatured my comments as.
I asked you before, so I will ask you again - what is your prescription? How would you enfranchise these people?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you bothered to read what I wrote, I agree that there are socioeconomic causes for it. I asked you before, so I will ask you again - what is your prescription? How would you enfranchise these people?If you go to a crap state school in a sink estate that does not provide you with the skills to deal with the modern work place or the motivation to get those skills; if you are then provided with a life of moderate, if not fantastic, comfort on benefits and subsidised social housing, which effectively infantilises you so you don't have to go out and get a job or take responsibility for your actions; then what are your options? There is an element of personal responsibility, but if you lack ambition it's probably a reasonable, fairly hassle-free life. You won't starve. Your kids will be looked after at someone else's expense, and if you don't bother looking after them someone else will.You're right, we should reverse that. Literally let the poor starve to death without housing, that's what they get for not finding a job. Steal their children and put them to work.
Listen to yourself.
With rights come responsibilities; chavs are happy to deny you your rights, and ignore their responsibilities.What do they owe a society that has disenfranchised them?
I'd link yet more evidence of the riots being rooted in socioeconomic crises, but you've ignored everything else I've posted in favor of your incredibly privileged worldview. I guess I'm posting it for the people who read the thread but don't comment.
Probs the opposite of what you'd do!
Here's the big question I see people asking: what possible reason would someone with a good education, good representation, good health and good financial security have to riot and burn things to the ground and steal things?
Answer: Absolutely none, and that's the whole reason why this has kicked off. People who are well provided for by their government do not riot, and the converse is also true.
What needs to happen is an active movement to stop funneling money into a select few, to reopen social mobility, and to help create a safety net so that people can begin forming their own business. You whine that people on the dole have no reason to work, but every study has shown the opposite - the bigger the safety net, the happier the populace, the greater number of small businesses, the more robust the work economy, and the higher levels of education.
People do not want to be employed, and it's such a privileged thought that most unemployed people "choose" to be that way that it sickens me. People do not want to be layabouts, they don't want to have endless free time with nothing to do in it, they don't want to have no income and no future. Bizarre that I have to say this, yet true!
The more the markets are "free" the worse things get, because they never quite ending up being free. Someone has to pay for them, and it's not going to be the ones running the markets. Britain is in the state that it's in because Labour sold themselves, Liberal Dems sold their voters, and the Tories...are g$+&#*n Tories. You claimed the guardian was a radical leftist think engine - if the Guardian is "radical" then you've got a lot of work to do.
Neoliberalism has been running the show since the 80's, and what do we have to show for it? Not just in the UK, but worldwide? Social nets are shrinking, mobility plunging, and the wage disparity just gets wider and wider. The answer isn't to devote ourselves even more to neoliberalism!
Look at what caused these riots. A heavier burden of taxes on the poor, increased upwards cash flow, destruction of social networks and systems, disenfranchisement of the poor, the young, the minorities, and the working class - and you better believe those are connected - to turn them into an underclass. The answer seems rather obvious - you do the opposite.
I'm amazed that people can say "They aren't disenfranchised" and then immidiately turn around and dehumanize them.
This has nothing to do with de-humanising them. Everything to do with getting sick and tired of a line of thought that seems to pat these criminals on the head and excuse their behaviour because of their “socio-economic” plight…
They are not trying to be heard, or change the system. The rioters, (who I’m sure are a diverse group from a number of ethnic and social backgrounds) are using this chaos to run riot, loot, steal and assault without much impingement. Yeah some have been arrested, but the vast majority will walk away scot-free. Opportunistic crime pure and simple.
I’m sorry life isn’t fair. There are haves and have-nots. But as someone who’s taken a LONG time to finally have a life and lifestyle bear fruit through hard work and long hours, I’ve no sympathy for those who want a life where “society owes them a living” or just take what they believe their due. You pay your dues in life. You earn your respect and place.
EDIT: With regard your link - its not just a case of coin. People weren't losing their lives or livelihoods due to the Royal Wedding. Lame point to make... And no I'm not a royalist...
|
|
I'm amazed that people can say "They aren't disenfranchised" and then immidiately turn around and dehumanize them.
No, not amazed. It's entirely, entirely familiar. Hello, privilege.
That makes me laugh - who is the guy styling himself "Professor"?
When polled in the 1960's in America, more then three fourths of white families said that they didn't think racism was a problem anymore.
Edit: If you're constantly told by society that you're worthless scum, then you'll have no self respect. Without that, the golden rule (do unto others as you would have done to yourself) does not function. You expect to be treated like s!*#, you'll treat everyone else like s!~!, including your own neighbours. It really is that simple.
This isn't hard to understand.
And who exactly is doing this? Yeah, there are issues. But if you end up behaving in a criminal manner, people aren't going to love you for it. People make their own decisions - to study or not, to join gangs or not, to try and get ahead or not. There are problems in society which push people towards certain choices, and the incentives need to be changed for a better outcome for society as a whole. But if you run riot on the streets, looting and burning, that is your personal decision.
So is your suggestion we go around saying, "Hey, I feel your pain"? Perhaps you should come down to Brixton or Tottenham tonight and give it a go. They'll be so grateful, they'll stop rioting and go home, knowing someone cares.
Right.
Or maybe something a bit more concrete would be appropiate, like looking at why there are these areas in London in which these problems seem to be concentrated, and what can be done about it. Because it will involve government action, spending and policy. And what has gone before doesn't really seem to have helped much.
|
|
I mean, have some perspective.
Which only goes to show you need to be careful what you read on the internet - those numbers are garbage.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I believe that there is a "cycle of dependency" which needs to be broken. If you go to a crap state school in a sink estate (there should be no crap schools and it is a scandal that there are, and no one really seems to care) that does not provide you with the skills to deal with the modern work place or the motivation to get those skills;...snip...
I'm a teacher but have not always been. I think there may be crap schools but they are not generally crap schools which normal children are sent to and then ruined by.
It is more the case that a disadvantaged school intake with limited parental support and many problems outside of school will not do well with the standard educational model.
Schools with high percentages of certain factors (low income, English as an additional language, severe learning difficulties, etc.) should have a higher staff to student ratio, primarily so that they can:
A: have smaller class sizes (proven to reduce disruptive behaviour, almost all schools have smaller 'bottom sets' because problem students need to have strong relationships with their teachers and generally work better in small groups which can build a relationship of trust).
B: remove students more easily without disrupting learning (most effective response to misbehaviour is to remove the audience, punish with intense boredom, create social pressure, give space to consider behaviour rationally and ensure that the schoolwork is still done = removal unit).
C: chase up absenteeism, homework refusal, lack of correct equipment and other symptoms of parental neglect (don't miss out on any aspect of education and drives home sense that education matters, that their education matters - with all the attendat benefits).
I think these schools should also be smaller (Easier to have a school ethos and students recognise all of the staff they see). This however, is more expensive as you duplicate management and find bulk-buying less straightforward.
Actually, I read the Times.
Then lets quote one of it's editors.
First off, I don’t know what’s best. But this is what I do know. Unlike most of you, I’ve fought with police, I’ve thrown missiles at them. I’ve kicked in shop windows and looted stuff. I was born into an area that people told me was full of ‘the dregs of society’. I’ve been young, poor and angry. I’ve felt there was no opportunity in life and all that stretched in front was a bleak, penniless future. And I know that most people with happy, fulfilled lives don’t go on rampages of violence. I also know that successive Governments have put the pursuit of wealth ahead of maintaining a sense of community. When you’ve been told there’s no society, why would you care about other people? When you see the bankers nearly destroy capitalism and still get their bonuses, what do you think of personal responsibility? The key is making people believe they have opportunities in life, not opportunities to loot. And maybe the money spent intervening in a civil war in Libya would be better spent on schools.
I could go on, but most of you have made up your minds. You get the society you create. Enjoy it
Their welfare checks.
What do they owe a society that has disenfranchised them?
The ones that are shrinking?
For retrospect, here's a map that overlays where the riots occur along with the economic status of that area.
Methinks you've been reading too much of Anders Breivik's manifest...
That's how far out I think this line of reasoning is.Yeah, anyone who mentions values is a dangerous lunatic, but the people who see this as a purely material problem are just full of humanity.
The Right serves those who are really looting the West and doing more damage than rioters can ever do, and the Left just pleads to provide more comfort in the cages of the poor.
Until we figure out who we are and what we believe in there will be no solutions, and Europe will probably be mostly lost to a different way of life that will provide tradition and a connection to the sacred.
But by all means continue on with the right versus left chatter. It has solved so much.
Your rant against a "value-less, multicultural, consumerist environment" could be taken right out of his manifest, so that's what I was referring to.
The thing is, you see, we ARE living in a multicultural environment and it's something most people strive for, except when it happens to be in the area of opinionmongers.Europe has become more and more Americanized, we're driving cars from the far East, we're eating food we'd hardly heard of 20-30 years ago (10 points if you can name the most popular take-out food in the UK), heck, some countries pretty much only keep outdated institutions (royal families) around to attract tourists from afar and their delicious money!
So no, the problem isn't multiculturalism. It's only when that "culturalism" consists of opposing religious views (Christian sects vs. Christian sects, Christianity vs. Islam etc.).
So tell me, what are those "values" you are referring to?
And I'm not making this a right vs. left problem.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Mindhacks has a great article on the psychology of riots and how riots actually work in relation to how human beings think, as well as how to stop riots (and why this one is a bit different)
In the coming weeks we can expect to see politicians and pundits lining up to give us their smash-and-grab clichés for the recent urban riots in the UK.
They’ll undoubtedly give a warm welcome to our old friends economic decay, disengaged youth and opportunistic crime, and those of a more psychological persuasion might name drop ‘deindividuation’ – the process where we supposedly lose self-awareness and responsibility in large crowds.
This belies the fact that we crowd behaviour is a complex area that is surprisingly poorly researched.
But what we do know about is the interaction between large crowds and the police and you could do much worse than check out the work of psychologist Clifford Stott who researches how crowds react to policing and what triggers violence.
In his 2009 report on the scientific evidence behind ‘Crowd Psychology and Public Order Policing,’ commissioned by the UK constabulary, he summarises what we know about public disorder and how the authorities can best manage it (you can download it as a pdf).
He notes that the old ideas about the ‘mob mentality’, deindividuation and the loss of individual responsibility are still popular, but completely unsupported by what we know about how crowds react.
People don’t become irrational and they do keep thinking for themselves, but that doesn’t mean that the influence of the crowd has no effect.
In terms of policing, one of the clearest effects to emerge from studies of riots and crowd control is that an indiscriminate kicking from riot police can massively increase the number of people in the crowd who become violent.
This is probably because the social identity of people in a group is fluid and changes according to the relationship with other groups.
For those into academic jargon, this is known as the Elaborated Social Identity Model of crowd behaviour – a well-supported theory with an overly complicated name but which is surprisingly easy to understand.
Imagine you’ve just got on a bus. It’s full of people and you have to jam into an uncomfortable seat at the back. There are people going to work, some vacant students heading home after a night on the beers, some annoying teenagers playing dance music through their tinny mobile phone speakers and some old folks heading off to buy their groceries.
You’re late and you missed your train. You feel nothing in common with anyone on the bus and, to be honest, those teenagers are really pissing you off.
Suddenly, two of the windows smash and you realise that a group of people are attacking the bus and trying to steal bags through the broken windows.
Equally as quickly, you begin to feel like one of a group. A make-shift social identity is formed (‘the passengers’) and you all begin to work together to fend off the thieves and keep each other safe.
You didn’t lose your identity, you gained a new one in reaction to a threat.
The problem police face is that in most large threatening crowds only a minority of people are engaging in anti-social acts. Lots of people ‘go along for the ride’ but aren’t the hardcore that kick-off without provocation.
If the police wade in with batons indiscriminately, lots of these riot wannabes suddenly start to feel like they’re part of the bigger group and feel justified in ripping the place apart, mostly to throw at the coppers.
Suddenly, it’s ‘them’ against ‘us’ and a small policing problem just got much much bigger – like attacking a beehive because you just got stung.
The trick for the police is to make sure they’re perceived as a legitimate force. When they have to charge in, they’re doing so for a reason – to target specific criminals. The ‘them and us’ feeling doesn’t kick in because most individuals don’t feel that the police are targeting them. It’s the other idiots the police are after.
And herein lies the problem. The psychology of crowd control is largely based on the policing of demonstrations and sports events where the majority of people will give the police the benefit of the doubt and assume their status as a legitimate force.
Clifford Stott’s report has lots of advice for forces who want to establish and maintain this impression. The cops should start out in standard uniforms, should be scattered around the crowd and should make an effort to interact. If trouble looks like it’s brewing, non-violent folks should be allowed to leave and the police ‘have a word’ with the specific people involved. Force is only ramped up in proportion to the threat.
I’m no expert and I’ve been watching the UK riots from 5,000 miles away from the safety of Colombia (a sentence I never thought I’d write) but it strikes me that most of the rioters probably never thought of the police as a legitimate force to begin with.
This goes beyond establishing police legitimacy on the day and means many of the standard assumptions of behind crowd control probably don’t work as well.
But the fact that thousands of young people across the country don’t have faith in police is a much deeper social problem that can’t be solved through street tactics.
I have no easy answers and I suspect they don’t exist. Politicians, start your clichés.
It also has a comments section that will not make you want to claw your eyes out; a true rarity indeed.
|
|
How would you enfranchise these people?
Probs the opposite of what you'd do!
Well, yeah.
Here's the big question I see people asking: what possible reason would someone with a good education, good representation, good health and good financial security have to riot and burn things to the ground and steal things?
Answer: Absolutely none, and that's the whole reason why this has kicked off. People who are well provided for by their government do not riot, and the converse is also true.
See the comments about the Bullingdon Club, above. Also, crime is very closely correlated with age (young) and sex (male).
What needs to happen is an active movement to stop funneling money into a select few, to reopen social mobility, and to help create a safety net so that people can begin forming their own business. You whine that people on the dole have no reason to work, but every study has shown the opposite - the bigger the safety net, the happier the populace, the greater number of small businesses, the more robust the work economy, and the higher levels of education.
People do not want to be unemployed, and it's such a privileged thought that most unemployed people "choose" to be that way that it sickens me. People do not want to be layabouts, they don't want to have endless free time with nothing to do in it, they don't want to have no income and no future. Bizarre that I have to say this, yet true!
You ever been unemployed? I have. It's great. Seriously, you get up when you feel like it, no one hassles you, you do what you feel. The lack of money is a bit of a drag, and as I had a mortgage I had to go back to work. But as a lifestyle, there's a lot to recommend it. The fittest and healthiest I have been as an adault was when I was unemployed.
And who is this select few getting all the money? In the UK was have some pretty hefty spending on benefits already. Are you talking about the banks (see below)? I also find it hard to believe that high dole levels somehow produce a happy, prosperous society all by themselves, so I'd be interested in your source for that.
Also, you pretty much fail to get my broader point. If you arrive on the scene with a poor education, you will be disadvantaged in the jobs stakes, especially in a modern knowledge economy. The issue is that this is happening to a lot of kids, and this is the fault of the state. Education is very key to social mobility, so the failure of the system to provide adequate education for all is a very large part of the equation.
But spending as such is not the issue - the UK's is quite high - it is in the quality of the process. Provision of social housing in its current form can lead to people sticking it out in areas of low employment, reducing labour mobility, because its cheap and moving between areas can be a bureaucratic nightmare. Benefits as they are currently designed are withdrawn at such a high rate as your pay increases that your effective tax rate can go over 100%. And so on. The state gets in the way more often than it seems to help the poor. You cannot blithely talk about a state-driven solution without reform of the state.
The more the markets are "free" the worse things get, because they never quite ending up being free. Someone has to pay for them, and it's not going to be the ones running the markets. Britain is in the state that it's in because Labour sold themselves, Liberal Dems sold their voters, and the Tories...are g+@$%+n Tories. You claimed the guardian was a radical leftist think engine - if the Guardian is "radical" then you've got a lot of work to do.
When did I say radical? The Guardian is the university lecturer's paper of choice. Radical? Hardly.
Look at places like Southern Europe where job protection is high. They have high unemployment, especially youth unemployment. The youth have rioted in Paris too in the last few. This isn't a new phenomenon coming out of the crash, though the crash has made it worse. And as for the "someone has to pay for markets". That doesn't even really mean anything, unless you are talking externalities. If you are suggesting that the current problems in the financial markets somehow indicate that markets as a whole don't work, I don't see that. You can't banish the economic cycle but you can make it a lot worse through bad regulation and economic policy. The Greenspan put, arguably, did more harm than anything else. However, it doesn't follow that all market-led solutions don't work - indeed, the damage to the broader economy can be seen when regulation tries to buck the market, as Greenspan did. Recognising how a market works is surely the first stage to determining how you want to change it, and at the same time avoid unintended consequences like the ones which have caused these social and economic problems.
Neoliberalism has been running the show since the 80's, and what do we have to show for it? Not just in the UK, but worldwide? Social nets are shrinking, mobility plunging, and the wage disparity just gets wider and wider. The answer isn't to devote ourselves even more to neoliberalism!
Again, questionable. Certainly, I don't see neoliberalism or whatever you wish to call it as the cause of most of the problems you cite. Social mobility I talked about above. Wage disparity is partly about rent-seeking in the economy - the biggest rent-seekers being banks, which have inflated pay at senior levels, but then the reason they are rent-seeking is much more due to regulation and concomitant moral hazard than untrammeled market forces.
But changes in the structure of economies at large have also impacted upon the low-skilled - influx of immigration (not that I'm against that, it's good economics) and the movement of manufacturing jobs to low-cost economies. Inasmuch as that is down to neoliberalism, I'm not sure what can be done about that other than some very retrograde steps such as tarriffs and so on (which really worked well in the 1930s). Social safety nets are shrinking because most developed economies ran deficits up to the crisis, and are now fairly screwed as a result and have to make economies - but nothing you suggest really deals with that, or the impact of demographics upon the "socialistic" policies you are suggesting and how that could be paid for in the medium term.
Look at what caused these riots. A heavier burden of taxes on the poor, increased upwards cash flow, destruction of social networks and systems, disenfranchisement of the poor, the young, the minorities, and the working class - and you better believe those are connected - to turn them into an underclass. The answer seems rather obvious - you do the opposite.
If you accept your analysis, which I think is questionable. I certainly consider there to be a role for the state (I am repeating myself here) in changing the playing to be more level for those unfortunate enough to live in areas where prospects are poor (largely because of the self-same state and the lousy services it provides). I don't agree that this will require massive handouts to make those people feel good, and doubt such a policy is affordable, but instead will be better aimed at making them more competitive in a changing economy.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What happens when right-wing intellectuals decide for the masses what is good for them?
Silly. There are no right-wing intellectuals. Intellectuals are douchebags who live in ivory towers and issue pronouncements that invariably do more harm than good. It's a liberal thing. :P
|
|
I believe that there is a "cycle of dependency" which needs to be broken. If you go to a crap state school in a sink estate (there should be no crap schools and it is a scandal that there are, and no one really seems to care) that does not provide you with the skills to deal with the modern work place or the motivation to get those skills;...snip...I'm a teacher but have not always been. I think there may be crap schools but they are not generally crap schools which normal children are sent to and then ruined by.
It is more the case that a disadvantaged school intake with limited parental support and many problems outside of school will not do well with the standard educational model.
Schools with high percentages of certain factors (low income, English as an additional language, severe learning difficulties, etc.) should have a higher staff to student ratio, primarily so that they can:
I'm sure that is right. I've banged on about education a lot but the attitude to education by pupils and their parents is key. Again, the issues strike me as broader ones about society and incentives.
A: have smaller class sizes (proven to reduce disruptive behaviour, almost all schools have smaller 'bottom sets' because problem students need to have strong relationships with their teachers and generally work better in small groups which can build a relationship of trust).
B: remove students more easily without disrupting learning (most effective response to misbehaviour is to remove the audience, punish with intense boredom, create social pressure, give space to consider behaviour rationally and ensure that the schoolwork is still done = removal unit).
C: chase up absenteeism, homework refusal, lack of correct equipment and other symptoms of parental neglect (don't miss out on any aspect of education and drives home sense that education matters, that their education matters - with all the attendat benefits).I think these schools should also be smaller (Easier to have a school ethos and students recognise all of the staff they see). This however, is more expensive as you duplicate management and find bulk-buying less straightforward.
That said, my parents were taught in classes of 50 and somehow came out pretty literate. I'm not convinced by the class size argument in its basic form. I remember at my school all of the desks faced forwards, and we paid attention (more or less) to what was going on. Then they built a new block and the desks in there were in little islands facing in, some of them looking away from the front of the class and the teacher. Even then I noticed that inattention levels, chatting and so on was much, much higher in that set-up. Same class, same size. So teaching methods have a role to play too.
What do they owe a society that has disenfranchised them?
I don't care what they think they owe or don't owe, that does not give one the right or ethical basis to attack, rob, murder, and destroy the lives of people in their surroundings.
The fact that you appear to be advocating that is sick beyond understanding.
The fact that you want to sit there and claim anyone who want's to call a spade a spade so has a 'privileged worldview' is just so spurious it equally beggars belief. I have put my credentials on the table, I notice you are yet to furnish any of yours.
I suppose we should just discount your apparently third-hand and inexperienced views as "BOOTSTRAPS" and move on.
For the sake of the arguement, let's conceed that economic conditions are tough for these people. Let's go extreme. It's third world. It still doesn't excuse acting like rabid baboons.
Hey wow, I agreed with LT!
|
|
Mindhacks has a great article on the psychology of riots and how riots actually work in relation to how human beings think, as well as how to stop riots (and why this one is a bit different)
...In the coming weeks we can expect to see politicians and pundits lining up to give us their smash-and-grab clichés for the recent urban riots in the UK.
They’ll undoubtedly give a warm welcome to our old friends economic decay, disengaged youth and opportunistic crime, and those of a more psychological persuasion might name drop ‘deindividuation’ – the process where we supposedly lose self-awareness and responsibility in large crowds.
This belies the fact that we crowd behaviour is a complex area that is surprisingly poorly researched.
But what we do know about is the interaction between large crowds and the police and you could do much worse than check out the work of psychologist Clifford Stott who researches how crowds react to policing and what triggers violence.
In his 2009 report on the scientific evidence behind ‘Crowd Psychology and Public Order Policing,’ commissioned by the UK constabulary, he summarises what we know about public disorder and how the authorities can best manage it (you can download it as a pdf).
He notes that the old ideas about the ‘mob mentality’, deindividuation and the loss of individual responsibility are still popular, but completely unsupported by what we know about how crowds react.
People don’t become irrational and they do keep thinking for themselves, but that doesn’t mean that the influence of the crowd has no effect.
In terms of policing, one of the clearest effects to emerge from studies of riots and crowd control is that an indiscriminate kicking from riot police can massively increase the number of people in the crowd who become violent.
This is probably because the social identity of people in a group is fluid and changes according to the relationship with other groups.
For those
That is interesting. However, I'm not sure it'll be much of a defence in a court of law.
There is no binary thinking going on in this thread -- none at all. I'm sure the rioters are either utterly blameless or human scum.
|
There is no binary thinking going on in this thread -- none at all. I'm sure the rioters are either utterly blameless or human scum.
It's a clever point, and certainly catches the sentiments of several posters on both sides of the debate (or at least one side of the debate), but to be fair there are also several people here who seem to be taking (or at least trying to take) a more measured and less one dimensional approach.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think there are two issues.
Of the rioters I simply do think they are human scum.
The 'completely innocent' ones here are the people who are quietly going about their daily lives and trying to better themselves, or simply eking out their existence without looking to cause harm to others. Those are the people who are quietly and legitimately pushing for social change WITHOUT seeing the need for mindless violent 'protest' which are only really attacks on the already strectched communities that will only further disadvantage the truly disadvantaged.
The last thing that desparate people need is scant local facilities and amenities to be trashed, as getting them rebuilt is quite often a distant dream.
I'll also plump for the latter.
They are human scum - witness their activities in Manchester last night - a city that has spent millions on urban regeneration and reinvention. These "poor disenfrancised souls" systematically targetted, looted and burned shops and businesses... way to improve your city and society there people...
way to improve your city and society there people...
How are the 'disenfranchised' and 'socially immobile' supposed to get ahead when people keep burning down the Tesco's that could have been the starting point of their career?
Hard to get a job at a burned out business.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There is no binary thinking going on in this thread -- none at all. I'm sure the rioters are either utterly blameless or human scum.
Sure there is. I've yet to call the rioters utterly blameless. In fact, I previously linked to this as being accurate on my feelings, and it makes no excuses about the damage being done being a bad thing.
What I have said is not that the riots were good, but that the were inevitable. And the answer lies not in going "Welp they're all crims gun them down" but in examining what lead to the riot and how to ensure they don't continue to happen.
So rather, it seems that on one side you have people looking for the reasons of the riot, understanding that riots do not occur in a vacuum, who state that both those victimized during the riots and those who were victimized into creating the riots are both, well, victims, and that while those that do damage right now are not excused of it it is important to find why they did it.
And on the other side you have "It's just a bunch of criminality, who cares why or how it started just lock 'em up or gun 'em down."
One side wants to be rid of the riots and the causes that lead to them. The other just wants revenge.
You don't punish a criminal out of vengeance, you rehabilitate them. The same goes for a community.
My ironic tone didn't come across Shifty :)
That's exactly the point mate - they can't. Vicious cycle that's lost on these morons and the "bleeding heart" mob.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For f@+!’s sake people, grow up.
This should be a discussion about a very real, very current and very tragic series of events that have no one simple answer or cause and room for opposing but reasoned views.
It is not the time or place for Internet Oneupmanship 101.
Horse poop! Round up all Brits who turn 18 and ship them to prison farms where they will work for food and a University Education until they reach 25. Then give them a choice: Antartica where they will work to build a City as 'colonists' and be paid in food - or shot dead.
|
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Bleh. Just watched a youtube clip where some disenfranchised girl said how cool it was to have free wine at 9 in the morning, and that by taking and drinking it she was sticking it to the rich. The rich being "people wiv shops an' that."
Yeah. When I think of "The Rich" I immediately think of the shopkeepers of Clapham High Street.
|
|
There is no binary thinking going on in this thread -- none at all. I'm sure the rioters are either utterly blameless or human scum.Sure there is. I've yet to call the rioters utterly blameless. In fact, I previously linked to this as being accurate on my feelings, and it makes no excuses about the damage being done being a bad thing.
What I have said is not that the riots were good, but that the were inevitable. And the answer lies not in going "Welp they're all crims gun them down" but in examining what lead to the riot and how to ensure they don't continue to happen.
So rather, it seems that on one side you have people looking for the reasons of the riot, understanding that riots do not occur in a vacuum, who state that both those victimized during the riots and those who were victimized into creating the riots are both, well, victims, and that while those that do damage right now are not excused of it it is important to find why they did it.
And on the other side you have "It's just a bunch of criminality, who cares why or how it started just lock 'em up or gun 'em down."
One side wants to be rid of the riots and the causes that lead to them. The other just wants revenge.
You don't punish a criminal out of vengeance, you rehabilitate them. The same goes for a community.
Actually, I think that the genuine divide is between those who consider there to be social issues which underly this particular instance of criminality, which if tackled would reduce such instances, and those that do not accept that such social issues provide any reason for criminal behaviour. I haven't noticed anyone calling for revenge, even if they do not consider the rioters have anyone to blame other than themselves.