To feel like this world is going to shit right now?

[Notbigandnotclever]

I am just so sad right now. My heart is breaking over so many innocent people killed in recent months. Terrorist attacks around the world, overflowing refugee camps housing people fleeing from war, people shot for seemingly no reason other than their sexuality, an MP shot doing her job. When will it stop ffs? What on earth is going on?

I feel right now like I just want to get off the world. I really don't want to live in a world with such malice, hatred and spite in it. I can normally feel sad but then let things wash over me. Not anymore though. It's too much. So much darkness it is horrible. The weather is matching it as well. Dark, cloudy, dreary, fucked up and all over the place.

Does anyone else want to bail?

Hmm maybe enlightenment values was the wrong g way to put it. I meant all the stuff the women's rights movement has fought for. All the stuff the gay rights movement fought for. The unshackling of morality from religion. The idea that a secular society is a good thing, that we can and should criticise ideologies , that doubt is a positive force.

I see that under threat when cartoonists are slaughtered for poking fun at religion. Or when women are told to modify their behaviour to avoid sexual assault, rather than locking up the men who are doing the assaulting

Sorry formal - I just read that back and it sounded really sniffy! I didn't mean it that way. My typing isn't reflecting my emotions, which were lighthearted, but it sounded really snarky. Apologies.

I think we are talking about the same thing, which is intolerance. (The trouble with 'enlightenment values', as you know, is that so-called 'universal' reason more often than not turns out to be the reason of rich white men on closer examination!) But your original post actually made it clear that you weren't talking about that, but about the importance of respecting difference - of gender, religion, race, whatever. So I should have been more respectful of what you wrote and not just that phrase.

I also agree with the person who responded to you who said there IS very much a place for spiritual belief/religion even though I am an atheist. I think it's as important as any other aspect of identity, and I agree that we have lost major channels to have conversations about morality as its influence has faded (though I would argue for their replacement in a more secular setting). Sometimes I think that when we lose touch with conversations about how we define 'the good' (individually and collectively, and the latter has to be done) then we also lose touch with an idea that we can change the world and make it a better place for the future... we become resigned to 'it's always been a bit shit', which I fear is partly what is happening now in a strange way.

For me I think it seems worse because I have children. I lived through elements of the Troubles, but it became part of my life. Now When I heard the news about Jo or about Orlando, I think from a mother's perspective and it makes it somehow seem worse.

It was ever thus (the rich take from the poor, religion is used as an excuse for extremism, the strong / powerful abuse the weak for fun, war war war)

We are more aware now with 24/7 news. Far more aware.

However, if I'd lived through WW2, I would think: 'why did I bother' sometimes, I think. Then I'd buck up and keep going.

Breathe in and out. One foot in front of the other. Be kind to your fellow (wo)man. Try to elect those who will uphold values of kindness and tolerance. Speak out. Raise awareness, protest wrongdoing. And hope for better. What else can we do?

I think as well that, despite the awfulness of things that have happened in recent history, much of it is "other".
The stuff between Israel and Palestine, the Syrian situation, Rwanda, what happens in the Congo, or Asia - all that is very "other" for most of us in the UK/Australia/Europe.

But the attacks on clubs (gay or not), office blocks, railway stations, hotels, and a working woman being shot and stabbed for her beliefs (Jo Cox) - those are NOT "other". Those are much closer to home. Those could potentially be us.

That's not to excuse it - but I think it's natural to more fear the things closer to "home".

I don't know that I feel it worse now I have children or not - because when I was in my late teens/early 20s, I felt it really badly then. REALLY badly, and thought I may never have children because I didn't want them to be born into the world we lived in. Back then, 25-30 years ago, there was still shit going on but different shit.

Anything bad happening to children now affects me far more than it did then - but I don't think that overall it's worse.

Ah I think I'm rambling. Stopping now.

No offence taken! Yes I see what you mean - probably a poor choice of words on my part. And yes I agree that there can be a positive side to religion . As I said I'm an atheist but I have friends of various religions and none - they find positive guidance in their interpretation and I understand that. And in a wider societal contrxt yes, maybe we've lost that framing.

I think the argument that the world is more peaceful now than ever is an interesting one. My world seems less secure - where I live id have gone out jogging at night up to about two years ago but not now - too many groups of young men hanging around and harassing people for example. Is this just my perception? I'm not sure. I live outside the uk in Europe - my neighbours are police and they say there's been a big uptick in violent and non violent crimes, mainly caused by young male Incomers. So we are back to male entitlement again. Or am I seeing things more since I became a parent? Am I seeing danger everywhere?

Yes, shovetheholly.

I am on another thread about Farage in which someone is standing up for Enoch Powell, quoting his infamous speech and going "so where's the racism?" It's a really sharp example of how our cultural standards have changed, for the worse - people are literally saying "That Enoch Powell spoke a lot of sense, you know".

things are getting worse, in that sense. Powell's position became untenable. Why is Farage feted?

Powell position became untenable because society changed (for the better.)
But if people feel unsafe, or threatened then we need to listen to them, understand their fears and counter them. I think a big chunk of British society feels very alienated and afraid and it's not good enough to just call them ignorant and racist. I think this is where the remain campaign has gone wrong. They should have focused on the positives of remaining in Europe. Instead there's a faint whiff of 'ignorant racist provincials' about it. And people don't like that.
It's the same in the country where I live - the centrist parties refused to discuss immigration and labelled anyone who did racist. So people turned to the right wing parties. And the right wing parties where I live are scary - they make ukip look mild. But they are polling 30%+ ... That's deeply worrying.

I worry that what were fringe parties are on the rise across Europe - look at the recent election in Austria for example. To me there is a sense of fear, uncertainty etc that I haven't felt before. I think our common humanity is being threatened by it.
I'm rambling too.

I don't know, Formal....I feel like the mainstream parties indulging fears about immigration (trying to compete with Farage) is toxic, not a safety valve.

I know what you mean about real fear, a real sense of alienation and disenfranchisement. But I don't think that building in an accommodation to xenophobia into mainstream political discourse is the solution.

We live in a state of nature (and all that). We try hard to overcome human urges and control our environment. But we can't. Life has always been nasty and brutish, but it's a little less short now for some.

I think the advent and ubiquity of social media has added infinitely to this. It's not the immediacy of news that makes people feel less safe/happy (after all, there were newspapers pre-1990s ), but the availability of reading the rantings of every Tom dick and Harry. When opinions are so accessible they'll attract and divide with much much more potency than if it was just drunk old Tom ranting down the pub again. And everyone now not just has an opinion but is able to share this with potentially millions of people. Opinions are forced on us. This won't just attract like-minded people but will fuel anger and irrationality (which you see everywhere online -MN, newspaper, Bbc btl wtc). Real life is more cooperative when real communities exist.

Oh gosh no - that's not what I meant ! I meant we need to counter fears, not dismiss them (or pander to them.)
The way the media deals with it is grim. On one hand you've got the DM stoking up anti Muslim sentiment and on the other there were an appalling series of appeasement articles in the guardian after the Charlie hebdo massacre. Neither of these is a good thing.

We need to engage people and appeal to our common humanity - not scaremonger or tiptoe around ideologies.

And social media doesn't just make extreme opinions easier to air, it makes the individuals who hold them able to band together. Previously, if someone in a community held an unpopular belief they would likely keep it to themselves, or broadcast it and be duly countered. The internet is a vast place in which it's possible to find like-minded people for pretty much every niche hobby, fetish, political belief, whatever. Which can be brilliant or disastrous.

Haven't RTFT, but honestly, this has always been happening.
Innocent people have always been killed for no reason, terror attacks have always happened, there's always been darkness and malice in the world...
We just hear about it so much more with the Internet and social media and news reporting a click away. It's so much easier to hear about the gruesome things going on in the world than it used to be.

"We live in a state of nature (and all that). We try hard to overcome human urges and control our environment. But we can't. Life has always been nasty and brutish, but it's a little less short now for some."

No, this is defeatist and wrong.

We can overcome human urges. We don't have to kill, rape, exclude, bully, etc. We just don't have to.

And we can control the environment: we have over-controlled it. We are now controlling it to death.

YABU life is safer now than it has ever been, the self pitying self important bollocks people churn out about how bad life is at the moment is pathetic.

I think this is where the remain campaign has gone wrong. They should have focused on the positives of remaining in Europe.

There is a reason they haven't.

I wish they bloody well had. I might post about some of this later in the week depending on how I feel. I am very unhappy about how both campaigns have been run.

I studied political communication as part of my degree about 20 years ago (though I stuffed it up and did bugger all with it in the end except rant on MN a lot), so I have been watching it all pan out with fascination and increasing horror. Both campaigns have been dreadful in their own ways but its not been restricted to the referendums but to a much longer narrative that has been running throughout politics for the last couple of years. I find it something of an affront to democracy if I'm honest about it. Plus it undermines public confidence and trust.

I've posted a little about my frustration about how the public have been manipulated unwittingly enormously in the last few days. I do believe it needs to be talked about openly after yesterdays events, but given the circumstances, I'm not sure I should do before Thursday now because I'm not sure I can do it full justice without potentially inflaming things or being accused of bias. It feels a bit of a rock and a hard place.

I will see how I feel about it, in the next few days. I hope that the media will perhaps pick up on the idea, but I have my doubts just how much they will, because of course they are some of the main antagonists in the whole thing too.

It is a sorry, sorry mess. All of it.

HowBadIsThisPlease Fri 17-Jun-16 13:08:34

"I know bad things have always happened, but what I find scary right now is that there seems to be a mainstream legitimising of hate in this country that is new in my lifetime. I am genuinely scared of fascism at the moment."

The actual current time may well be safer than many we can of in the time, but I am afraid of where this might lead.

And I think that is what posters mean when they sometimes make comparisons with Nazism: not that anything today is comparable with the Holocaust, but that a rhetoric is being set up similar in some ways to that of the 20s and 30s, that our sensibilities are being eroded and that in time this may lead to horrors.

The people who spouted anti-Semitism in the 20s or 30s, or the people who failed to challenge them, had no means of foreseeing the Final Solution, but without knowing it they were laying its foundations. We do not know what kind of building may be erected on the current foundations, but it could be something very unpleasant.

I try and switch off from a lot of it, not because I don't care, but because it's always bad news and I've got to live my life and put a smile on my face.

The poster who commented on Katie Hopkins, I think you are right, and I'd like to say that I think KH is nothing but a propaganda machine. I've no idea how that woman sleeps at night.

Speaking of propaganda everywhere I look on social media there's propaganda being shared, it does my head in.

Sorry, I left out the bit that said THIS!!! after HowBad's post.

I do agree that this country is becoming scarier. For many reasons.

My Dmum is an 'immigrant' and she is so scared of public opinion because of uncontrolled 'immigration' that she is considering voting OUT. It's interesting, because she is an immigrant herself, but she feels personally threatened by the negative attitudes towards immigrants and feels that an OUT win would negate that somewhat.

Social Media is propagandas best friend.

Traditional media is subject to it, but it tends to be much more sourced and you have an idea of how 'trustworthy' it is to a degree.

Social media means things are not filtered at all, the are more targeted and few people question what they are reading if they tend to agree with it.

Unless people are taught to be a bit more savvy about this, its going to be an ongoing issue.

I think that political parties have actually been slow on the uptake of this, and its others that have led the way, but they have now very much got the idea and have been using it to its fullest extent.

Yeah it's not great - but better than it ever has been. Look at england in the dark ages for example - now we're not burning people at the stake, now we have the wonders of modern medicine, electricity, travel, no civil wars, a police force, no plague etc. Things change for better and for worse, but i'm definitely pleased my child has been born into the era he has been!

When was this Golden Era when things were so good?

Totally agree with Formalhaut post.

There's another thread asking should Nigel Farrage be banned off tv? Ridiculous because free speech is a cornerstone of what we hold dear.

I think the only way to see this is there have always been,and always will be,evil monsters who do evil things and we can only live our lives the best way we can and offer humanity and kindness to others and know the vast majority of the worlds people are decent.

There will always be evil. Yesterday evil killed a beautiful good decent and kind woman.