Have we, in the UK, become selfish, lawless and irresponsible?

[Commencethe]

This Bank Holiday seems to have descended into chaos and honestly I am starting to wonder what is happening to people generally.

This weekend alone there have been reports, tragically, of teenagers drowning in rivers and reservoirs, emergency services unable to reach one incident because of illegal parking, beauty spots gridlocked with abandoned cars, beaches overwhelmed with people drinking and taking drugs to excess, fights, weapons, rubbish left everywhere, police being called because a pair of teenagers were apparently having sex openly in a park, and racist outrage because a tourist attraction acknowledged Eid and invited people to celebrate it.

What strikes me is that this feels much wider than just young people behaving badly. Adults blocking roads and verges because they cannot be bothered to park properly. Families leaving litter behind. People ignoring safety warnings around open water. Whole communities unwilling to challenge awful behaviour because someone else should deal with it.

And every time there is discussion afterwards, the blame immediately goes to lack of education, the police, the council, schools, anyone except the individuals involved, their parents, or society more broadly.

I also wonder whether increasingly populist politics and public discourse have plays a role. Constant anger, division and disrespect towards other people, experts, authority and even basic rules seems to have filtered into everyday behaviour. More entitlement, less responsibility, less thought for anyone else.

At what point did personal responsibility disappear? When did we stop caring about our impact on other people or lose any sense of community?

It all feels increasingly selfish, lawless and entitled. Less consideration, less accountability, less self discipline.

Have standards genuinely collapsed or am I overreacting and being unreasonable?

I remember thinking they were probably right! For the last 70 years, in terms of how we behave to one another, we have been on an overall downward trajectory - note I say 'overall' - there have been pockets of optimism and improvements to some things, notably human rights across the spectrum of minority/disadvantaged groups and women have vastly improved - but the general trend in the arena of how we treat our fellow humans in day to day life, rather than what we are legally entitled to, has been downwards.

Homicide rates jn England/Wales are lower now than in the 50s/60s and are pretty low now. It’s why they get so much attention on the news when they do happen.
We do have an ever aging population though which = a lot more moaning Minnie’s complaining about the state of the world and the roof compared to their own hacylon days!

How would you know how people were behaving to each other 70+ years ago?!

Yes uk is a country with low violent crime. Few guns, little interest in people being allowed more gun. Had dunblane and banned handguns. Other countries wish they could be so effective

Social history has long been a topic of deep interest to me.

Lack of facilities? Where does that end? Some places would just be enormous car parks with rows and rows of portaloos.

Stonehenge used to be… some historic stones. Moderately recently you could drive up and picnic by them. Now it’s an awful tourist trap - terrible - acres of car parks and “visitor experience” stuff. Ditto Oxford. Df used to drive in and park by Magdalene College and we’d have a day out there. Now… omg. Just omg.

Tourism in the last decade has become absolutely monstrous.

Interesting! What was so great 70 years ago that led to this harmonious living?

what about the victorians- workhouses, imperialism, slavery…… brutal stuff. It’s hard to imagine a less harmonious society .

I also think there's a real tendancy to romanticise past eras. I've heard some really odd things about the 1990s that even as a well cared for child of that era I could tell weren't accurate. I assume that people do the same about other decades.

I bet if you went through enough 100 year old newspapers there would be the same sort of stories about bad yobbish behaviour on hot days.

I think overall many things are worse but the one I disagree with are ‘petty violence’ type stuff.

It’s like some people didn’t live through the early 2000s at all. Happy slapping, hoodies, mugging.. all terms we never hear now thankfully. Our town was dominated by gangs of hooded yobbos who would nick your phone or have you empty your purse/wallet.

There is an awful lot of this on MN

I’d forgotten about happy slapping 😭😭

benefits Britain, benefits street, fat families, Gillian MacLeish super size v super skinny, let’s all be hysterical about the scroungers or fat people as our nightly entertainment 😭

No, we have imported incompatible cultures on too large a scale whilst systematically teaching our children to hate the UK.

Rupert Lowe strikes me as the sort of man who’d restore us to a more recognisably gentle and knotted hanky type of bank holiday.

Vote for him if you fancy that, and if you don’t, good luck to you and your daughters.

70 years ago was 1956, not the Victorian era!

I didn’t say it was. I asked you what was happening 70 years ago that was so harmonious

you should watch shifty, on iPlayer. Absolutely full of the racism and violence of the 50s/60s very similar today, but more feral.

We've been in legoland over the last 2 days. Behaviour was just grim.
People skipping queues in the toilet. Blatant about it. Just couldn't be bothered to wait.
Rubbish thrown on the floor - despite there being bins everywhere.
Getting irate at attendants
We had a gaggle of 8-10 under tens joking about various members of the group sleeping with shrek and daddy pig with their adult present. Screeching and shouting across the park. DC with me were confused about what they were on about. Society is off at the moment. I am actually worried.

I agree that conflating these tragic deaths with incidents of anti-social behaviour is in poor taste. It’s not helpful either, as it’s a very different issue.

More education about water safety is needed, however the annual number of accidental drowning deaths in the UK has actually decreased significantly since the 1980s.

We haven't become it, the human race has always been the same.

A general attitude of "if you can get away it" rather than considering the rights and wrongs seems to have become more prevalent nowadays. Most people don't like confrontation and that is being traded on, big style.

I think it’s inevitable when so many things have broken down. The police in particular don’t seem to respond to much of anything, so there aren’t any consequences. I’ll never forget the thread where a woman’s neighbour busted down her front door, drunk and batshit, and not only did the police not come out but she couldn’t even get them to call her back! She could have been killed.

Even everyday antisocial behaviour just has no check or recourse. No way to ticket or tow vehicles that are blocking drives or have been abandoned. No way to deal with nuisance noise issues if it’s during the day or if you ever want to sell your house and get away from them. Everyone living too close together and with too many different and incompatible types of people that value very different things. It’s no wonder that people are angry and on edge. I think many of them feel helpless in their day-to-day lives in some way.

I agree with a lot of posters they see as problems. A country that seems to have more than its fair share of entitled, selfish ,poorly behaved idiots .

With complete lack of personal responsibility.

I think the some of the Social and other changes from the Sixties started this. Such as the definition of self and rights.

Although l very much appreciate the gains made by the Gay Community, Women the Disabled.Racism etc.

A lot of this so called Individualism now turned into everyday bad behaviour and entitlement. was the result of rubbish spouted by Middle Class, Southern based liberals in the Sixties.

You know the Chattering Classes. you know the people who were born knowing what was the best for all people everywhere

Coupled with grabbing Thatcherite Policies and consecutive Labour policies to champion these idiots. We now have UK 2026.

I have written before in MN as to why Labour abandoned to their old decent, white, working class voters many years ago

So l won't bore you with the details again.

There isn’t even that, I think.

No one actually worries about getting away with anything, because no one even thinks their behaviour will have consequences.

My DH and I were saying the same thing, the aggressive, entitled, inconsiderate and selfish behaviour is so much more apparent I would say in the last few years, but a real uptick in the last 2 years - and this weekend of hot weather is atrocious. Not everyone, but a real shift towards a much higher majority.

everyone wants to do what they want and to hell with what anyone else thinks, it’s just sad.

Did you read the information in the photo….(that my comments related to)

I did indeed

Sadly it usually doesn't. Even actual crimes like shoplifting often have no consequences, never mind antisocial behaviour that isn't a crime.