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.

Presumably many of you have teens and young adults. I do, I’m 45 with two teens.

and do you complain and wring your hands like this thread about today’s generation in front of your teens and young adults?

I hope not. I celebrate all that my teen’s generation is achieving whilst also saying that like ANY period of history… there’s features of it that are concerning.

It seems like many on here just see the negative

This. Over and over and over.

Isn't that what they have been taught at school though for the last couple of decades?

I think you’re quite right. What can we do? I think all we can do is, those of with kids can teach our kids to have social etiquette. Tell them when they’re being annoying. Teach them politeness, teach them rules, kindness to others. Model it ourselves so they learn from us.
There will always be rude people unfortunately. We can’t change them but we can change the people we’re shaping. And hope they teach their children the same and so on and so on. X

Or perhaps people are less tolerant.

I don't listen to music on trains, or speak loudly on my phone. I don't have a small child who screams in the garden. But equally I don't get upset when other people do. It isn't only a recent thing. People used to walk down the street with ghetto blasters on their shoulders in the 80s.

It's 6am at the weekend. Next door's cockeral has been calling for half an hour, so I'm wide awake. I was wide awake at midnight while the farm workers were haymaking in the field outside my bedroom window. I'll be a bit yawny today but it won't kill me.

Can't you just ignore them? Content yourself with glaring meaningfully at the noisy ones, then focus on something else.

People walking around with ghetto blasters really wasn’t that common. I’ve lived in London my whole life and rarely came across it. Perhaps you’re muddling up Fame with real life in the UK.

Whereas yesterday I stepped on a train, it was quiet, not rush hour, and yet I had to walk through 3 carriages before I got to one where no one had the volume on on their phone with no headphones. This is the norm on every single journey I take on public transport.

It’s much harder for the human ear to tune out electronic sounds.

All those people are selfish dickwads who impose their noise on everyone around them. And you have no idea if they’re going to turn on you with abuse or violence if you politely ask them to use headphones.

And I’m afraid that you’re part of that problem.

What makes you think that people repeat the posts they make on MN in front of their children?

No - I think it started with the permissiveness of the 70s in terms of education. I was trained as a teacher in the 80s and I saw the old structures being broken down: the grammar schools, the rigorous exams, the expectation of clear discipline, the strong sanctions for bad behaviour and the respect for authority.

I worked first in a disadvantaged area of Birmingham and I rarely had any serious rudeness or bad behaviour from my students in the largest girls’ comprehensive in Europe at the time. And I never, ever had anything but politeness from their parents.

Since the ideas mentioned above have been eroded or ‘discredited’, we now have 2 or 3 generations of entitled people who won’t accept the authority of teachers (and others) or believe that anyone should tell them what to do in any context: A& E staff, transport staff, other members of the public making reasonable requests etc etc.

That’s what has caused the mess were now in and the genie is irreversibly out of the bottle.

The basic problem is that people have been taught that no-one has the right to tell them what to do and that authority must be challenged in every context.

This principle is fine in some Utopian fantasy state where all the citizens understand their role and responsibilities, but it’s not working in the real world of 2025.

I bloody hope not

I didn’t read it as targeting the younger generation specifically. I think it’s more a breakdown in basic etiquette towards each other, across the generations. We’re all just less tolerant.

I live fairly near a large supermarket. I often walk there with my kids. The number of people that drive through that busy junction looking at their laps phones is terrifying. One afternoon it was around 1 in 7.

I also don’t think that most of this is young people. Certainly anti-social phone use on public crosses all demographics - young, old, rich, poor, black, white, male, female.

I see plenty of people on MN, presumably across all ages but probably more towards middle and older, realistically, who think that unless something is illegal, anything goes.

So I don’t think it’s one generation. But I do think it’s a recent thing at this level.

Maybe I'm just old, but I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and it was much worse back then. Litter everywhere, and cigarette butts on every pavement. People would drink and drive quite openly. The yuppie mentality of "greed is good". Racism, sexism and homophobia - especially homophobia! - everywhere, including on television. Men routinely harassing women at work and in the street, and thinking it was just a bit of cheeky fun.

The word "entitlement" didn't exist back then, but the attitude certainly did.

That’s not liberalism you’re describing, but anarchy

The brutal truth of end-stage capitalism is that the owners of the means of production give no shits about the workers while covering this with values statements, and promises of investment in workers: investment which is always going to start tomorrow.

Yes exactly. `People have been 'taught'.

A great deal of this comes from the government through the DfE and the Liberal view that we 'all know our rights' etc.

You're right of course, it doesn't work, like so many of these ideologies that have been put upon us.
We are now dealing with the fallout.

British schools don't teach children about the implications of entitlements - e.g. one person's UC is another persons excessive tax burden. I can see why this might be problematic in a classroom with children who's parents are claiming, but far too many people moan about the 'government' not providing enough, without any consideration for the taxpayers.

The general population is very entitled and seems to think the world owes them a standard of living without having to lift a finger.

I think our society needs a good kick up the arse and some poverty, for those that make a lifestyle choice not to work, might actually be a good thing.

This sums it up completely. There seems to be an expectation these days that world will meet all your needs perfectly with no consideration of anyone else's needs.

This is very true. I used to get so angered by the news and the antics of politicians - e.g. the disgraceful scenes as they tried to overturn Brexit.

I stopped watching the news and listening to radio news during COVID and I feel so much better for it. I still read online newspapers, but I just read the articles that I'm interested in.

My mental health is so much better now that I've stopped stressing about things I can't change.

I think you have a point

It was and yet this 'soundbite' is continually trotted out by certain posters. The speech, read in full, was actually incredibly insightful. Just shows how things can be twisted.....

I know quite a number of families that are bringing up their children to have no social awareness, never tell them when they are being annoying or encroaching negatively on others. Don't tell them off for inappropriate behavior. So detrimental to the child and society.

I remember when I was teaching last in a big comp (a while before Covid) and a cheeky boy was using the ‘I’m questioning authority’ line about some perfectly reasonable request (like - please stop making a racket outside the door when this class is trying to work).

I told him that the concept of questioning authority is an intellectual one and should be explored in a well-argued essay. It’s not an excuse for refusing to comply with polite and reasonable requests.

He didn’t want to bother writing the essay…I wonder why?

Because he was a teen boy and this represented extra work and he couldn’t be faffed. Hardly surprising!

I’d say the social contract was pissed all over when Johnson and his cronies partied the nights away after telling us to stay home. No one gives a shit anymore and I’m saying that as someone who has a very decent life