AIBU to think we are edging worryingly close to anarchy?

[Noras]

Am I unreasonable to believe that we are 2 or 3 steps away from anarchy?

Just that really. We see endless footage of quite aggressive and in the open. Shop lifting. People seem to have no shame eg driving over parkland or chucking rubbish out of car windows. Kids ran amok in Cornwall. People decide to live in caravans anywhere and just poo in parkland. Fly tipping is rife.
People freely wal: around the streets under the influence of drugs. People go to upmarket gyms with ankle tags and no sense of shame. People are more abusive and rude.

M&S is pitching itself as being good value in the same price as Morrisons these days and therefore I suppose they can expect the same level of debauchery
I suppose you might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb
But fundamentally, if somebody can’t feed their children, of course they’re gonna steal, anyone would

Exactly that. If I see someone stealing, I’m reporting it. I don’t care what it is or why. I have to pay for myself and people helping themselves makes it harder.

That’s fine, but they know they are taking a risk. They will get caught at some point and then their issues will just multiply.

We were talking about the gap between rich and poor.

And yes, the post war social contract, largely implemented in this country by the Labour government of 1947, did enormous amounts to close the gap between rich and poor and improve the lot of working people. Social housing, the NHS, high taxes on the rich. This continued until Thatcher began the process of dismantling it in the 1980s.

There are vanishingly few people who can remember what things were like before WW2 nowadays.

I completely agree with the decline of behaviours in society, but I put it down to lack of consequences. People shoplift because the majority of the time they get away with it. Same with drug use.

I had someone smash my car up in a drug fueled rampage in broad daylight ( I did not know the person, was visiting family at the time) I found out who it was, but police said it was a waste of time as there was no video footage or any other evidence but our word against theirs. This person is prolific for being in and out of jail and just does not care.

Also from working in a school years ago, the children's behaviour was foul as they had no respect or lack of consequences. Worst thing was a detention, and when parents refused to let them attend you were fighting a loosing battle.

Im not sure what the answer is but it will continue to get worse until something changes.

Read "A Paradise Built in Hell" by Rebecca Solnit. Lots of examples of people stepping up with mutual aid when the shit hits the fan and infrastructures collapse.

I saw it myself in Storm Goretti. Our village was completely cut off by fallen trees, and within hours local farmers, tree surgeons, anyone with a chainsaw cleared the roads. We didn't hear anything from the council for a good couple of days (to be fair, there was no way they could have dealt with the amount of fallen trees we had in that timeframe).

I wouldn't think anyone was a privileged little princess if they had a nice house and garden

I always wanted a nice house and garden! What's wrong with that?

I'm no longer able to drive, but I would probably be out in the car at night if I was still driving. All I'm saying is it gives you a different perspective. I know people who do live in that situation, I don't think of them as privileged little princesses, why would I? I'm simply making the observation that they have a different experience of an area than I have. technically, I live in the same area as my mum. I'm about half an hour walk away. My bit is a lot less nice than her bit. They didn't build flats in the nice bit.

It's interesting that your area hasn't changed. I lived in the same part of London for nearly 20 years. It wasn't just my imagination. The crime statistics are very different now than they were in 2019. I made a point of looking them up before I decided to leave. It was quite something!

I wonder what makes some areas better able to cope than others.

I wonder what makes some areas better able to cope than others

Perhaps they were so bad to start with the only way was up! Lots of areas in London became gentrified once the middle classes were forced out of the very nice bits.

Nonsense. People are ransacking shops for booze and steak and selling the stuff on. This isn’t a Victorian fairy tale where Tiny Tim’s family can’t afford Christmas dinner.

Potentially, but that wasn’t what I said was it?
If people were hungry, they would steal
Anybody would

I don’t agree with at all.
We can all only speak from our own experiences but community was definitely more of a thing in the past - particularly in more working class areas . Now people are much more afraid of others in their neighbourhood. With good reason .

I don't think anyone needs to steal food now, there are so many charities that offer free food plus food banks. It's organised crime gangs doing the stealing.

Yes - sadly supermarkets have had to put up screens , put more products in locked cabinets and employ security …
That’s a massive societal change .

It’s because it’s always been a shit hole in the area I lived in. If I needed to go the 24hr garage in the middle of the night, then I had to walk down there.

Outside of London it’s not a cesspit of crime.

Yes because they are sick of the thieving scum and they have to protect the goods

Not just afraid. Not interested. I don’t want to be at the beck and call of everyone. Show some people kindness and it’s sometimes never ending.

Any ‘social contract’ relies on
parties to agree and to abide by it. Never going to happen.

I think most people would prefer live in a society where people did feel some collective responsibility towards each other. That doesn’t mean being at people’s beck and call. It means not stealing/ littering/ behaving in a threatening way .
It means being polite to doctors/ shopkeepers, treating people the way you want to be treated etc …
Im not sure why you are so cynical about that.

shit driving and playing music through a phone does not equal ‘almost anarchy’ ffs!

there are terrible people on the internet that would benefit from you parroting shit like this. Wot we need is a return to british values - with a very specific image of what british is.

Many, many years of experience. And the ability (despite being ND) to see through people.

Politeness is fine. Obvs littering isn’t good. But there’s a difference between not deliberately being an arse to those who don’t deserve it and this whole idea of community.

That is not anarchy. (Pedant alert).

Indeed, that's a whole other digression.

Although funnily enough- and I'm citing Rebecca Solnit again here- when the structures of the state properly collapse, you often do get anarchy. By which I mean mutual aid, collective decision making and community self- organisation.

Yeah but not much chance of that! In the event of a collapse, people will rip each other apart to get the limited resources.

No we are not though many on here would, I believe, love us to be on the brink we are no where near it. The odd riot we have is not anarchy

Life is much much harder in the vast majority of countries around the world and people just get on with their lives without resorting to aggression and violence this is when people are absolutely desperate and we are far from that

it’s far from perfect and many are struggling at present but we have working public services (often not good enough), we have a benefit system, we have good infrastructure for the majority of us it’s too good to risk

I worry that competent people en masse are deciding it's not worth the hassle and zoning out. When that hits critical mass things will really go down the pan.

You seem to be missing the point as to why this is happening. People are broke, overworked, unemployed, exhausted, unsupported, depressed, miserable. And most of it isn’t their fault, it’s a structural problem. The rich get richer and the rest have to fight over the scraps.