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.

But it all took it behind closed doors - certainly in the 70s. Kids were thumped because the busy body down the street heard them swear. Kids were hit with a belt at our school for answering back or rolling their eyes.
"Uncle Mike is going home, give him a hug, go on"... (while he cops a feel)

A frightened existence was not a better one.

My OH and I have said this OP. That since COVID a lot of folk seem self-centered and rude.

And if someone was walking around with a ghetto blaster it was just music. Now however people are listening to all sorts of stuff on their phones so we are forced to listen to inane chatter and cackling laughter, it's very annoying.

However, that isn't what is being discussed here.

Also all the all the talk about Self care / focus on your MH and wellness/ put your self first has made people very self centred and selfish in my opinion

Yes, I agree it was worse then. I think it's been returning towards that level in recent years, though.

@ChubbyPuffling yes you’re so right about behind closed doors. Very bad stuff happened and wasn’t talked about or believed.

I'm glad it's not just me who thinks this. Society seems to have gotten increasingly selfish since then

My thinking where we live, outside of the UK but including UK in this, that society has got to this point due to lack of anti social behaviour consequences.

even our local community cop said in regard to a permanent troublemaker that he, the trouble maker, knew exactly how far he could go before the police could intervene, and it’s just not us but others and he threatens people when they are on their own and vulnerable.

since this started I have a deeper understanding of why people seek revenge and kill ‘an upstanding and much loved family member’.

in our case the twit is teaching his sons to follow through and they bully other children on the school bus. No one will speak out.

I don’t think any more children were ‘thumped’ then than now. It’s a bit of a myth. If you came from the kind of family who went in for thumping, then you’d get thumped. I should think it happens just as much now in that kind of family as it ever did.

Looking at social trends since the late 70s (I’m old and a former teacher), I think it’s more to do with the post-modern debunking of authority in all areas of life. I brought up the point about questioning authority on an intellectual level earlier because I experienced that in all the training I had over many decades. I think the trendy lefties of the 70s and 80s promoted this notion but didn’t really foresee the full consequences either for the classroom or wider society.

Teaching in a deprived area in a big comp, I found the students in the early 80s well-behaved and largely respectful, and their parents were polite and civilised people. I never experienced aggression from anyone. Education is a sort of barometer for society as a whole - fashions there both reflect current political thinking and later affect the whole of society, for better or worse.

There’s another thread at the moment about a parent who was shocked by the rigid discipline at Holland Park Comp. I think this is the backlash we’re seeing against the erosion of teachers’ authority over the last 4 decades. I’m not judging that (I can only go on what that OP says), but I think that and the Michaela schools in London are the result of a wish to do something to redress the balance. Children can’t learn in the chaos of disrupted lessons, but it’s a shame that the pendulum has to swing so hard the other way.

(I’m banging on about education here because I think it’s key to what’s happened to wider society btw).

It can feel like that, certainly. You can try to swing things back the other way, in a very small way. Finding small kind things to do for people. Holding doors open, carrying shopping for people who are struggling. Taking an interest in others and stepping up when you see it can really make a difference. And you may notice other people taking a similar view of life and that feels better. Of course, this won't change VERY MUCH, but it can make you feel better.
There are in fact still plenty of good people out there, volunteering for charities, making things happen in their own free time. We just don't notice them so much.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I think it made things worse - but the rot had set in a lot earlier. Covid engendered an ‘every man/woman for themselves’ attitude, for sure. Also a distrust of authority (and the government’s failings have been mentioned above).

But realistically things were never going to be perfect- we had no experience of a global pandemic. And next time they won’t be perfect either! I read that, had the predicted mortality rate been much higher (and Covid was pretty low at around 3%), the government feared civil unrest. Some diseases have a 50% + mortality rate! The stakes would have been far higher and it would have been a nightmare trying to balance democratic society, individual freedoms and the need for total control over the population of Britain.

I think with a mortality rate of 50% very few people would have needed be told to stay home. The main issue there would be trying to force people out to work. Like fuck would anyone sane be going to work in Sainsbury’s for minimum wage if there was a virus with a 50% chance of killing you/your family.

I think that the balance between rights and responsibilities has shifted. I wonder if individualism is seen as far more important than it should be. And @CoffeeCantata I agree with you about education. Would like to add that my father in law taught in a bog standard boys secondary modern school in the 50s until the 70s. If a boy misbehaved really badly (as opposed to a misdemeanor) the cane was an option. It didn't often happen (and I wouldn't advocate it), but it was a very effective deterrent. Also, if your teacher complained to your parent, your parent would also punish you. As a primary school teacher in the 70s, for a major 'offence', a child would have a small smack on the hand or bottom. Again, a rarity, but a very effective deterrent. Now, the shame of this 'abuse' would be seen as an assault on mental health. It's like people can't understand that there is a huge difference between a rarely used and effective deterrent and a beating.

There certainly are. I live in a privileged bubble of a small London commuter town and I realise that what I experience each day is not what many people have to contend with. But yes, around here you are safe and people are friendly and public-spirited with most retirees involved in lots of community volunteering.

But I do read, listen and watch reports about society in general and I think I’m fairly alert to changes and trends (partly via my adult, London-dwelling children). There are lots of things which are better now than I’m my youth, sure. But I also see the damage which misguided policies have caused.

I was caned on the hand at primary school and I carry the rage and hurt to this day when I think about it.

My mother was an inner city primary school teacher in the 1960's. The Afro Caribbean mothers told her to thrash their children if they were naughty. She obviously couldn't/wouldn't do that, but the kids (apparently) considered anything less than a thrashing as getting off scott free.

I totally agree. I was raised to have a social conscience and always try to do the right thing. However, I’ll be honest, with so much ‘rule breaking’ and selfishness around I’ve started to question why I should bother and perhaps I should start to think more/only of myself. I was sitting outside a restaurant on Friday. I had finished my meal but was really enjoying the beautiful view in the warm autumnal sunshine. I could see a queue forming for tables. My social conscience kicked in - I felt guilt that I was sitting there when others needed my table so I vacated it. But I questioned whether others would do the same for me.

In a work setting, I was taught to do the best job I could do and I put in maximum effort. I go above and beyond, regularly putting in unpaid hours, while my job share - who does the minimum and ‘allows’ me to pick up the slack - earns the same. A reward for me has always been a sense of pride/fulfilment but having seen my parents pretty much broken by their work, I question why I should bother.

Sadly, individualism now trumps community.

Im sorry that you still carry the rage or hurt @Bonden . But your shame may have deterred others and have been for a societal good. And to put the other side of it - I was visiting my by now ancient father in law, and we were having a cup of tea in his local Tesco. An elderly man came up to my beloved FIL and said that he remembered being a pupil in my FIL's classes and once being cared by him. He thanked him for it. It was a school in a fairly rough area and the man said that he'd been going down 'the wrong road' and the shame he felt had made him change direction.

People take matters into their own hands and mete out vigilante justice when they see the justice system they rely on isn’t working to protect them, it’s only natural.

What it has also done is not get help to the people who really need it as it is not being taken seriously enough as most everyone seems to have 'mental health issues' which aren't really.

Speaking from personal experience it has been a nightmare and actually life threatening.

i didn’t say shame. I said rage and hurt. It made me anti authority for a long while tbh.