Not so bothered anymore

[mangojango]

I find it annoying that many people were so bothered about "helping other people" and "not being selfish" before the vaccine - now they're alright (Jack), they don't have anything to say about the pandemic, helping other people and I feel left in the lurch regarding the effects of lockdown etc.

Our lives with young kids are definitely not back to normal.

@bellamountain

It does anger me when I see older people out socialising and enjoying themselves (and I bet they don't bloody isolate anyway), and all the young kids who have sacrificed so much for those old people are still facing restrictions!!

Why?

You’re angry at the wrong thing.

Shout at the government for making young people’s lives hell!

Don’t blame older people for taking advantage of their situation.

Don’t forget that in all our efforts to protect the vulnerable, and we just assumed they would both want and need it.

I always wondered if we had instead asked “would you like young people to sacrifice their education in order to protect you?”… my guess is most people would say “no”.

We just assumed.

Maybe all those happy old people never really wanted us to sacrifice things in the first place!

The reality is that when push comes to shove, most people only really care about themselves, their family and their close friends. Very few people will agree to make genuine sacrifices for the sake of strangers. People vote for governments which want to cut taxes and private public services (not just in Britain). If people have a bit of spare cash, they'll spend it on some frivolity for themselves rather than donate to charity where it could really make a difference. People will buy something from Amazon because it's £5 cheaper than in the shop down the road, even though the owner really needs the business. and so on and so forth.

And none of this is considered 'bad' behaviour. It's quite acceptable and normal. It's just how society works. To use a favourite word on MN, most of us are indeed 'selfish'. Including those who think they aren't just because they tell us 'I wear a mask because I care about others'. But do they really?

There’s a Friends episode where Phoebe tries to do a selfless act .. in reality, it’s almost impossible.

I think I’m a good person. I’m kind, I’m respectful, I volunteer in the local community. I’m actively involved charities against racism & homophobia. But ultimately, my families well-being and happiness tops all else. If that’s selfish, then so be it.

There are consequences to everything. Both opening up & locking down/restrictions. I fall on the side of I’ve had my jabs, as have my entire family & friendship network (bar one). Covid is almost certainly going to be mild on my children & us being vaccinated. I’m just getting on with it & making the best decisions for my family.

My mum is ECV & it does make us think differently I think. She’s always been vulnerable to viruses & infections. I’ve always kept my kids away from her with heavy colds or anything worse or contagious. In 2018, she ended up in hospital for weeks after catching a cold & then getting sepsis. We’ve always been cautious, we’ve had to be. Covid is no different at all. We make risk assessments to balance out life so it remains worth living for my mum while keeping her safer. She’ll never be safe, catching a cold from the supermarket could be deadly but she’s long learnt to put that anxiety aside & live. But she does things like going shopping on a Monday evening rather than Saturday afternoon in winter. She generally doesn’t go to family members kids birthday parties at softplay but she wouldn’t dream of missing her own Grandkids parties. She’s happy to go on a plane in summer but not winter. She still lives. She’s still enjoying life & doing normal things. Just with caution.

Covid life is no different for her or us.

@Cornettoninja

I’m not sure whatever the opposite is of moralising is much more palatable tbh.

The opposite in this case would be not moralising, nor deluding oneself that whatever measures best suit the most vulnerable amongst one's own family and friends are more ethical than those that shit on other vulnerable sections of society. Which yes, is much more palatable.

When the #bekind was doing the rounds I noticed some proper cunts were those banging the hardest.
Ditto on Covid.
Doing things that make no difference to you, might even makes your life better and banging on about selfishness on the internet - hardly coal face compassion, is it?

@ButteringMyArse indeed

i am beyond fed up of compromising my life for a society that doesn't recognise the costs of those compromises and sacrifices.

This is a great encapsulation of my feelings. I also suspect this is why people are vocalising their position more now.

@lljkk

I kind of get what OP is saying -- but truth is we're all in emotional burn out. There's little left to give.

I know. And on top of all the posts decrying selfishness, we’re the worst don’t do anything for others etc, after 18 months you just think really

So much sacrifice by so many and still all the insults

@HelloMissus

When the #bekind was doing the rounds I noticed some proper cunts were those banging the hardest. Ditto on Covid. Doing things that make no difference to you, might even makes your life better and banging on about selfishness on the internet - hardly coal face compassion, is it?

Not really!

@TheKeatingFive

i am beyond fed up of compromising my life for a society that doesn't recognise the costs of those compromises and sacrifices.

This is a great encapsulation of my feelings. I also suspect this is why people are vocalising their position more now.

Not only that, I don’t think a lot of people really understand the compromises they have made.

They think they’ve just stayed at home a bit, and not socialised too much.

They don’t realise there’s also a bill of £10k and probably a lot more hanging around each of our necks — babies, children and every one of us alike.

Quite a sacrifice in fact.

@ButteringMyArse I don’t think that’s quite the opposite, I think it’s a different flavour of the same kind of rhetoric.

Recognising your own hypocrisies doesn’t make you any better than anyone else when you’re addressing other people does it?

[quote Cornettoninja]@ButteringMyArse I don’t think that’s quite the opposite, I think it’s a different flavour of the same kind of rhetoric.

Recognising your own hypocrisies doesn’t make you any better than anyone else when you’re addressing other people does it?[/quote]
No, it isn't. You're starting from an incorrect premise and thus coming to an incorrect conclusion.

Stating that the moral option is whatever is best for the vulnerable you care most about is entirely different from identifying that there are multiple vulnerable groups in society and there isn't an obvious moral reason why eg children being abused at home are more or less important than ECV children. The two positions are opposite. The former is hypocritical, as it is based on the same selfishness that it berates other people for, the latter not in the slightest.

This is why moralising is much worse than not moralising.

I feel the same as you OP. I have a young child and DH works in an industry that is going down the toilet because of covid and I feel like not a single person really cares at all. My DH took a 50% pay cut and we have been cut off from everyone, meanwhile lots of people we know have been swanning about forming more bubbles than a jacuzzi whilst preaching the government mantra. All they keep saying is, it will get better but when you feel like you're at the coal face, that's no reassurance.

Funny that all these hypocritical, virtue-signalling pan bangers on their doorstep suddenly took notice of the vulnerable and needy in our society when it was the cool and in-fashion thing to do. Actions speak louder than words, and from what I can see, a lot of people were all talk. When all this is over, these people will be forgotten about again and people will be back to moaning about the NHS rather than praising it. People have very short memories.

But those positions aren’t opposites unless they’re presented that way. They coexist. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion it isn’t an opposite I’m looking for.

It isn’t CEV vs abused children. One of the consequences of prioritising the CEV was that children in dangerous home environments were without outside oversight. It’s a fallacy to say no one cared because they did but what could be done at short notice wasn’t good enough. Arguably what is/could be done previously wasn’t enough either (I say arguably but it imo it definitely wasn’t). These situations were exacerbated but not created by covid and subsequent restrictions.

Either way, it’s still moralising, just waving a different flag.

@Overthebow

Thankyou you articulated exactly how I feel.
I get rage when people, with no scientific background say they are not having the vaccine.. Cus they some how know better but then bang on about restrictions needing to be kept in place because of their cev granny.
We can all play a wider part in this, nearly everyone over 18 can be vaccinated. That is what makes things safer for all.. For the vulnerable and for the rest of us...

@Cornettoninja

But those positions aren’t opposites unless they’re presented that way. They coexist. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion it isn’t an opposite I’m looking for.

It isn’t CEV vs abused children. One of the consequences of prioritising the CEV was that children in dangerous home environments were without outside oversight. It’s a fallacy to say no one cared because they did but what could be done at short notice wasn’t good enough. Arguably what is/could be done previously wasn’t enough either (I say arguably but it imo it definitely wasn’t). These situations were exacerbated but not created by covid and subsequent restrictions.

Either way, it’s still moralising, just waving a different flag.

No, those positions are opposites regardless of whether the person/s doing it present them that way or even understand that they're opposite. They're not affected by your take on the issue here, for example.

Moralising about the one vulnerable group that matters more to you and presenting any policy that doesn't prioritise them as unethical is the opposite of not doing that. This would be true even if you were correct that there's never been a situation where the welfare of CEV and that of abused children as cohorts are in conflict. Which you aren't.

In summary then, the opposite of the behaviour I initially criticised is refraining from presenting the issue in that way and pretending that it's more moral to prioritise one's own preferred vulnerable group. And this opposite is much more palatable.

@ButteringMyArse perhaps I’d understand your pov more if you could explain why moralising is repulsive?

The vulnerable to Covid were given priority over those vulnerable to the effects of restrictions. I think initially we were in a state of emergency and society accepted that was the right thing to do. As time has progressed it is now the right thing to protect those who are vulnerable to other things and we shouldn't be afraid to express that opinion. The ending of restrictions will help a different group of vulnerable who equally deserve societies support.

[quote Cornettoninja]@ButteringMyArse perhaps I’d understand your pov more if you could explain why moralising is repulsive?[/quote]
The specific moralising I'm critical of here is repulsive because it's hypocritical and delusional. It involves people wanting particular restrictions because it best suits whichever vulnerable person or people they love, whatever it might do to vulnerable people they don't love, and is a selfish decision of the sort they denigrate in others.

The selfishness is to be expected and we pretty much all do it, so that isn't so much the problem. It's the pretence at their form of selfishness being better than others.

@ZoBo123

The vulnerable to Covid were given priority over those vulnerable to the effects of restrictions. I think initially we were in a state of emergency and society accepted that was the right thing to do. As time has progressed it is now the right thing to protect those who are vulnerable to other things and we shouldn't be afraid to express that opinion. The ending of restrictions will help a different group of vulnerable who equally deserve societies support.

This is a good description I think.

For example, if I buy a T-shirt from primark I know it’s been made taking advantage of someone who’s likely working in horrendous conditions. I feel guilt about that but not enough to not buy the T-shirt whether that’s because it’s the only one I can afford or because I’m choosing to spend my money on something else. If I take that one step further and feel no social constraint not to declare that it’s not my problem and it’s down to that worker to sort out their own lives it’s broken a boundary that (I feel) is actually pretty important for a healthy society.

I strongly disagree with this actually. Guilt can be a good thing if it spurs you to do something about the problem. But IMO feeling guilt and social pressure while doing nothing differently isn't good for anyone, including yourself - it strikes me as a bit navel-gazing and narcissistic, kind of like the emotional equivalent of those 'thoughts and prayers' messages that spring up on social media after a tragedy. It's a way of reassuring yourself that you're not a bad person without doing any real work to change - "maybe I'm not always perfect, but at least I care" - and if you're putting too much emotional energy into feeling guilty about everything, you're unlikely to be making the most of your potential in other ways. Now everyone is worse off - the workers are still being exploited, your own society isn't benefiting from the talents you could have developed more fully, and you don't feel good about yourself either.

(I mean generic 'you' of course, not you personally!)

No-one wants to live in a society where people go round openly saying "fuck the most vulnerable, I don't care if they die". But I don't think anyone is actually saying that. If you gave people a button that let them kill thousands of others with no consequences to themselves, only the most extreme psychopath would feel ambivalent about pushing it. What people are saying - and sometimes possibly expressing in a blunt or aggressive way, given how the last 18 months have exhausted many people's emotional capacity, and many others were plain rude to start with - is that they're not prepared to sacrifice any more than they already have to protect people they don't know. And if people are, inevitably, going to do everyday things that increase others' risk, I think it's healthier both for themselves and for society if they can do so without unproductive guilt, rather than falling down an anxiety spiral every time they get too close to people or don't wear a mask in the supermarket once it's no longer a legal requirement.

@psychomath

For example, if I buy a T-shirt from primark I know it’s been made taking advantage of someone who’s likely working in horrendous conditions. I feel guilt about that but not enough to not buy the T-shirt whether that’s because it’s the only one I can afford or because I’m choosing to spend my money on something else. If I take that one step further and feel no social constraint not to declare that it’s not my problem and it’s down to that worker to sort out their own lives it’s broken a boundary that (I feel) is actually pretty important for a healthy society.

I strongly disagree with this actually. Guilt can be a good thing if it spurs you to do something about the problem. But IMO feeling guilt and social pressure while doing nothing differently isn't good for anyone, including yourself - it strikes me as a bit navel-gazing and narcissistic, kind of like the emotional equivalent of those 'thoughts and prayers' messages that spring up on social media after a tragedy. It's a way of reassuring yourself that you're not a bad person without doing any real work to change - "maybe I'm not always perfect, but at least I care" - and if you're putting too much emotional energy into feeling guilty about everything, you're unlikely to be making the most of your potential in other ways. Now everyone is worse off - the workers are still being exploited, your own society isn't benefiting from the talents you could have developed more fully, and you don't feel good about yourself either.

(I mean generic 'you' of course, not you personally!)

No-one wants to live in a society where people go round openly saying "fuck the most vulnerable, I don't care if they die". But I don't think anyone is actually saying that. If you gave people a button that let them kill thousands of others with no consequences to themselves, only the most extreme psychopath would feel ambivalent about pushing it. What people are saying - and sometimes possibly expressing in a blunt or aggressive way, given how the last 18 months have exhausted many people's emotional capacity, and many others were plain rude to start with - is that they're not prepared to sacrifice any more than they already have to protect people they don't know. And if people are, inevitably, going to do everyday things that increase others' risk, I think it's healthier both for themselves and for society if they can do so without unproductive guilt, rather than falling down an anxiety spiral every time they get too close to people or don't wear a mask in the supermarket once it's no longer a legal requirement.

What a fantastic post. You put words on something I've been thinking and feeling for a long time but couldn't quite articulate. Thank you @psychomath

@puppeteer

Don’t forget that in all our efforts to protect the vulnerable, and we just assumed they would both want and need it.

I always wondered if we had instead asked “would you like young people to sacrifice their education in order to protect you?”… my guess is most people would say “no”.

We just assumed.

Maybe all those happy old people never really wanted us to sacrifice things in the first place!

I agree. Also the idea that older people were 'protected' is not backed up at all by the evidence. The focus was on pure numbers, not on people. It was a competition to see who could do 'better' among different countries. People didn't come into it at all. Many older people were essentially left to rot in solitary isolation in care homes because a death from despair and dehydration didn't count in the pissing contest. Children were left in abusive homes with no outside adult contact for months because a death from too hard a smack, or long term damage from sustained mental and sexual abuse doesn't count in the covid figures.

Anyone who talks about lockdowns being a necessary sacrifice engaged in by good people to protect the vulnerable is either:
a) genuinely clueless about what lockdown really means for many vulnerable people (ie not just people vulnerable to covid)
or
b) full of horseshit