To be depressed and upset about our cruel society, but know that there is bugger all I can do.

[ultrathule]

Recently I've been getting quite upset by the news, and especially by comment threads and chat boards where individuals express their opinions. It seems that there is so much hate, casual cruelty and lack of understanding of others misfortune around. I know intellectually that this is what life is like, and it isn't really worth getting upset about, but I can't help it. I am finding it all so overwhelming. I want to stop reading the paper, or looking at facebook, or opening certain threads, but at the same time I can't quite help myself.

I read about spikes put on ground to stop homeless people from sleeping under a bit of shelter. Then I read a comment thread where unfortunate destitute people are called scum. I read about people who lose their homes, who despite working all hours they can, still can't make ends meet, at the mercy of landlords who can evict at will. I read comment threads that call them benefit scroungers, and blame them for having children.
I read about people who will never have the lifestyle their parents enjoyed, despite doing everything "right" - going to university, studying, working hard, finding a vocation. The things that were normal to their parents (owning a home, not being in debt, having a pension), are out of their reach. Yet when they complain, they are called "entitled".
I read about people fleeing awful persecution, left to drown at sea. Or suffocating in the back of lorries. Or thrown into internment camps. Who are then blamed for trying to better their lives.
I hear about people who are exploited, then condemned for their own exploitation.

And the fact of these things is bad enough, but the attitude of so many people which seems to be "to hell with everyone else", is what upsets me the most. A old work colleague of mine, after losing her partner and being unable to continue in her job, suffering from mental illness, was left destitute by benefit sanctions (caused by letters being stolen from the dreadful hostel she'd been placed in after being evicted from her home). She's a normal person who has been destroyed by our so called "society", and now has been left on the scrap heap. I wrote about her, and the comments in response were to the effect: it is her own fault, why should we care?

What have we become?

I think you need to pull yourself together.

YABU because although there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world, there is also a lot of good around too, and lots of very heart warming stories.

Maybe you should think again about volunteering, or getting a different voluntary role, because my voluntary job allows me to see a huge amount of kindness and good will in people and it really does help provide a counter balance. I try and and focus on the good I see around me rather than the bad, and when I come across properly horrible people (not just those who have stong political views) then I try to understand why they might feel that way. If you're going to have compassion for people, then you have to extend that to situations and opinions you don't easily understand, as well as those that resonate with you straight away. It's relatively easy to do at an individual level, even if you don't agree with an individuals position on something.

ultra, its bad that people didn't care about your colleague who really needs help at the moment. Its so sad that we've become such a greedy 'im alright jack' society and I fear for my own boys and their generation. it is depressing and very sad. I hope she is able to find somewhere better to live soon.

The answer to deficit is growth, not austerity. Austerity is the financial equivalent of never going outside in case you get run over.

No, it's the equivalent of not going out because you can't afford to go out.

Any person/household/company/country that is spending more than earnings has 3 options. 1, try and bring more money in, 2, try to spend less. The sensible option is option 3...do both.

TTWK, this is an economically illiterate argument. It works on a personal level, but not at the whole economy scale: if a large percentage of members of a society stop "going out" (ie spending money) then the economy contracts, and you do the very opposite of "bringing more money in".

Oh it's you again TTWK. I can't believe people are still buying into the analogy that the national debt is the same as a person's debt. It is completely economically illiterate.

In 2010 the coalition inherited an economy that was growing, because Labour was investing in jobs and growth. Austerity stifled all that and set us back years.

Op yanbu.

Yanbu. What a bloody mess.

YANBU, if everyone were as compassionate as you the world would be a better place.

My mum finds it very depressing. She stopped buying newspapers.

In a recession, we forget all our Christian values of 'do unto others ...' And we become dog-eats-dog. We'll stab our neighbour in the back to get that job, because we have to look after our own first.
It's all really quite depressing. I can't see how this is going to change.

YANBU. It's scary.

YANBU!

YANBU

I feel the same

YANBU... I think it often it comes out in its worst here..but also there are some very kind compassionate people here who would do anything to help a complete stranger.

We're in a cycle again of badly behaved people. Think of the 1930s:

Nazis
Stalinism
Jarrow March
etc etc etc.

I read the news and I get the feeling that something terrible is about to happen on a colossal scale. And when I say terrible, I mean a human and economic catastrophe.

I was waiting for somebody to pull out the 'nation's credit card' argument. The Tories have been very successful in selling that idea, and on the face of it, at a simplistic level, it makes sense. Unfortunately, macro-economics don't operate on anything like the same principles of personal finance. The drivers and inhibitors are completely different. Those who buy the idea that austerity is the answer to all our economic ills need to read up on economic theory and take some alternative views. Frances Coppola's tweets would be a good start for a fair and balanced view that takes in multiple theories and an in depth real world knowledge and experience of global and national economics.

Dora is absolutely correct that it is growth that is badly needed. Austerity can discourage growth very badly.

Interesting to see how I am not alone in feeling this way! I don't think I'm particularly "sensitive", but increasingly I've been looking around me and feeling just desolate.

"I read the news and I get the feeling that something terrible is about to happen on a colossal scale. And when I say terrible, I mean a human and economic catastrophe."

I think even worse than this is that we sleepwalk into a true dystopia. I remember reading Brave New World when I was at school, and not really getting it. Back then (early 90s), there was a lot of optimism around, and that sort of dystopian vision just felt alien. Now - not so.

It isn't even the actual policies that upset me the most, it is the gloating nastiness that seems to surround general discourse. If you believe in austerity, argue for it, but don't gloat when a person who has been set up to fail by the system actually does go and fail.

Dora is absolutely correct that it is growth that is badly needed. Austerity can discourage growth very badly.

3 venues in recent times have borrowed money to stage an Olympics, because they wanted to spend their way out of trouble. Atlanta did it in 1996 (completely bankrupt a few years later) and Greece did it in 2004 (now completely bankrupt.)

And the other venue was London. Watch this space.

There may be some element of goadyness on MN to get back at it for being pretty left wing. The right does have an inherent expression problem, because selfishness doesn't really have very many literary qualities. So, there may be a temptation for right wing folk to log on and give MN a kick. Whether or not they're like that in real life, doubtless some are. But, I'd bet not all of them.

And Peer Steinbrook's bailout of the German banks in 2008 was what, exactly? Um, austerity?

Being right wing isn't any more selfish than being left wing. There are very few people either side of the centre ground that hold their views for the good of complete strangers. Poorer people try and protect themselves by being left wing and more affluent people try and protect themselves by being right wing, apart from a few champagne socialists everyone is pretty much the same in that.

I think if you go through life believing that's everyone who has opposite views to your own politically is fundamentally selfish instead of just having a diffenrg opinion, then it's not going to be surprising if you end up depressed about all the bad things in the world.

There may be some element of goadyness on MN to get back at it for being pretty left wing. The right does have an inherent expression problem, because selfishness doesn't really have very many literary qualities. So, there may be a temptation for right wing folk to log on and give MN a kick. Whether or not they're like that in real life, doubtless some are. But, I'd bet not all of them.

Insulting people who have a different opinion is a sure sign that you've lost the argument.

I suppose it depends on what the wings are made of. If they're named after the sides of the French parliament, no doubt that's correct. But, I don't see many poor people in Westminster. If they're named after organised union labour, then, apart from Unite, they may not have poor members. The T&G and ASLEF represent some pretty well paid people, tube drivers, for example. So, in the modern age, I don't see it as being a simple rich and poor divide. The really poor may not vote at all, or feel anybody represents them. And, they're probably correct. At the moment, I can't see a realistic argument which differentiates modern Conservatism from selfishness, exploitation and greed. Personally, I think that about covers it.

Spending on Olympic white elephants would not fit in my definitions of either growth or capital investment

To those who think only those who benefit from left wing governance vote for it, I'm afraid you're deluded. Plenty of people vote for left wing parties even though they would be financially worse off under their governance. I'm one of them. That is a mistake the right wing make time and time again -to assume that everyone is fundamentally selfish and to make policy accordingly. Actually, they're not.

OP - you're right. Narcissistic traits are on the rise, a complete lack of empathy and a lack of compassion to anyone other than themselves.

It feels like the world is full of bullies.