To think the social contract has completely broken down?

[KenAdams]

It seems as though everything if affected, from parking in disabled spaces when you don't need them to talking loudly in train quiet carriages to not tolerating people that are different or have different views to you or caring if they are drowned or tortured.

I'm not sure if it was COVID that ramped up the every man for himself mentality but everywhere just seems like a cesspit at the moment.

Of course it could just be the places I frequent but I travel a lot and I don't even think its a UK thing, it seems to be everywhere.

I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way.

@KTheGrey you think free education should be looked at before the triple lock? 😆

The brutal truth of productivity is you need to
invest in workers and the workers of tmw and then when productivity increases you have more revenue for public services.

Brexit was a disaster but just look at how it has benefited the ROI.

This

We’re already living with a worse social contract because these days both parents work. I think this is the major failing.

It doesn’t need to be the woman at home, but it’s helpful to have one parent at home to support the children with their homework, their friendships , their eating , their community.

Families can no longer afford it and parents don’t have the time to play as active a part in supporting their own families and communities let alone the wider community.

Yes people would care what those around them thought. People are more insular and the internet does play a part in this

Yes that kind of thing is really ramping up.

My RL experience is very different to what’s portrayed on here.

Earlier I took dd to A&E. Bad hand injury, deep cuts and squished bones (not broken thankfully) and she felt sick so had a bowl and like she’d pass out seeing her blood. As I pulled into the hospital car park there were lots of parent child spaces and I was tempted but then imagined the mn thread about my entitlement 🤣 so I went up 2 levels in the multi-storey, parked and then helped dd down the stairs (there was a lift but they break down a lot). Dd is 14 so I know the space isn’t for us but I do wonder if someone has a need, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

Well said

I think it goes both ways. Certain people expect things to be like the past when the world is a completely different place to what it was 30 years ago. In a way, the expectation that people should not change priorities in challenging times and live like we did 30 years ago is quite entitled in itself. I don't think people are any worse behaved than 30 years ago BTW, just the shit they do has a different manifestation. Look at football hooliganism - it was utterly rife back then and women were treated appallingly. Now you have people on here that moan when children don't play in the garden like they did 30 years ago then moan about the noise when they do. They just like moaning IMO.

The whole "why are you bothered if so and so does this/that, how does it affect you?" argument, completely ignores the cumulative affect the preponderance of selfish behaviours might have on society as a whole.

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

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.

This! It feels so odd to me, the inequality. I see it in some of our newbies at work. I also see parents teaching their kids to act like this though so there is possibly no hope once they get to the workplace

I was involved in a horrible incident outside front door couple of weeks ago. I asked someone to turn their car stereo down and they insulted me then threatened to kick my door down and beat me up. I was so shocked and scared by it, it's really shaken me. I generally try to see the best in people but now I dont know. I honestly don't know where things are headed.
I'm reading a really interesting book by Danny Wallace about rudeness and what causes it in society. Basically it seems to be about feeling disempowered and kicking downwards which makes sense I suppose.

I can’t remember the phrase that describes the phenomenon, maybe it’ll come back to me. But there’s good evidence that when small, minor incidents of antisocial behaviour or bad manners occur and aren’t effectively dealt with, it encourages an escalation in poor behaviour over time.

Once it would have been unacceptable to play loud music on public transport, to put your shoes up on the seats, to eat smelly fast food and leave the litter everywhere. Now those who choose to behave in an antisocial way feel emboldened to continue, since the small acts of rudeness were tolerated, and their behaviour continues to deteriorate.

It’s not a bad thing to have certain reasonable standards and expectations of decent behaviour. An endlessly tolerant, permissive society where everyone does as they please regardless of the impact on others is a road to hell - every atomised individual not caring about anyone other than themselves.

Everyone seems to know their "rights" but don't seem to have been taught about their responsibilities. I have the right to play my trumpet at 2 am, but I have the responsibility to not disturb my neighbours

@smallpinecone I think you are talking about the broken windows theory?

That reminds me of something else. If anyone's old enough to remember New York zero tolerance policing, a lot of people seem to have misunderstood what that was.

It basically meant that if you were caught doing something like jumping the barrier at the subway, when they arrested you, they would go through all of your details at the station. They actually found that a lot of people who were jumping the barriers had committed other crimes. This then enabled them to build a proper profile of individuals

Meanwhile, at the moment, policing in the UK is not focused on this kind of thing at all. It's paying no attention to the broken windows problems.

I did read Michael Shellenberger's SanFransicko when it came out, but I don't remember much detail - I think there were massive parallels between that and London now - but sadly it's all across the UK. Only massive political change is going to help. And we've got four years before we can even try and get near that.

Completely agree everyone suits themselves these days whether or not it impacts on other people is not a consideration. People also don’t take responsibility for their own behaviour or choices so don’t believe it reflects on them as an individual

Also check out the MN thread of whether one should also have to socialise with their extended family - same basic arguments there.

Yes, the myopia is absurd. Exhausting that this kind of frog in a well attitude is of epidemic proportions now. Dismantling the social contract one brick at a time, until the lowest common denominator rules the roost.

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.

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.

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.

@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

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.

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.