To think the social contract has completely broken down?

I think covid is ramping that up - there’s a fair bit of research showing brain changes after infection(s) - one of which is the part of the brain responsible for empathy. Nearly everyone has caught covid, many of those have been reinfected at least once. A percentage of those infected, will have impacts on their brain as a result. The sheer volume of infections and reinfections is going to have an increasing impact at a societal level. I don’t think covid is the only factor in this societal change - people are being asked to be ever more resilient to compensate for the lack of that in systems and structures. Some are being asked to go beyond what they know is right (using covid as an example again, a care worker may have to choose between their job and infecting someone vulnerable they care for - how do you think that makes some of them feel)? A proportion of people try to push back against that, another proportion think ‘fuck it’. The way disabled people and refugees are spoken about in the press is another example of a deliberate push against empathy. The way attendance is always blamed on parents/kids in the press, instead of thinking why is there no resilience in a curriculum to allow a six year old time off when ill? Why are we blaming children and teachers for their increased absence when they are getting ill from things they pick up in school?

Also, many people are sheep e.g. - I will take my kid to a softplay even though they vomited this morning as someone else might do it anyway / I will play my music on transport as others have done it before / I will park in a blue badge space without one as the person with the badge is probably faking it / I will impede this patient’s chance of recovery as my colleague is also ill.

I don't feel like i have given up any freedoms and i certainly don't want to pack a gun

Haven't RTFT, but I don't quite view "The Social Contract" in the same way the OP does.

I've always taken it to mean that we as a society have given up certain individual rights to the state, on the understanding that the state will act for society.

So we can't just go around dishing out justice - we relinquish that to the state.

Critically, we give up a lot of our freedoms in exchange for security the state provides. That's why we can't pack a gun for self defence - we rely on the state to protect us.

The real question, is are we getting anything in exchange for those removed freedoms ?

If enough people feel the answer is "No" then yes: the social contract is broken.

@DBSFstupid

sorry to hear about your struggles and I agree it is hard to get the help needed but I think in your post you thought there was an overuse of the term and it can be used as an excuse in some cases

I think we can really underestimate the amount of “unpaid” labour/disregard to enable society to function as it did. From women putting up with terrible men and minorities putting up with casual racism. For example now we have the incel and red pill movements and many men who reject any social niceties towards women. If they are not guaranteed a woman they have no intentions of following societal norms. I suppose people in general feel this about jobs/homes too - what is the point without these things being reasonable to obtain?

My parents (black) would not have told you they were treated with kindness and respect even in work environments or with their neighbours even 20 years ago. There was an expectation not to rock the boat, to accept being treated as inferiors.

All this is to say that people question the point of doing things and we don’t have a great response for them as a culture now that most people are not religious or believe in their “betters” or even that they have someone to feel superior too in the social hierarchy.

I don’t know if I’m expressing it well but I think we need a rational kindness that isn’t as authoritative as the previous ways used to make people behave respectfully.

In Scotland teachers used a ‘tawse’, a leather strap they used on children’s palms. I had one teacher for three years in primary school, who belted me fairly regularly. No teacher before or after her ever punished me, I wasn’t a bad child. She was a nasty woman whose objective seemed to be humiliation, she destroyed what self confidence I had for years.

It didn’t make me anti authority, it made me anti abuse of authority.

I was reading a thread a while ago about birthday parties and some parents CF behaviour and lack of social etiquette, and what came across even more than those that couldn’t give a damn about anyone else, was actually those that didn’t know what the social etiquette was.

Maybe a lot of this behaviour has come from us not actually knowing how to behave never mind teaching our kids. Things like cultural diversity, class mobility etc all good things but obviously we’re now mixing more than ever.

Is anyone seeing my posts? I've just mentioned about this and others quite pertinent to this thread?
(edited for clarity)

Yes my point being that PPs are saying this is a new things with noise on train. It really isnt

I completely agree with you. It’s just manifestly true. Common sense, as you say.

Totally agree.

Giving up a table during a busy time is common decency.

Doing the best you can is something to be proud of.

People stop caring, and getting slobby as the attitude is why bother, but where's the pride?
I bother for myself and for community otherwise we'd all be walking around Tesco in our pj's.

You have people encouraging others to sign off sick, lie to the DWP, cheat whatever system they can, then they wonder why society is how it is.

Yes it can go too far.

sometimes people need to step up a bit

Yes I think so

I would interpret that (haven’t seen the whole para before) as meaning we all need to take personal responsibility and not lie back and expect others (or the abstract concept‘society’) to do things for us. Society IS an abstract concept and is made up of millions of individual acts/decisions/responsibilities.

I think it’s common sense. Why is it so controversial? The short quote has always been taken out of context and used to push a particular agenda, hasn’t it?

I get depressed when people on here pour scorn on those who take pride in, and put in extra effort at their job. I’ve seen it many times!

Their critics’ view is that they are saps, mugs, silly sheep and forelock-tugging peasants to be so conscientious for a modest wage.

i think this attitude shows the real problem with society - if you’re not utterly self-interested, you’re a fool. I’ve always done every hob to the best of my ability- it’s part of my identity to have high standards.

I’m sorry to come over all Captain Mainwaring, but how the hell would we have beaten Hitler with that kind of lazy, selfish, sneering mindset?

Seems like a statement of fact to me. Where’s the lie, as they say.

So tired of that being taken out of context! I think ‘duty’ is a dirty word now, the same as ‘responsibility’.

Who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business …

Yes they can do, but on the flip side lots don’t. Trying to get people to formally list an issue with the police is a huge hurdle. Some months back our neighbour was seen speeding through our place and I received a text, being off site, to be aware this fellow was walking around our Home.

I asked the neighbour to call the police but they didn’t…

That's awful. I'm so glad society has moved on from those times.

As for your rather Dickensian story about the old man coming up to your FIL and saying "Thank you, kind sir, for beating me as a child, it was the making of me" - do you really think every single person your FIL caned would feel the same?

Or is one saved soul enough to balance out all the other hurt, fearful children?

i didn’t say shame. I said rage and hurt. It made me anti authority for a long while tbh.

What it has also done is not get help to the people who really need it as it is not being taken seriously enough as most everyone seems to have 'mental health issues' which aren't really.

Speaking from personal experience it has been a nightmare and actually life threatening.

People take matters into their own hands and mete out vigilante justice when they see the justice system they rely on isn’t working to protect them, it’s only natural.

Im sorry that you still carry the rage or hurt @Bonden . But your shame may have deterred others and have been for a societal good. And to put the other side of it - I was visiting my by now ancient father in law, and we were having a cup of tea in his local Tesco. An elderly man came up to my beloved FIL and said that he remembered being a pupil in my FIL's classes and once being cared by him. He thanked him for it. It was a school in a fairly rough area and the man said that he'd been going down 'the wrong road' and the shame he felt had made him change direction.

I totally agree. I was raised to have a social conscience and always try to do the right thing. However, I’ll be honest, with so much ‘rule breaking’ and selfishness around I’ve started to question why I should bother and perhaps I should start to think more/only of myself. I was sitting outside a restaurant on Friday. I had finished my meal but was really enjoying the beautiful view in the warm autumnal sunshine. I could see a queue forming for tables. My social conscience kicked in - I felt guilt that I was sitting there when others needed my table so I vacated it. But I questioned whether others would do the same for me.

In a work setting, I was taught to do the best job I could do and I put in maximum effort. I go above and beyond, regularly putting in unpaid hours, while my job share - who does the minimum and ‘allows’ me to pick up the slack - earns the same. A reward for me has always been a sense of pride/fulfilment but having seen my parents pretty much broken by their work, I question why I should bother.

Sadly, individualism now trumps community.

My mother was an inner city primary school teacher in the 1960's. The Afro Caribbean mothers told her to thrash their children if they were naughty. She obviously couldn't/wouldn't do that, but the kids (apparently) considered anything less than a thrashing as getting off scott free.