To think the social contract has completely broken down?

I always think it must of been Covid that changed things so much , mostly because I don’t remember it being quite so on edge as it seems now

Yes it was

now you have to be careful as they may turn violent

Mid 20s

Why does someone always ask this sort of stupid question whenever there is a thread about the state of society?

I didn’t… I should have said without people being referred to as…. whatever. But I missed out a word.

Why do you think that's directed at you?

I'd be intrigued to see how you'd cope if the social contract actually did break down. You do realise that the overwhelming majority of people cooperate with strangers every day and follow the rules that matter? Yeah loud phone sounds are annoying but annoying is not the collapse of civilisation.

I wonder why it is though that people genuinely don’t seem to care that their behaviour is having a negative impact on others? It’s strange, isn’t it… I think most people would be mortified and upset to think that they were annoying other people, hurting other people - I don’t really understand why people just don’t give a damn, basically! I’d like to have it explained to me.

It's more a case of people wanting what they want and not giving a wet slap about anybody else. In other words, selfishness and entitlement.

Can we not have a civil discussion about problems, even cultural differences and issues, without being referred to as racist shitheads? 🙄

You’re doing a good job with the dehumanising language yourself. Pot, kettle.

Thank you for that! I’m going to look it up and read.

Not to mention that shitheads seem emboldened to be racist and the dehumanising language that people throw around.
It's pretty grim out there

You’re conflating a lot of different issue into one homogenous thing. It’s not.

How old is your daughter?

I think all expenditure should be reviewed in terms of what people want when they realise the limitations.

Education has to be number 1, otherwise the country has no future.

Also the social contract must include considering where the boundaries lie on free services - there is no ceiling to healthcare expenditure because treatments improve all the time. But the level of entitlement we now have is pretty high - the complaining about free services in the UK seems very high to me.

Our health & social care model is not sustainable as people do not pay anywhere near enough tax for it.

My children were in their teens before mobile phones and the internet kicked off. And I’m so glad. I remember happy children socialising a lot with friends out doors. Going swimming, going to parks and just imaginative play being children. It’s sad now to see how much that’s changed.

The sheer number of cars that drive through just gone red lights. It’s astounding

There is a set near me, where if they put camera's on them , the council's budget for highways/education/social care would probably triple !

The thing is, if everyone was like you, making sure your own family is ok, and caring for your friends and neighbours, our country would be in a great place.

Collectively it would be brilliant.

It’s like Plato’s Cave, isn’t it… people not seeing the real world, only the shadows of it on the wall. People watching others live their lives instead of living their own. Quite scary really.

I agree with you! My great aunt once gave me some advice when I was getting particularly stressed. She said a person can only row their own little boat on this life. And I think she was right, and I can only say it’s served me well. I accept the things I can’t control and just concentrate all my energies on my own family and circle of friends and neighbours. I can’t do any more than that. I don’t get stressed about things I see on the news over which I have no control, or strangers acting badly in shops and on trains.

I feel very sad about the decline of manners and civility in the country now, but the individual can only do so much.

Completely broken down? No. There's still a lot of civilised, well mannered and productive behaviour out there. There is an increase in self-absorbed behaviours but it is still a minority. There is also an increase in anti-social behaviour from people with more complex needs where support services have reduced (and a significant proportion of support is from voluntary, community organisations)

I think lockdowns did hinder social skills, for some temporarily, but long term for a small number. It was also a gear change that accelerated a few years of technological change that was going to occur anyway.

"The customer is always right" and people that know far more about their rights than responsibilities has been a gradual change that's been going over the last 20-30 years. Add into that a reduction of policing to deal with excessive behaviours either nipping them in the bud or across the line into criminally aggressive, and organisations have lost their confidence at dealing with anti-social behaviours, which feeds into the public being reluctant to challenge it too.

@JinnyAwesome I agree and I’m the same age as the colleague mentioned.

Was it harder to get an education than boomers due to no grants and parents that earned well (meaning no loan) but didn’t believe it was their place to help. Yes it was. But I worked full time alongside and got there.

Was it harder to get on the property ladder than for my parents generation. Yes we’ve absolutely scrimped and saved but we’ve done it and now worked our way up.

There’s lots of things that have been difficult and if you only ever compared these things to prior generations maybe you’d feel despondent. But I’ve got four young children who will be taught and shown that you get what you work for. Nothing is a given and nothing is expected. That said I’ll be helping them as much as I can, even if all I can offer is my time.

Plus having said all that, I was brought up with electricity, running water, an indoor toilet, schooling expected, plenty of clothing etc, none of which was a given for my great grandparents so we’ve come a long way in our ‘expected norm’ in 100yrs

Our neighbours, who are a generation younger than us, seemed genuinely baffled when we objected to them putting holes in the party wall in the attic and then installing structures entirely on that wall for their loft conversion, structures that would prevent fire protection.

There was no arrogance, there was genuine bafflement that they couldn't just damage and use somebody else's property for their convenience.

When we put a stop to it, then the rage came that we were costing them more money.

And their attitude still astonishes me two years later.

I used to think about the bigger picture and I thought that if we all chip in, we’ll all be better off.

But it’s not working. People are rude and selfish. So sometime in the last year I decided there’s nothing I can do to stop the societal decline around me. I can’t save it, I can only save myself and do my very best for my own family.

I think a lot of people think this way now.

It has a lot to do with social media and people living their lives as though online.

I wish the internet had never moved to phones.