AIBU to loathe the people here?

[OnenessWithAllStrife]

Some people say that feeling a negative emotion or having unpleasant feelings about something shouldn't define you, that you should let the thoughts flow and then let them go. OK. I hope this to be true :(

But i have lived somewhere for the past 6 years that has brought me to conclusions and created feelings in me that I am not proud of. For the first time in my life I have actually come to loathe people and feel a sense of terror about being stuck with them. This is not particularly politically 'correct' when put into words, unfortunately, but I can't think of any other way to express it.

I moved to a town6 yrs ago in which I don't have much in common with the residents. It isn't unusual, just an ordinary large town which at one time contained more diversity, but in recent years has become very insular and homogenous. Everyone is angry, anti social, or depressed. If you don't openly discuss some sort of prejudice (racism, sexism, anti-intellectualism) you're 'soft in the head' or a 'bloody weirdo'.
Wherever I go here, in any direction, you will either see kids or drunk adults destroying property, or else screaming at each other in the street. There are a few select areas that are less challenging and rough, but the vibe is somehow the same.

Education or reading is a mugs game, football is the only passion, kids are yelled at for merely existing. Any conversation with a seemingly friendly stranger results in them wishing all the foreigners to go home. There is a general air of brutality to everything, a leathery, hard resistance to any kind of sensitivity whatsoever. Art, creativity and self reflection are suspicious, and the only permissible clothing is black or sport branded. Every damned street is choked with the fumes of endlessly revved up vehicles with ear splitting exhaust modifications. The environment is filthy, full of dog shit and bordering on dereliction.

I would once have considered all of this a problem of poverty, but it isn't quite that easy to determine, having witnessed it. There is no seeming variation in behaviour across income brackets here, it looks to be more cultural than income related, although the attitude towards learning, etc will obviously have the effect of creating more poverty regardless. It is like a self perpetuating cesspit of no hope and hard hearts. I thought i was a leftie, a socialist, but when I leave here I will be fucking marked by this and hope to never exist within it ever again.

We moved here for DP's work and are set to leave this coming year. I also appreciate that the residents and I have experienced very different upbringings and we do not share much in common, but even so, I think that you have to endure this to really, really see it, to come to fear it. It is easy to sit in a comfy armchair miles from it and 'defend' this stuff because you haven't truly sampled the existential sickness of it on your own doorstep.
I wish i didn't feel it, but it is difficult to lie to oneself, and the fear has probably evolved from having felt 'stuck' in it for so long. I wfh and DP does part time (some here regard us as 'pretentious' for this and have suggested we ought to do some 'real' work). It all feels very dated and odd, to be surrounded by values that repulse me and contain so little diversity. I mean, this is the type of place where you'll get side-eyed for cooking from scratch or having the audacity to flavour a dish with pesto.

Does this mean I loathe them? I don't know. I imagine I will chill with it when we have moved, as it all becomes a distant memory, but it has certainly left a mark. It feels wrong to state these feelings and observations, but I bet I am not the only one who has thought them....

Monarchy are not part of real life.

But they are. They cost us a fortune that could be spent far better in e.g. Wigan and they're part of the public administration of the UK, like it or not. Constitutional monarchy etc.

The language we use is outdated and ridiculous, look at the prison service: "detained at Her Majesty's pleasure", ffs.

People have to superficially accept monarchist values even if they know them to be complete bollocks: I don't think that's healthy and I think the edginess in Britain that pp have mentioned is partly due to having to accept living in a medieval system but feeling powerless to change it.

Surely you can't deny that Britain's public administration is corrupt, outdated and dysfunctional on many levels. How can that not be relevant to the behaviour of the actual public?

Lack of democracy and proper representation creates frustration and resentment in people. Combine that with a government that also tells us one thing and does the complete opposite, and you get a recipe for a lot of social unrest.

Monarchists like to say that having a monarchy increases social trust, but from the number of posters thinking that OP was talking about their home town, I would say the complete opposite is true.

www.businessinsider.com/11-reasons-why-your-country-should-have-a-monarchy-2015-9?r=US&IR=T#andreas-bergh-and-christian-bjrnskov-find-that-social-trust-is-higher-in-monarchies-social-trust-is-an-important-factor-in-sociology-and-economics-and-generally-correlates-with-lower-crime-and-lower-corruption-among-other-things-3

Sounds like Dover LOL. Honestly racist, brainless chavs ruin everything. Nothing like the sound of a mini bike revving past your house at 2am to settle you to sleep 🤢🤢

@ChurchofLatterDayPaints Do you really think that Wigan could be “saved” by redirecting the Monarchy money there?

You keep banging on about the Monarchy - it’s irrelevant. We’ve had bad times and prosperous times - I really don’t think being in a monarchy is at the heart and soul of that.

The current state of society is due to post-industrialisation (ie decline of former prosperous towns) and the breakdown of the traditional family unit.

Someone mentioned upthread a lack of pride in surroundings. I find this interesting. My grandparents lived in a council house (and then flat). Everyone grew vegetables in their front gardens (and this was in a dreary Midlands town, not in the countryside). The estate was very nice. Some new social housing was built locally. I was surprised and disappointed to see that after a few months the outsides were strewn with rubbish, including dirty nappies.

People trumpet (including on MN) about not judging - but should we judge? Is that what has gone wrong? (And actually, plenty of judging on this thread, yet somehow it’s ok if you are a “liberal” and not Hyacinth Bucket… )

Theres no doubt that environments like the OP describes exist and are pretty intolerable. But they are only ever pockets within an area. No town is entirely like this, including Wigan. Its perfectly possible for someone with the OPs advantages (job, education) to seek out the areas of the town more reflective of her own lifestyle and avoid as far as possible those that aren't. I get that living in a bad street is awful and empathise with this, but in other areas a bit of perspective is needed. Unless you live under a rock, the sight of a nail bar, kebab shop, black clothes, sportswear and some random with his hands down his joggers is pretty much standard in most towns and cities. Yet somehow we're still allowed to read books and use pesto.

You keep banging on about the Monarchy - it’s irrelevant. We’ve had bad times and prosperous times - I really don’t think being in a monarchy is at the heart and soul of that.

I never said it was heart and soul. I said it was a factor. Just like post-industrialisation is a factor. There are many factors.

You have to fully understand things before you judge. Nobody on this thread, including me, has the full picture.

I'm also wondering if it's Stoke on Trent. Or Crewe. Both absolute shitholes.

@OnenessWithAllStrife

OK, it is Wigan.

Im originally from Kendal. Lived in a few places across the north, this is the worst. Im sure there are many that could compete, like goddamn Barrow, but there you go.

I sympathise. I grew up near there. You are completely right to hate it. I've also lived in Barrow.

Yep I’m afraid I do judge- even as a liberal centre left voter- (more in the centre) — I’ve had some periods of next to no money and insecurity in the past however at no point did I think it was ok to shout in the street, strew rubbish across my garden and other general anti social behaviour— I just got on with things and perfected my technique for cheese on toast and omelettes and bought cheap second hand books off the market. It’s feral people that create shitholes, chavs if that word is still allowed, because the working class folk with standards often move away from these places , leaving far too many with neither skills nor standards but who still have conspicuous ‘wants’ — so you get drug dealing, far too much petty crime etc. We now live in Scandinavia and it’s a very different mindset- I miss the UK in some ways, mainly friends and hearing English around me all the time but it’s very easy looking at it from here to see where Britain has gone wrong and is outdated. Local elections recently- all on PR— far younger people, lots more women , high tax and high income but high services- full time quality childcare at £230 a month — no council tax, all services funded by the state— conspicuous wealth never very obvious—men far more involved with kids and much better looking /better groomed too !! I have yet to See much anti social behaviour — I guess some might find it a bit dull in many aspects, but after the UK it’s a breath of fresh air (and yes that’s good too) . The people here of all income levels simply wouldn’t hack most of the UK .

Sounds great! We thought we were liberal caring types until we had neighbours who behaved as detailed above. Fights in street /drug dealing /large groups of undesirables congregating outside our house /aggressive dogs that jumped the fence and shat in our garden / loud gangsta rap. Dogs not properly looked after or trained one got run over . None of the adults worked despite all being capable. Council had given them a nice flat in central London that they destroyed.

We moved but can’t imagine living anywhere where this type of behaviour is the norm. Bloody awful.

I blame social media. It's an ironic term that seem to be making us all less social and not more so. I wonder if social media will be our civilization's downfall.

I disagree. Nothing to do with social media. The behaviour I described predates social media.

Yes, but with the rise of social media it has been getting worse.

@MrsBobDylan

This thread reminds me of 'An inspector Calls'.

When you are scared you might loose your home or can't feed your family, art and culture becomes something of a luxury. Sometimes morals and a liberal opinion is also a 'nice to have' in order to survive.

Many Northern towns became rich off the back of the exploitative mill industry. The rich got richer, but the poor stayed poor. Once the mills shut down and the mining went, the rich moved out.

I live in a place where our local secondary is always underperforming, there are drug deals at the back of our house and many of the houses nearby are bedsits let to alcoholics and drug users.

My son is one of the very lucky ones, with a stable family, a parent in secure employment and he is clever. But I worry about County lines and some of the people in the bedsits. My son joined the local boxing club, I think mainly to protect himself. A boy at his school had his nose broken a few weeks ago in the school corridors.

Money = social mobility. In the UK, those who can afford houses near outstanding state schools, do, and those who can't, end up at schools like my son's.

There is research to suggest that attending an underperforming school lowers a child's IQ.

Another awful statistic is that, kids born to deprived parents who are in the top 10% intellectually at 2 years old, will drop to the bottom 10% by the age of 7.

This is why getting rid of grammar schools and streaming etc was a huge mistake: they were huge engines for social mobility for bright kids from poor backgrounds.

OP I get it. Some places truly are depressing and shit.

Where I live is insular, racist, anti-everything. I'll be glad to leave soon.

The shittiest places often have the best pockets of brilliance.

People you'll get on with are there, you need to work out how to find them.

I understand this, I live in a small town with areas even the police try to avoid it's so bad sometimes we get the mounted police just to deal with antisocial teenagers! However I am lucky to live just on the outskirts on a genuinely beautiful street and people are always surprised when they visit for the first time!
I'd move OP, if you can manage it get out as soon as possible because people like that don't have a hope in hell of changing and the communities they live in will remain shit holes as no one has the impetuous to do anything about it.

Was going to guess Wigan btw.

It is a shithole but still a lot going on. Get involved in political / feminist groups.

It's all there

[quote tarasmalatarocks]@inferiorCatSlave. Did you live in Mansfield or Sutton in Ashfield by chance?? Your comments fit well with it— not particularly deprived in my opinion but closed minded and full of middle aged Male know it alls — I[/quote]
@tarasmalatarocks - no - midland town got this vibe from was near Leicestershire border - very odd as surround area wasn't like it at all.

Though IL aren't far from that area - Derby/Notts and I could see areas near them being like this.

I think if we'd ended up other side of that midlands town it would have been more a dormer town for nearby cities. It was no where near as bad as OP paints Wigan - in fact local council was actually very good keeping local shopping bit going. It did have the vibe the OP is talking about though low level hostile.

While we were there then Education Secretary listed 5 worst secondries at the time and it had two including our then catchment school but many families put huge effort into trying to avoid sending their kids there.

We've since moved to South Wales - which is absolutely lovely - secondary school here had been doing well for a while and was fine first few years DD1 was there but that head was forced out, they struggled to find a replacement experienced staff have moved on in large numbers - governors have changed - it's a very different school and it's gone downhill so quickly.

I think it's now rapidly getting to position where families more like us are looking to try and avoid for their kids - which will make it even harder to bring it back up - you can see the spiral downwards - kids like our with home support and resouces it can be countered and we can get them somewhere better post 16 but many of their peers don't have that.

This is why getting rid of grammar schools and streaming etc was a huge mistake: they were huge engines for social mobility for bright kids from poor backgrounds.

Some people have asked if the town in question is a Medway town or Dover. Kent still has grammar schools. I don't see Kent as being a huge engine of social mobility, or an engine of much social mobility at all.

Besides which, grammar schools were got rid of in the sixties and seventies because they were vote losers for the Tories - nice middle class children were failing.

@Peregrina

This is why getting rid of grammar schools and streaming etc was a huge mistake: they were huge engines for social mobility for bright kids from poor backgrounds.

Some people have asked if the town in question is a Medway town or Dover. Kent still has grammar schools. I don't see Kent as being a huge engine of social mobility, or an engine of much social mobility at all.

Besides which, grammar schools were got rid of in the sixties and seventies because they were vote losers for the Tories - nice middle class children were failing.

Or alternatively a way of giving 11 year olds one shot at an exam which would seal their educational and career future. While bright WC did obviously pass, the vast majority ended up at the secondary modern schools with girls learning secretarial and childcare skills and boys being kept in a holding pen until they were released into manual work at 15. For all the failings of the comprehensive school system at least there was mobility between the streams, and an attempt to give some equality of access to academic subjects.

@Peregrina

This is why getting rid of grammar schools and streaming etc was a huge mistake: they were huge engines for social mobility for bright kids from poor backgrounds.

Some people have asked if the town in question is a Medway town or Dover. Kent still has grammar schools. I don't see Kent as being a huge engine of social mobility, or an engine of much social mobility at all.

Besides which, grammar schools were got rid of in the sixties and seventies because they were vote losers for the Tories - nice middle class children were failing.

I have a number of family members who grew up in incredibly poor backgrounds for whom grammar school transformed their life chances. Very intelligent people who would have had no chance whatsoever of reaching their potential without those schools, which have now been closed down. If they were born now they'd spend their whole lives stuck in those hell holes they were born in. So yes, they absolutely were engines of social mobility.

Now that there are hardly any left they're subject to the prosperity effect, so you can only move into catchment if you are affluent and even then because there are so few it's so competitive that people feel the need to use tutors etc to gain entry.

That wasn't the case when they were everywhere, even in the poorest areas where my family lived. I've seen first hand how that opportunity transformed lives.

Much of this thread describes a hopelessness, a lack of opportunity that leads to poverty of aspiration. Grammar schools were a key mitigation to that. A lifeline for poor, bright kids.

Grammar schools were a key mitigation to that. A lifeline for poor, bright kids.

For some, I don't doubt. But 'huge' numbers - no not. Poor areas tend to have poor schools. Even in the old days, better areas could have good secondary moderns. But I look forward to someone coming on and telling me how Kent, Bucks and Lincs which are still grammar counties are havens of social mobility. Or how existing grammar schools in Lancashire are full of bright working class children.

As I said they don't function in the same way anymore because it's not a universal system, there are only small pockets of them left which has distorted the entry process.

In Kent and Bucks (and I think Lincs, although I don't know that area well), there are not small pockets - the Grammar school system is the norm.

Now since a lot of bright children don't pass the 11 plus in those counties some of the Sec Mods do have enough children to make top sets who are as academically able as many of the children in grammar schools. But they try not to call them Sec Mods - because no one actually wants to bring that system back - too many perfectly capable children failed.

But in places like Bucks if your nice middle class daughter fails the 11+ there will be a little private school which she can go to.

But no new grammar schools have been allowed to be built for decades, have they? And population has massively increased. That is why many children capable of managing a grammar school education can't get a place even in those counties.

If the system had been built upon rather than deliberately vandalised, so that it had an appropriate proportionate balance of places which meant that every child could get a place in the right school for their abilities, then it would work perfectly well still. Aside from the total lack of Government investment in technical/ manual skills and apprenticeships for those not suited to an academic education but that's a whole other thread in itself.