Do the ongoing riots in Great Britain have a coherent purpose? No, says John Lloyd of Reuters, arguing that:
They do not articulate a cause because they cannot. [The] anger, the violence and the destruction are pure activity, a bid to make a spectacle in a society which is organized round spectacles [. . .] The silence of the rioters; their ability to appear suddenly in an area, swarm over it, burn and loot and terrify it, then disappear; their hooded appearance; their sheer anonymity makes them into a ghostly force, swooping upon a London grown used to relative peace and plenty, wholly unnerved by the phenomenon.
Lloyd runs through several proposed explanations which, to his credit, he casts doubt upon for being too neat: that these outbursts represent old-fashioned racial tension (not likely because the rioters are multi-racial and multi-ethnic); that they are a reaction to government spending cuts (improbable because the rioters skew very young, and do not rely on the social services being trimmed); or that they are an outburst of class consciousness and economic warfare (suspect because much of the damage has been inflicted on the low-income neighborhoods in which the rioters live).
Yet the riots may not be “nothing.” In a way, they may be a harbinger of the future—not because they are fomented on social media websites but because the rioters seem to express a curious nihilism in their very public action. The rioters present no public face, have no desire to talk with journalists (even confidentially), and have not presented any sort of demand to the society they rend. The disorder seems to be driven by young people who have simply discovered the “joy of being able to loot with impunity,” as if they were on a trip to a shopping mall.
But selfishness aside, perhaps, in their own way, these listless young citizens are reacting to much broader forces, which events like the financial crisis and political corruption have brought to a head: social disconnectedness, and an utter lack of stability in their own familial and cultural existence. Without a liturgy to fall back on in difficult times, people have been driven to invent their own.
August 11th, 2011 | 12:18 pm
The riots are certainly something. And they are not new. People have gone on rampages and assembled themselves in violent mobs since the beginning of time.
Colossians 3:21, people. The ruling classes do not escape culpaibility for their own role in this.
August 11th, 2011 | 12:26 pm
Todd The ruling classes do not escape culpaibility for their own role in this.
Just once I’d like to see a liberal provide an unqualified condemnation of mindless violence in London without throwing in some knee-jerk class warfare nonsense. Is it even possible for them to do so?
August 11th, 2011 | 12:45 pm
Todd – yes, it’s really the ruling class (if it even exists anymore?) and large-scale problems in society being combatted when looters steal sneakers and bottles of wine from family-owned shops.
August 11th, 2011 | 12:57 pm
These thugs are like the Joker in “Dark Knight”. They just want to see the world burn.
August 11th, 2011 | 1:34 pm
The lack of a discernible political or economic motive is what is most unnerving. In its way, though, it does point to real political questions. ‘Nihilism’ seems apt here, and I would also add ‘ressentiment.’ These seem be the acts of people who don’t buy into their society’s most basic assumptions about value.
By the way, I do wholeheartedly and without qualification condemn the violence.
August 11th, 2011 | 1:37 pm
Just once I’d like to see a liberal provide an unqualified condemnation of mindless violence in London without throwing in some knee-jerk class warfare nonsense.
I think it is quite possible to condemn mindless violence unequivocally (and I do condemn the rioters and looters in London) and at the same time recognize that there is indeed a ruling class that bears a large burden of responsibility for conditions in society being what they are. Look at the power that one man, Rupert Murdoch, had in Great Britain. I have heard it said many times during the reporting of the scandal involving The News of the World that a politician could not become prime minister without Murdoch’s support.
How many million times do we hear “the media,” the “elite schools,” advertisers, politicians, show business personalities, medical associations, etc., etc., denounced here on First Things for their destructive influence? But when someone suggests that they might be at least in part responsible for the plight of the underclass, suddenly conservatives instantly defend the rich and powerful. Well, the rich and powerful in the United States and the UK and basically everywhere else get pretty much want they want, and often it is at the expense of the poor and the middle class.
Why is it always the case that when conservatives talk of “class warfare,” it is to defend the rich and powerful?
August 11th, 2011 | 1:41 pm
Tristian The lack of a discernible political or economic motive is what is most unnerving.
Exactly. Looking for some ulterior motive is ridiculous. The event that supposedly sparked the riots was a shooting by the police. It was only later that the whole “it’s because they’re poor” nonsense started creeping in.
I grew up poor and lived among poor people. They never looted Wal-Mart because economic conditions do not cause looting. What causes looting is a lack of personal virtue.
August 11th, 2011 | 1:42 pm
Sorry, Joe, I hold to the Scriptures, and to the Judeo-Christian tradition of the responsibility of good leaders, parents, and all.
Other people wring hands about these very bad young people doing bery bad things. What’s new to say about that?
American conservatives, especially of the Tea Party bent, haven’t been beyond citing their own embittered frustration with politics as they are as justification for their own ugly, and even violent behavior. I think you and others seem to look for positions that justify and reinforce your own politics, then adjust your moral outrage accordingly.
So sure: these looters are bad, wrong, sinful, misguided, immoral, selfish, addicted, self-indulgent, and just plain meanieheads.
I can’t control them.
But I can control my own behavior and attitudes, as can you. So my challenge back: why don’t you take the Christian tack here instead of the atheist/independent line of thinking? And why shouldn’t people of faith challenge the greater portion of society to re-think what it does along those lines?
August 11th, 2011 | 1:50 pm
Todd Sorry, Joe, I hold to the Scriptures,
Um, sure you do. Which is why we always see you defending the Scriptural prohibition against homosexual behavior, right?
American conservatives, especially of the Tea Party bent, haven’t been beyond citing their own embittered frustration with politics as they are as justification for their own ugly, and even violent behavior.
What violent behavior are you referring to?
So my challenge back: why don’t you take the Christian tack here instead of the atheist/independent line of thinking?
The Christian tack is to hold people morally responsible for their actions and not saying “but rich people are bad too.”
And why shouldn’t people of faith challenge the greater portion of society to re-think what it does along those lines?
Sure, and there is a time and place for that. But there is also a time to unequivocally condemn grave evil without trying to find some way to excuse it or fit into your favorite political narrative.
August 11th, 2011 | 2:07 pm
I would like to repeat Joe’s question to Todd. What violent Tea Party behavior are you referring to?
Now let’s all watch Todd dance around the question.
August 11th, 2011 | 2:29 pm
Just once I’d like to see a liberal provide an unqualified condemnation of mindless violence in London without throwing in some knee-jerk class warfare nonsense. Is it even possible for them to do so?
I’m only a liberal on Wednesdays, but I think the ruling class, or “the rich” — whoever’s in charge over there — is to blame. By and large, however, people in positions of power and influence in today’s Britain, after over a decade of New Labour, are socialists. They have created this situation, but they have done so through the replacement of education with socialist brainwashing, of the family with welfare, etc.
The socialists have kept alive the boogey-man fantasy of the cruel, cold Tory aristocrat, speaking in Received Pronounciation, and sniffing at the miserable, teeming masses gathered in their thatch-roofed cottages or dilapidated tenements, choking on the fumes from the factories and passing around a rotting piece of bread, like something out of a Charles Dickens novel or turn of the century socialist realist painting. This, simply, is not at all what Britain is like today.
“Poor” people today generally live in perfectly serviceable housing, are not hungry, have full medical care, free or low-cost education, heat, cable TV, cellphones, etc. Many have never worked a single day in their entire lives. They are victims, in a way, and I do feel sorry for them, but they are victims of the very welfare systems that liberals suggest as a fix for the problem.
August 11th, 2011 | 2:31 pm
Mark,
Defending the terrorists I see. Polls show that roughly 15% of Tea Party members think that violence against the US government is justified.
Tea Party rallies have repeatedly featured violent signs and open threats of terrorism:
Example: Mar 9, 2010: Freedomworks Rally in front of the US Capital: “Warning: If Brown can’t stop it, a Browning can” about the health care bill.
Mob violence:
Example: Nov. 25, 2010: female protestor at Tea Party event physically attacked by multiple males simultaneously. This included throwing her to the ground and stomping on her head.
Assassination threats:
Example: At least 5 lawmakers were threatened with death during the health care debate. One of them was Gabrielle Giffords.
So what was that again about your support of terrorism?
August 11th, 2011 | 2:37 pm
“The Christian tack is to hold people morally responsible for their actions and not saying “but rich people are bad too.” ”
Fine, we should hold the rich responsible for their actions. Not, as you support, letting the rich demonstrate their nihilistic and atheist antipathy towards civilization.
August 11th, 2011 | 3:41 pm
“Poor” people today generally live in perfectly serviceable housing, are not hungry, have full medical care, free or low-cost education, heat, cable TV, cellphones, etc. Many have never worked a single day in their entire lives. They are victims, in a way, and I do feel sorry for them, but they are victims of the very welfare systems that liberals suggest as a fix for the problem.
============
I clap to this. One paragraph beautifully summing up what is wrong with liberal propaganda and an out-of-control welfare system, which wastes enormous amounts of money and gets scammed, at the same time that it does not address a variety of very serious needs and real problems.
I would add that one way these “poor” people are victims is exactly because they are poor in morality and they are poor in culture. “They” here does not apply to all the poor, but to a certain significant number, significant enough to be visible and relatively destructive in society. (And this is no different a reality for other classes, which also have their sizable contingent of immoral masses of people, simply with more money).
The “poor” then are poor in culture, meaning their attitudes to life, aside from having a poor formal education. They lose their direction in life in being stupidly materialistic or wanting to imitate moronic celebrities, being sexually degenerate, being personally irresponsible, etc.
Most of so-called “poor” people are not even close to being poor as in the pre-modern era (for industrialized countries). The sphere where they can be seriously victimized does not usually relate to money at all, it refers to civil violence (domestic violence, parental violence, sexual violence, gang violence, etc.).
August 11th, 2011 | 4:07 pm
“The “poor” then are poor in culture, meaning their attitudes to life, aside from having a poor formal education. They lose their direction in life in being stupidly materialistic or wanting to imitate moronic celebrities, being sexually degenerate, being personally irresponsible, etc.”
The problem with your depiction is that the wealthy exhibit the same traits: poorly educated, stupidly materialistic, driven by status competition, sexually degenerate and often personally irresponsible. Yet they demand significant amounts of welfare for themselves – far more welfare than the poor get. And, their behavior is wildly destructive to society, perhaps more so than that of the poor.
Who undermines sexual mores more? Newt Gingrich or some poor person whom no one has heard of?
Who undermines personal responsibility? A multiple bankrupt like Donald Trump or a thief like Scott Walker? Or, again, some poor person?
Who undermines education? Well, it’s certainly not poor people who eagerly raise huge funds for pseudo-education like business management or marketing. It’s not poor people who use the government-provided airwaves to show degenerate pornography – it’s people like Rupert Murdoch and Berlusconi.
August 11th, 2011 | 4:13 pm
burritoboy
August 11th, 2011 | 4:07 pm
“The “poor” then are poor in culture, meaning their attitudes to life, aside from having a poor formal education. They lose their direction in life in being stupidly materialistic or wanting to imitate moronic celebrities, being sexually degenerate, being personally irresponsible, etc.”
The problem with your depiction is that the wealthy exhibit the same traits:
============
Completely wrong.
There is no problem with my depiction of the “poor” because there are also (a contingent of) wealthy people exhibiting the same traits.
August 11th, 2011 | 4:19 pm
burritoboy:
Who undermines sexual mores more? Newt Gingrich or some poor person whom no one has heard of?
==============
You tell me.
How has Newt degenerated your mind concerning your sexual attitudes and behaviors?
How has Newt degenerated the minds of the “poor” in London who engage in all kinds of harmful, irresponsible, and immoral sexual behaviors?
August 11th, 2011 | 4:23 pm
“What violent Tea Party behavior are you referring to?”
The woman attacked at a Rand Paul rally, the guy who had a obama/biden bumper sticker in Nashville, an immigration rally in Florida, a number of physical threats of gun violence against politicians in Washington, Arizona, and the like. And we have other conservative ugly behavior, like that of the shooters of Rep Giffords, and others who have openly advocated violent overthrow of the US government if they didn’t get their way.
Bad, wrong, sinful, misguided, immoral, selfish, addicted, self-indulgent, and just plain meanieheads–just like British rioters.
And let’s be clear: I’m not saying all rich, conservative, activists are bad. Neither are all poor, black, and oppressed persons violent.
Violence erupts regardless of social class or circumstances–it’s an indulgence of one’s inner passions and urges.
Leaders, ruling classes, in other words, not just rich people, are reponsible for setting the tone in society. A rich person shouldn’t have to go to prison for advocating an unfair tax system and taking advantage of handouts that are entirely legal. But a rich person who is guilty of fraud, theft, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, or perjury should be held responsible. And her or his allies should man up and admit it.
August 11th, 2011 | 4:26 pm
“I’m only a liberal on Wednesdays, but I think the ruling class, or “the rich” — whoever’s in charge over there — is to blame.”
No. Not for the riots. Arguably, for the conditions the rioters are living in. But there is nothing about being poor that makes a person burn up other people’s property, put their lives at risk, and steal their (non-essential for life) stuff. That comes out of personal failings like envy, greed, and the love of violence.
The fact that people are burning up shopowners’ livelihoods and their neighbors’ cars has nothing to do with what richer people are doing. The fact that the people doing it are poor, might.
August 11th, 2011 | 4:47 pm
No, Alessandra, you want the vast flow of welfare to continue to be provided to the wealthy, even though it clearly damages their souls. But why are the poor any less deserving of their welfare than the wealthy are deserving of their welfare?
You tried to create a moral story – that the poor are undeserving of welfare because they are immoral. Yet, the wealthy are also immoral, but you don’t spend much effort trying to cut their welfare. Why not?
“How has Newt degenerated your mind concerning your sexual attitudes and behaviors?”
I’m sure you had vapors when it was revealed that Bill Clinton was a sexual degenerate. Yet, Gingrich is also a sexual degenerate. Why were you having vapors in one case, but blithely ignoring the other?
“How has Newt degenerated the minds of the “poor” in London who engage in all kinds of harmful, irresponsible, and immoral sexual behaviors?”
Ah, so Newt’s friend and former (and likely future) employer, Rupert Murdoch, has no interaction with the people of London? Including publishing newspapers that have naked women on the third page? Perhaps Gingrich inspired Murdoch in Murdoch’s own sexual adventures – which include three marriages and two divorces? Or perhaps it was Murdoch who inspired Gingrich……
August 11th, 2011 | 6:58 pm
When the two young men went shooting their automatic weapons in the Springfield Oregon high school a number of years ago, survivors heard them shouting, “Now, we are finally doing something!” The years of virtual video reality wasn’t enough for them to ratify their own existence and I suspect the same of the rioters in London. Now, they are finally doing SOMETHING. A tragedy and a waste. May God have mercy on their souls.
August 11th, 2011 | 7:09 pm
burritoboy
August 11th, 2011 | 4:47 pm
No, Alessandra, you want the vast flow of welfare to continue to be provided to the wealthy, even though it clearly damages their souls. But why are the poor any less deserving of their welfare than the wealthy are deserving of their welfare?
=============
Wrong again. I didn’t say anything about my thoughts on welfare to the wealthy. You are just making all this non-sense up.
Why can’t you address what I wrote, which dealt with the problem of welfare to the poor?
If you need to lie about what I write every time you post a comment, you’re really grasping for straws here.
=======
“But why are the poor any less deserving of their welfare than the wealthy are deserving of their welfare?”
Because there are people in need who are not scamming the system, who are not destructive or violent, but who are not getting any help or welfare.
There are many more subgroups in society than just these two simple-minded categories you mention (the “poor” and the “rich”). To say there are only these two groups in society has nothing to do with reality.
You are defending a completely irresponsible waste of money, with all the corruption that goes along with it, and the respective destructive behaviors, with total impunity, while you turn your back on a huge number of people in need and which are suffering enormously because they don’t get the help they need.
Society has a limited amount of money and you want to waste a good deal of it or to enable people to be destructive.
Terrible.
August 11th, 2011 | 8:12 pm
This post made me think of Chesterton. What exactly is the point of the riots? Is there one? Just anarchy?
The anarchy and chaos, at the beginning at least, makes me think of Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday.” Apparently, anarchy was a very real and palpable fear at the turn of the 20th century.
If only these riots ended the way that bizarrely awesome book did…..
August 11th, 2011 | 8:19 pm
“How has Newt degenerated your mind concerning your sexual attitudes and behaviors?”
I’m sure you had vapors when it was revealed that Bill Clinton was a sexual degenerate. Yet, Gingrich is also a sexual degenerate. Why were you having vapors in one case, but blithely ignoring the other?
================
I see that you are incapable of answering my question. Is it because Newt has had no influence on how degenerate your sexual attitudes and behaviors are?
“I’m sure you had vapors when it was revealed that Bill Clinton was a sexual degenerate. Yet, Gingrich is also a sexual degenerate. Why were you having vapors in one case, but blithely ignoring the other?”
Giving that I haven’t said anything about what I think of Gingrich, here we have another one of your lies.
A conversation with someone who is completely irrational is like that. All one does is point out the irrational statements, one after the other.
The worst of it is that for irrational people, any rational feedback is ignored.
Coming up the next round of irrational, completely made-up stuff from burrito-boy.
August 11th, 2011 | 9:57 pm
Alessandra, I think you are on to something in that the material satiety in Britain has been accompanied by spiritual starvation. Thanks to David Bentley Hart and others the New Atheists have been exposed (to those who have eyes to see) as intellectually bankrupt. Yet they remain influential.
Is it possible that mass immigration, the demonization of Christianity, the infantilization of the young, etc. is primarily the function of Saudi influence? That Britain is being destroyed socially so as to soften it up for eventual Muslim takeover? Or is that just something that crazy people say?
August 11th, 2011 | 10:20 pm
Kevin P. Lee over at Mirror of Justice calls attention to an article by Umair Haque on the Harvard Business Review blog titled The Great Splintering.
Here’s a brief excerpt:
London, I read somewhere, is the sixth richest city in the world, but 4 in 10 children in London live in poverty.
August 11th, 2011 | 11:03 pm
“And when the rule of law is visibly, easily flouted by the rich, it usually ends up being seen as laughable by the poor.”
So we are conceding that we’re talking about people who only refrain from theft, murder and mayhem because it’s illegal, and when the legal force breaks down, they do what they want?
So it is, at root, a moral problem, not an economic or rule of law one, after all?
August 11th, 2011 | 11:17 pm
Define “poverty,” David. Has anyone, has one single person died of starvation in London in the past 30 years? I don’t think any have.
August 12th, 2011 | 3:51 am
It is, perhaps, worth looking at what is taught in the schools.
One morning, I was working in the stables with two schoolgirls, (aged 16/17) who come to ride my horses and help out. They were studying the “Age of Revolutions,” for their History special subject and somehow we got onto the topic of Napoléon III.
Yes, they knew all about Bonapartism & Napoléon III: “Stalemate in the class struggle” – “Bourgeoisie surrenders political power, in return for protection of its socio/economic power” – “Bourgeois ‘freedom’ is the freedom to exploit the labour of others for profit” – “The independent Executive – Its instruments the déclassé Bohemians of all classes” – “Professional army made up of the Lumpen proletariat” &c, &c
It was like listening to children saying their catechism.
“And who were their opponents?” I asked
“The proletariat, in alliance with the revolutionary intelligentsia,” they replied, in chorus.
“And the peasants?”
“They had no community, no national bond and no political organization,” they intoned, as one.
For their teachers, there is nothing to the right of the Socialist parties, except greed and eccentricity.
August 12th, 2011 | 5:50 am
I think it is quite possible to condemn mindless violence unequivocally (and I do condemn the rioters and looters in London) and at the same time recognize that there is indeed a ruling class that bears a large burden of responsibility for conditions in society being what they are
We’ve never had a better, more prosperous society. In the history of the world there has never been a society where the citizens enjoyed so many rights, freedoms, privileges, and material goods. We’ve never had a society before now where people suffered so little.
Tell me: what are these rioters rebelling against? What do they suffer, and how is it caused by the ruling classes?
August 12th, 2011 | 5:56 am
“The woman attacked at a Rand Paul rally, the guy who had a obama/biden bumper sticker in Nashville, an immigration rally in Florida, a number of physical threats of gun violence against politicians in Washington, Arizona, and the like. And we have other conservative ugly behavior, like that of the shooters of Rep Giffords, and others who have openly advocated violent overthrow of the US government if they didn’t get their way.”
Wow. Isolated incidents that can happen at any politically-charged event (remember those anti-Prop 8 people beating on that old lady?) is the equivalent of city-strangling riots. The stupid moral equivalence here is stunning.
August 12th, 2011 | 8:59 am
Someone had to dig very deeply to find examples of bad Tea Party behavior. A handful of examples, each limited and quite similar to what might be seen at any extremely large gathering of socially active citizens. I’m not excusing them, but I think that, in the context, we have seen far less of this among Tea Partiers than among many other groups.
Any really — to suggest that the shooting of Rep. Giffords by a mentally deranged individual who had never expressed any sentiments concerning the Tea Party’s activities, as an example of Tea Party violence is not only wrong, but a complete fabrication. I thought that every literate person with access even to just MSNBC was aware by now that Gifford’s shooter was not expressing any Tea Party sentiments. He has far more in common with the Yobs in London, Manchester and Birmingham than with Alan West or Michelle Bachmann.
August 12th, 2011 | 9:15 am
“And we have other conservative ugly behavior, like that of the shooters of Rep Giffords,”
There was only one shooter of Rep. Giffords and he wasn’t conservative, let alone identified with the Tea Party. He was paranoid (whether clinically, or merely in the colloquial sense, remains to be seen.)
August 12th, 2011 | 9:28 am
“Someone had to dig very deeply to find examples of bad Tea Party behavior.”
Actually not. Those were just on the first twenty offerings on a Google Search. It took my about five minutes to check those twenty and find four.
As usual, point missed. But at least you’ve graduated from no TP violence to isolated. That’s a start.
My original post emphasized “ugly” behavior, with violence as a subset of that. The point is not to refute your meme with the notion that conservative violence is worse than that of British youth. My stance would be that ideology, personal wealth, and other social or philosophical factors are not indicators of the basic inclination of people to sin.
Singling out young people, racial minorities, beneficiaries of government handouts (trust me: you don’t want to go there) or even Tea Partiers, cannot hold water in a serious argument.
August 12th, 2011 | 10:04 am
Just once I’d like to see a liberal provide an unqualified condemnation of mindless violence in London without throwing in some knee-jerk class warfare nonsense. Is it even possible for them to do so?
Technically all British politicians are liberals Joe. Even the Conservative PM, with his support of single payer health care, would be ripped apart as a lunatic socialist should he ever choose to move to the US, discover via a birth certificate mix up that he was really born here, and secure the Democratic Presidential nomination. But I’ll play, I unqualifiedly condem the violence.
When I heard news reports about Muslim immigrants who lost their sons not too them participating in the riots but trying to defend their parents’ shops against rioters part of me wished I could have been there and given them some good metal baseball bats or shotguns and laid a few rioters out cold (not to kill of course, but to provide a wicked whupping).
But let me off an explanation. In WWII most of the French did not participate in the French resistence, less than 2% did. Stanley Milgram, in his famous experiment, demonstrated that the random ‘man on the street’ would happily push a butten to torture and possibly even kill a fellow human if a ‘voice of authority’ simply told him to do so….even for a trivial experiment. In Rwanda, members of an ethnic group that lived in peace for decades with another ethnic group were, with barely any hesitation, willing to drop what they were doing and pick up machetes and knives and literally hack thousands of their fellow citizens to death. Serbs did something similiar to Muslims.
What this suggests to me is that while most of us are quite capable of ethical behavior, we are not because of ethical motivation. Thankfully societies are mostly structured with a great many non-ethical incentives to ethical behavior. We have TV shows that fool us into thinking that elite police units can always track us down with even a tiny sliver of DNA. Many people think hackers and computer savy people can track our web browsing history no matter how savy we are. We have family and friends that love to gossip….esp. about our failures and shortcomings.
Hence most of the time, many of us have lots of non-ethical incentives to be ethical. Most of the time we have in our heads a mental image that ‘someone is watching’ and we perform ethically because we are performing for that person whose approval we imagine we need to keep our grades, job, position in society etc. Even when no one much cares out of habit many people continue to act like someone is watching and judging.
So sometimes this little pretense gets dropped and when that happens many people who didn’t do much wrong before (maybe especially the people who didn’t do much wrong before) will ‘see’ that no one is watching now and will take advantage.
Here is what I would predict based on my hypothesis, many rioters will not be career criminals, will not be outcasts. In fact, I suspect many will be people who are already quite good at ‘fitting in’. They will be people who know how to read the incentives and until now saw that the incentives signaled ‘behave ethically’ so, for the most part, did so. When the signals briefly changed, when they said ‘you can get away with it’ they changed.
While its ancedotal, this article seems to fit that pattern
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-11/world/ukriots.accused_1_london-charity-worker-newspapers?_s=PM:WORLD
We have the daughter of a millionaire, a teaching assistant, a lifeguard, an 11 yr old boy, a worker for a charity and so on. All people who are not quite outcasts but actually ‘incasts’, they know how to ‘read’ society so today we are shocked to see them and not radical revoluationaries, criminal masterminds, impoverished outcasts etc. in the docks. The story of the Muslim shopkeepers who both defended their stores and after their sons deaths asked people to not dishonor their memory by engaging in rioting also confirm this pattern. Immigrants recognize that they have a disadvantage in ‘fitting in’. Without a fluent understanding of the society that is new to them, they have to fall back on something like a moral or honor code to help guide their behavior. An ironic advantage to having immigrants in a society, then, might be an independent perspective, a group who is not as suspectible to getting caught up in frenzies.
A disturbing conclusion: Many of us are likely less ethical than we like to think. It’s easy to carp disapproval because we are in a society that rewards good behavior. Given the right circumstances, though, many of us would also behave unethically at least at some point in our life (notice that many of the rioters are younger, partly because the young have more energy for such nonesense but also because the young put a higher premium on ‘fitting in’ and using ‘the group’ rather than themselves as guides to their behavior).
On the other hand, ‘restoring order’ should be rather simple. Basically a massive ‘show of force’ to send the message that ‘the party’s over’ coupled with the message that ‘the thing to do’ is condem the riots and rioters.
August 12th, 2011 | 10:24 am
Wow, thank God we’ve determined that the Tea Party is a bastion of violence. What would we do without the reliable accounts from that scholarly resource known as “Google.” I checked that same repository of internet gossip and found stories of death threats directed against high ranking members of the GOP from frustrated liberals and of conservatives being roughed-up at union rallies (see Madison, Wisconsin or Walker, Scott). Only a blind ideologue would equate the widespread violence in the UK with the actions of a few Americans on the right who shove someone at a rally or rip up a bumper sticker. It would be just as idiotic for me to equate the violence of the union activists in Wisconsin to the destruction of large portions of various British cities. Your claim that Rep. Giffords attacker was somehow linked to the Tea Party is further evidence of your ideological myopia, and of your hatred for conservatives.
August 12th, 2011 | 10:40 am
There are some things that are so ridiculous that it is a waste of time to argue agains them, so this will be uncharacteristically brief.
The Tea Party is many things that I don’t like, but violent is not one of them.
Poor people actually suffer real and serious privation, both in the United States and the UK. We don’t need deaths from starvation to prove that.
August 12th, 2011 | 10:54 am
“You are defending a completely irresponsible waste of money, with all the corruption that goes along with it, and the respective destructive behaviors, with total impunity”
I’m sorry, you think I’m the one defending defending the masters of the universe? Oh, you mean welfare spending on the poor, numbers which are trivial compared to the amounts we have to spend roughly every 10 years to prop up the capital markets as they crash on a regular basis.
But it’s all OK when the right sort do it, eh?
August 12th, 2011 | 11:10 am
Or perhaps Patrick, it’s not relatively powerless minorities who are causing the moral problems, but precisely the current rulers and leaders of the UK.
It’s Muslims who undermine Christianity, or is it Rupert Murdoch who puts naked women in every newspaper?
Is it unemployed youths in the inner city that say “There is no such thing as society” or is it Margaret Thatcher?
Is it the welfare recipients who are shuttering the libraries, or is it David Cameron? What was that again about who’s undermining British culture?
Is it the rioters only who are nihilists, or are they just learning the correct lessons from the most effective nihilists the world has ever seen – that is, all the very law-abiding, puritan, cautious, moral, sober men of the City?
You want to be able to have one part of society celebrate nihilism (creative destruction, the charismatic CEO, markets as sole creators of truth, celebration of brutality, etc.) as part of the official economic ideology, while you want another part to be moral and to ignore the teachings of that very ideology. Moreover, you want the general populace to be the angels, while the economic elite gets to be libertines!
August 12th, 2011 | 11:25 am
Now y’all are just getting silly. “Bastion of violence” “blind ideologue” rofl.
Look, it helps to actually read the actual posts people are putting up here: in between the red flashes in your eyes.
And clearly it’s insufficient to condemn senseless violence. Among some FT commentators, you have to do it in exactly the same way as the pack, plus: you can’t criticize anyone else, else the whole outrage meme is eviscerated.
Time to find a new thread.
August 12th, 2011 | 12:58 pm
Todd,
Yes, you are the voice of reason on this thread, with your reference to the “ruling classes” (as if this was France circa 1789) and your raising the issue of tea party “violence.” Yes, it’s time to run from the thread when your own “red flashes” are pointed out to you….
August 12th, 2011 | 1:19 pm
Publius,
Are you seriously arguing that the UK has total equality between all it’s residents? Maybe you should tell that to David Cameron, because I need to use the kitchen table at 10 Downing for a few hours this afternoon. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?
August 12th, 2011 | 3:16 pm
Mr. Burrito,
“Total equality” — just what is that? Your right to sit at 10 Downing Street or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? “Total equality” only exists at the point of a gun; if human talents are allowed to flourish then there will be discrepancies in any society. You can sit in the kitchen at 10 Downing Street if your party wins a parliamentary election in Great Britain. Short of that you can ask for an invitation from David Cameron; if not you can eat in your own house or at your local Mickey D’s. But it is truly bizarre to assume that you, or me, should be able to sit in anyone’s kitchen without either earning that right or being invited. BTW, I’m hungry right now, go get me a burrito.
August 12th, 2011 | 8:56 pm
It kinda reminds me of this Gorillaz song:
I’m happy
I’m feeling glad
I’ve got sunshine
In a bag
I’m useless
but not for long
the future is coming on
is coming on…
August 12th, 2011 | 11:22 pm
burritoboy
August 12th, 2011 | 10:54 am
“You are defending a completely irresponsible waste of money, with all the corruption that goes along with it, and the respective destructive behaviors, with total impunity”
I’m sorry, you think I’m the one defending defending the masters of the universe? Oh, you mean welfare spending on the poor, numbers which are trivial compared to the amounts we have to spend roughly every 10 years to prop up the capital markets as they crash on a regular basis.
==========
As I said before, you are describing society in a way that is unrealistically simplistic. Society cannot be defined as two mere reductionist, binary groups, the “masters of the universe” and the “oppressed of the masters of the universe.” Society is enormously more complex, with all kinds of groups and individuals interacting in power relations.
And I am curious as to what kind of numbers you have in mind when you make your claim above?
Exactly how much has the UK spent in ten years on wasteful, corrupt welfare and horrible-quality education (you think the teachers in poor areas are right-wingers or left-wingers)?
How much money has the UK spent on propping up its capital markets in the last ten years? What should be done about capital markets?
Are you arguing that you have a right to be corrupt because money is spent on propping capital markets? Do you have a right to rape and murder too because of the way money is being spent on capital markets?
When do you believe a person is required to have moral values in life if there will always be someone who out there who is corrupt? Never? Is your aim in life to be the same as the people you criticize? As long as you pocket corrupt money it is OK, but if the rich pocket it, it is not?
Would you encourage everyone to be corrupt in society, except for the rich?
What is your solution to the little horde that smashed that Asian boy’s jaw and stole his stuff?
[Footage taken of a bleeding Ashraf (foreign student) being helped up during unrest in Barking, east London, by a group of men who proceeded to empty his rucksack has become one of the most shocking images of the unrest....
He was on his way to meet a friend for a meal to break the Ramadan fast when he was attacked by a gang of young men in Barking, East London.
With blood pouring from his mouth and holding his broken teeth in his hands, a dazed Ashraf was helped to his feet by his attackers who then open his backpack and took off with his phone and wallet.]
The men who smashed Ashraf’s face and took his phone are still poor. Their “poverty” problem has not been solved. Would you give them more welfare money now?
Would you clap if they smashed your face and took your phone to solve their “poverty” problem? Or do you only clap if it’s another boy’s face that gets smashed?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/injured-student-robbed-by-looters-pretending-to-help-awaiting-surgery-on-broken-jaw/story-e6frf7lf-1226113375010
I don’t know much about the profile of the “poor” London rioters (and as you know, several rioters that have been identified are not even “poor”). But I wonder about the claim that “there are NO jobs, that’s why they rioted.”
I think the picture is lot more complicated and complex, and not so cute.
August 13th, 2011 | 9:55 am
There are some things that are so ridiculous that it is a waste of time to argue agains them, so this will be uncharacteristically brief.
The Tea Party is many things that I don’t like, but violent is not one of them.
Poor people actually suffer real and serious privation, both in the United States and the UK. We don’t need deaths from starvation to prove that.
Now that the safety net has guaranteed that nobody starves to death in the United States, what more do we owe the poor, specifically?
I know too many people who aren’t working but could be – and would be, except that it really does make more sense for them to live off freebies and handouts.
Someone I know just recently got a social program to furnish his child with an expensive computer, which he returned to the store for a cash refund (he did however buy the child the cheapest computer in the store with part of the money)
I do care about the poor and I’d like to see them better off. What they need is not more justifications and fewer expectations, but fewer justifications and more expectations. They need to be brought back into a relationship of reciprocity with society: in exchange for what they are given, they need to be expected to repay their debts with honest work, or some other fair trade, instead of being expected to repay their debt to society through votes (and, in reality, through the sacrifice of their human dignity – which their “helpers” feed on to retain their own inflated sense of self esteem)
August 14th, 2011 | 2:46 pm
Okay, this is all really stupid. We’ve established that we don’t actually know what the cause of the rioting is. We’ve established that everything we say is a guess. But somehow, everybody immediately jumps on their favorite thing to hate, and blames the ruling classes, or the welfare state, or the lack of morality in today’s youth. And then you go around and around in circles arguing what you always argue about. The reality is, I think, far simpler. The rioters are young, they are anarchic, and they are nihilistic. They just want to smash things. Because it’s thrilling to smash things. There may be some socio-political-economic thing that allows them to do it now, but that’s not the reason their out there. And a majority of them cannot articulate a reason they are out there beyond “it’s fun to smash things.” So stop arguing about worthless stuff. The rioter’s nihilistic anarchism is more intellectually stimulating than the party drivel everyone keeps spilling out here.
August 15th, 2011 | 6:12 am
Both the OECD and the EU define poverty as living in a household with less than 60% of the median household income. This is based on a view of poverty as social exclusion
The United States has been a member of the OECD since 12 April 1961..
August 15th, 2011 | 12:32 pm
Publius,
The question is whether the UK has more powerful and less powerful people. You made the assertion that noting the UK has an inequality of power is some sort of anachronism.
Since, clearly, you’ve admitted that the UK does have inequality of power, the question is how that power is organized. Is there a ruling class in the UK? It doesn’t seem to me to be an illegitimate question, and not one that can be swept aside.
August 15th, 2011 | 12:57 pm
“Exactly how much has the UK spent in ten years on wasteful, corrupt welfare and horrible-quality education (you think the teachers in poor areas are right-wingers or left-wingers)?”
The UK’s two bailout packages cost 900 billion pounds. And that was merely the explicit package (there were also implicit guarantees given). The entire education budget for the UK runs under 70 billion a year. That’s everything from pre-school to the universities.
So, the bailout was the equivalent of 13 years of all – every single bit – of the public education spending in the UK.
So, yes, the City got more welfare money in one year than it takes to educate the entire UK for over a decade. It really doesn’t matter how corrupt the schools are – they’re irrelevant tiny budget items compared to the bailouts.
If you were really concerned with wastes of money, welfare given to the poor is minor. The amount of welfare given to the wealthy is magnitudes higher. And there is considerable evidence that the welfare given to the wealthy harms them morally. So, if you were really concerned with large amounts of money going to immoral people, you should primarily be interested in welfare for the wealthy (very large amounts going to very few people).
August 15th, 2011 | 1:05 pm
“Someone I know just recently got a social program to furnish his child with an expensive computer, which he returned to the store for a cash refund (he did however buy the child the cheapest computer in the store with part of the money)”
I know a welfare mom who bought a Cadillac with her food stamps.
Actually, I don’t know anybody like that. But we can all tell anecdotes about various less than ideal people with any degree of wealth. And these anecdotes add up to what, precisely?
“They need to be brought back into a relationship of reciprocity with society: in exchange for what they are given, they need to be expected to repay their debts with honest work, or some other fair trade”
Precisely – when are the bankers going to do the honest work needed to get the people back their 900 billion pounds? No, we’re not taking as a fair trade used pairs of Ferragamos, or slightly dented late model BMWs.
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