The Real Mystery

[poliphilo]

There's no mystery about why the kids did what they did.

The young crave excitement, lack empathy (it's to do with brain chemistry), have a huge sense of entitlement, despise their elders. 

So they smash things up. Everything from bus shelters to social conventions. Some of which is good. 

We've all been there, but we forget- or we cast a retrospective glamour over our youthful shittiness. 

I didn't burn and loot high street shops, but I did things that were, morally speaking, just as bad. Bet you did too.

There's no need to bring poverty into the equation. The PM, the Chancellor and the Mayor of London used to be in a gang called the Bullingdon Club. Their schtick was to get very, very drunk, trash restaurants and assault passers-by.  None of them was poor.

Usually there are restraints in place to keep youthful mischief-making within bounds- to keep the outrages small-scale and local.  For some reason they just failed. 

Why? Why now? That's the real mystery.

Comments

[petercampbell.livejournal.com]

Poverty must be a factor, if only on the level that people don't have money to spend on things to distract them. And peer pressure to get the latest designer gear/accessories is HUGE these days, much greater than it used to be.

No idea why the police failed to contain the initial disturbances though - maybe they've become afraid to been to use use force following the death of Ian Tomlinson?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Everybody is blaming the police or the politicians or the parents.

Personally, I am inclined to blame the advertisers.

[michael john grist (from livejournal.com)]

I don't see the logic in blaming advertisers. You said above that -

"The young crave excitement, lack empathy (it's to do with brain chemistry), have a huge sense of entitlement, despise their elders"

Is it advertising that caused that? Would somehow altering advertising regulation (a massive alteration to freedom of speech and free markets) change that?

I'm certain it would not. Half the kids accused of rioting probably didn't even steal anything, or anything worth mentioning. An anecdotal number of those that did stole ridiculous things like cheap rose wine and water bottles. Is that due to the great ad campaigns for Evian?

Does advertising also explain them just plain burning and smashing things, and attacking people? I can't see anything but the most tenuous logic making those connections.

Finally- blaming advertisers pushes the burden of self-responsibility away from the individuals responsible (and their custodians; parents, the police) and onto a seemingly unrelated group. Should we really try to teach these kids (and their parents) they are so dumb and persuadable that they can not be considered responsible for their actions?

More blame culture. The buck has to stop with the people making the choices, and in the case of kids their immediate guardians.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Well, no; it wasn't a logical progression from what I said in the post- more like a flip one-liner.

I said it because I could.

I hate advertising. It's the lie-machine at the heart of consumer culture. It makes us want things we don't need- and value things that are valueless.

I don't actually think there are any simple explanations for what happened. Some of the rioters were poor, some were anything but.

But riots have causes. They're symptomatic of something rotten in the state. Blaming the rioters- and only the rioters- without regard to the society they're part of- will get us nowhere.

[michael john grist (from livejournal.com)]

Ok, fair enough.

As for assigning blame, I agree, the rioters are symptoms of a bigger problem. I'd blame the parents and other authority figures that let things get out of control.

An interesting article here about how authority figures have become too afraid to use any kind of discipline, and how that results in kids doing whatever they want.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8698193/How-to-recover-Britains-streets-for-civilisation.html