There's not a lot I feel I can say about the rioting and looting that's going on this week in London and around the UK. By all accounts, it's pretty scary and everyone is quite shocked.
I am absolutely sure though that I don't want to live in a society where this happens.
But I've read quite a bit of two related views in response that I just don't think make sense. Firstly people are asking what the point of this is, from the point of view of the rioters. "If racism by the police or the system more widely is an issue for these people", goes the line of questioning, "how does it help to burn out houses and shops in your own neighbourhood?"
But from what I can see, I don't think any of these rioters are trying to "help" the situation or improve it. That's not the aim; it just seems to me an outright combination of anger and opportunism.
The second subsequent view is that if it's just violent and selfish crime, the main response being suggested is just to give them a good kicking, so to speak, to bring in the army, water cannons and rubber bullets, to lock them all up and make sure they pay. That's the way to deal with these sorts of criminals.
While there is some logic to that, it misses the point. I repeat that I do not want to live in a society which behaves like this. And that includes both the behaviour itself and the reasons for it. This happens because we, collectively, make and let it happen.
From what I've seen, we've got four things which have combined to make a nasty cocktail this week:
1) These people seem to have nothing to care about: no jobs, no money, no aspirations, prospects, political direction, influence or hope.
2) They are angry at being sold out by the establishment and / or the system and more recently and specifically angry at perceived racism, manifested through the Duggan killing.
3) They have absolutely nothing to lose.
4) They have a lot of time on their hands, given that they have no jobs and nothing better to do.
The question isn't why go crazy, it's why not. And for all those that are rioting and looting, there are probably ten times as many just sitting at home depressed and lonely. This is our failure.
There can't be any excuses for what they are doing, but there's sure as hell a reason for it. We have to own up to what that reason might be.
The only exception I can see to not having anything to care about or aspire to, is possibly that they've been bombarded with clever psychology for their whole lives to condition them to want 42 inch plasma TVs and Adidas tracksuits. All in the name of stimulating consumer demand and keeping the economy growing. So, when it kicks off, it's no wonder that's what they go and try and get. In a previous generation they might have been after something less material.
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You're absolutely right. I
You're absolutely right. I asked myself if that could also have happened if all these young people weren't in the city in August but instead on holiday on some nice beach – of course not.
There's a fifth point, though, that I think adds to the situation, and it is this: People are constantly met with the suggestion of material status symbols. own a large flat screen TV, a car, a surround system and specific brands of clothing. They try hard to succeed in owning. I have just learnt about shops in the UK where you can buy a jacket and pay for it through very low monthly rates (that come with ridiculous interest rates of course). Since Thatcher's days they are more and more stripped of every opportunity to meet these suggestions, though.
I hope not to sound too marxist here, but I feel the difference to 19th century lower and lowest classes is that then they were being told »you cannot have anything, you cannot become anything, so shut up and work«. It took long until it even occurred to them that this was not an eternal truth but just a story the upper class invented for their convenience.
Emerging capitalism however shifted priorities and always had to find bigger markets – the crap people produced had to be sold back to the people. So the fiction of »you, too, can make it; you, too, can have it if you shut up and work« was invented. And – to cut a long story short – I have the impression that the latest cuts finally bust that fiction.
I think you're
I think you're over-simplifying a bit. The gap between unemployment and lawlessness is huge enough (in the general case), that #(1) and #(2) don't explain the rioting. There are a lot of societies with greater social inequality and higher amounts of unemployment. And we've seen that there exists a tipping point, but that's not what happened here. It's too easy an excuse for all the people who took part in it.
I think that the reality leans more towards opportunism; witness the 31 yr old teacher who looted (and got caught). There are a lot of people who feel subdued by the police, cctv and society. When they saw an opportunity to violently stick it to their (perhaps imagined) oppressor, they grabbed it with both hands. It isn't so much about racism or poverty or lack of jobs, rather it's about feeling powerful in a world which seems out of control. Lives of quiet desperation, exploding to send a message.
#(3) and #(4) are repetitions of #(1) :-)
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