It’s The Parents Fault?
The reporting on the riots in Britain seems to be rather strange. Anyone attempting to talk about problems in these areas is immediately pounced on for ‘excusing the violence’. There is a continuing drumbeat about the ‘lawlessness’.
First off, the ‘rioters’ are primarily young males, who are not especially noted for decorum or common sense. They don’t generally listen to adults, and they are in the middle of the transition to adulthood and are trying to prove themselves worthy. In ‘primitive’ societies they have extremely dangerous rites of passage to channel all of the excess energy, but modern societies have extended childhood and removed most of the dangers.
If the people are wondering why the rioters have no respect for the law, maybe they should spend more time reading the news. The rioters have as much respect for the law as major defense contractors, members of Parliament, or the police.
When response to the troubles is faulty because all of the major leaders are on vacation somewhere ‘ritzy’, and the police response is somewhat hampered by the recent resignations at the top of the command structure, the complaints about the rioters look a bit hypocritical.
Oh, the simple answer to why they are so destructive is that they have no stake in their communities. Society has provided them with no reason to care about it, because they have no reason to believe they will ever own anything in it.
4 comments
Me: “I’ve been reading in the newspaper about all the looting going on. It’s a disgrace!”
RWNJ: “Amen, brother. They need to put all those looters in jail!”
Me: “No, jail’s too good for them. We need to bring back the gallows and hang’em all! The nerve of those criminals, stealing people’s properties, destroying everything that people have worked for in their entire lives, taking every bit of money that people ever had!”
RWNJ: “Forget about hanging, that’s too easy for them! Let’s flog’em all, then hang them upside down from a cross until the crows peck their eyes out and they die!”
Me: “Yeah! That’ll teach those bankers!”
RWNJ: “Uhm… wha?”
– Badtux the Snarky Penguin
No one seems to mention that a lot of property, including community gardens, was grabbed in Tottenham to build stuff for the 2010 Olympics. That would really endear the residents to the government. 😈
I wonder how Cameron’s downsizing of the police in his austerity plan is working out for him? I’m sure that the police are doing a really professional job knowing they could be laid off at any time, and will give their whole-hearted support to a government that wants to reduce their pensions and benefits. 😈
I see you also noticed that these riots don’t occur in places like The Hamptons where people have a lot to lose if they riot. These riots occur in the roughest areas where there is nothing to lose. I wonder if our own Austerians, so eager to apply their Austerity Fairy’s rough wand of proctology job creation to the posterior sections of unwilling Americans, have stopped to think about the inevitable result of their policies if followed to the bitter end? Oh of course not, they believe in fairies wielding magic wands, for cryin’ out loud, which de facto means that they are magical thinkers utterly divorced from pragmatic reality. Hmm…
– Badtux the Sociology Penguin
We keep having riots in the US because they keep setting up commissions which issue the same report about the problems. The reports are filed, and noting is done until the next riot.
Austerity creates the conditions, and the current economy will expand the geographic scope of areas that can be affected. Vacant properties are always a feature of the riot sites, and there are more of them around these days. All you need is a critical mass of unemployed young males in hot weather and you have a riot waiting for a trigger, usually a police action that is questionable.
I lived in Rochester, NY in the 1970s and early 80s, and worked in law enforcement in the county. Summers were still a very nervous time in Monroe County. The senior police officials all remembered the riots in the 1960s.