| Author | Message | ||
     Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
What do folk think about this? Now in order to understand the evolutionary purpose of happiness, you need to understand what psychologists believe happiness is constituted of. Psychologists believe you can dissect happiness into two basic key components, referred to for want of a better word as Level 1 happiness, and Level 2 happiness. And when I use the terms Level 1 and Level 2, I don’t mean in any sense to say that Level 2 is in some way a better form of happiness than Level 1. But basically, Level 1 happiness is the kind of hedonistic pleasure you get from a nice glass of wine, seeing a nice film, having a nice meal. And that’s a feeling state, a pleasurable state that tends to be rather intense, but it tends to be rather temporary. Indeed psychologists have attempted to measure how long Level 1 happiness lasts, and generally speaking it lasts around 15 minutes. There is another kind of happiness though called Level 2 happiness. This is a more cognitive, intellectual element of happiness, and this is the kind of satisfaction and contentment you feel when you look at your life and think about past achievements and think about the general direction that your life is heading in. Now that form of happiness is less intense than Level 1 happiness, but it is longer lasting. Now the reason why it’s very important to think about Level 2 happiness as well as Level 1 when we’re talking about happiness, goes back to William James, who was one of the founding fathers of psychology. He put it like this. He said, ‘If merely feeling good could decide the state of wellbeing, then mild drunkenness would be the supreme valid human experience.’ Notice something very important about Level 1 and Level 2 happiness. They are frequently in conflict with each other. If you do too much Level 1 happiness, then you won’t really get to achieve much Level 2 happiness. Also, if you dedicate your life purely to Level 2 happiness, then you won’t experience much Level 1 happiness, and maybe your life will be lacking something as a result. Now let’s say we were to measure the happiness of people in this room and score it on a scale between 1 and 10. What you would find is a large group of people would be scoring around 6 on this 1 to 10 scale of happiness, where 10 was ecstatic happiness and 1 was suicidal despair. Let’s call the people who were hitting around 6 the mildly content. There will be some people out there listening to my words as I speak, who’ll be hitting 10, who’ll be deliriously ecstatic as I’m talking. And these people really need to get out more. Now what’s really fascinating is if we were to measure these people’s happiness, in about a year’s time, we would discover that the mildly content, people scoring around 6, would, lo and behold, still roughly be scoring around 6 in about a year’s time. But the people who were scoring 9 or 10, they’re very unlikely to be scoring 9 or 10 in a year’s time, their happiness is much more intense, but much more fragile, and they’re likely to be hitting 0, 1 or 2 in around a year’s time. Some people’s lives are a roller-coaster ride of emotions. They’re swinging from one extreme to the other; where there’s another group of people who are much more stable, and they’re hitting around 4, 5 or 6. It may well be that what we need to debate is not just how much happiness people have, or the intensity of the experience, but what is sustainable in the long run.Now here is the answer to one of the great secrets of happiness, and that is, if you want sustained wellbeing in the long run, you need to aim to hit around 6, and not aim to hit around 10. That is the great secret at the heart of happiness and that means the secret at the heart of happiness is to aim for mild contentment. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
I always knew it was good to be a stoic. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
This is very interesting to me, as all I wish for in life is mild contentment. I'm one of those rollercoaster people, and I hate it. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
The thing about our society is that it promotes the ostensible virtues of the stuff that gives us a quick fix of 10, and plays down anything that offers a steady 6. We're super-saturated by quick-fixes. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
I'm under the rollercoaster. Waiting for one of you to fall out. Hur hur. Oops. I'm climbing up. Like a spider. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.18 |
Where do you place sexual fulfilment? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
Well, in a ladies'...oh, you were talking to someone else. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Here's some more about the corrosive effect of contemporary culture: But there’s another interesting difference between intellectuals and the rest of the population, which is that intellectuals tend to be what psychologists call internal in orientation. Internality and externality are two key dimensions the psychologists feel you can divide the population over. Internals are people who take responsibility for their lives, they believe that they can have an impact on the future of their life, on their destiny. And they believe their destiny is in their hands. Externals, on the other hand, believe that their life is down to external forces beyond their control and they have very limited ability to control their future. This key dimension has a profound effect on behaviour. Internals tend to vote; externals tend not to vote. Internals vote because they believe they can have an impact on the political system; internals tend not to commit crime because they believe in the value of hard work; externals don’t believe in the value of hard work, so they tend to take short cuts. And externals are more prone to various problems. Now here’s the fascinating result: a psychologist based in the US has been looking, doing a meta-analysis of internality and externality in the population, way back to the 1960s, the early ‘60s, when it first began t And she has discovered an alarming shift in the general population on this dimension, to the extent that the general population has shifted alarmingly in the direction of more externality. To the extent that the average young person today around the age of an LSE student, is more external than 80% of people of the same age around in the early ‘60s. That is a dramatic shift in externality, and it has dramatic implications for happiness, which we’ll come to in a second. But one of the questions is this: Why is the population getting more external? Why is it they’re not taking personal responsibility for their lives? Now there are various theories. One profession that gets blamed are the lawyers. The lawyers have this interesting habit of coming up to you at a cocktail party and saying things like, ‘I happen to notice you’re really rather overweight. Let me sue McDonald’s for you, because it’s quite clear this big fast-food corporations have made you overweight.’ As you trip over your paving-stone outside your front door, a lawyer will appear magically and press his card into your broken hand and say, ‘Let me sue the local council for you for placing this paving stone to trip you up right here’ So it’s the rise of the blame culture that might be pushing the population in a more external direction. There’s another interesting profession that are blamed, and that is people like Richard and myself: social scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists. The idea here is the rise of the social science explanation is squeezing out personal responsibility. But people now say ‘Well you know, it’s my genes that made me do it. It’s my childhood. It’s my dreadful parents. It’s the terrible school I got sent to. It’s society that made me do it.’ And the squeezing out of personal responsibility means that people are much more external in orientation. And it has dramatic implications for happiness, because externals feel happier in the short run, because when bad things happen to them, they can always blame someone else for why it happened to them. But in the long run, because they don’t take personal responsibility for their lives, they’re not going to be successful. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
I agree with Gary F's 'mild contentment' aim. Experiment: just listen to the music (Allegri's Miserere) that I linked yesterday on the classical music thread. Does this raise or lower you in the 1 to 10 scale? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>Where do you place sexual fulfilment? Level 1 happiness seems to be a string of one-night stands. Level 2 happiness seems to be a long-term sexual relationship with someone one loves. Your choice. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
I think the issue is that both levels are not mutually exclusive, but that keeping your centre of gravity in Level 2 field is probably wiser. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
I thought you were going to say the March 1948 issue of WEIRD TALES. Never mind. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.18 |
You can try and work things out for yourself within certain external boundaries and even succeed, but in the end more people will tip over to the external side because it is rewarded - call it societal conditioning, if you will. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
I think Music is a very important player in the game of life. Experiment: just listen to the music (Allegri's Miserere) that I linked yesterday on the classical music thread. Does this raise or lower you in the 1 to 10 scale? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.18 |
That particular issue contains "The La Prello Paper", "The October Game", "Something in Wood" and "Ghost Hunt", so I'd say it cannot be a total loss  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Just as a postscript: "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." - George Bernard Shaw | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
>>>Level 1 happiness seems to be a string of one-night stands. >>>Level 2 happiness seems to be a long-term sexual relationship with someone one loves. >>>Your choice. Why not have both? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
As I say, your choice. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Hubert – exactly. Let's start our own thread and leave these losers behind.  | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.199.0.138 |
I tend to hop on and off the rollercoaster. Off is OK for a while but then I get bored and oh dear it's back to the lovely world of 10 until I hit the onesies. But without the 10s I wouldn't write, wouldn't aspire to learn new pieces of music, wouldn't read or watch half the films I do. When I'm content I don't really feel the need to do much at all as I feel I've done quite enough in life already. But as I say, then I get bored. I blame my parents | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Have you ever read BRAVE NEW WORLD, John? | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.199.0.138 |
Actually no I haven't. Presumably it's relevant to the above? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Yeah. It's about a drug called Soma that makes everybody feel about 6. The savage in it demands the right to experience high and lows, as you suggest - claiming that it's what makes life and progress and invention, etc...as well as evil, however. I think the thing to remember about the above is that the two very crude categories are not mutually exclusive. Thinking on it, I suppose there's serious risk involved in the rollercoaster way, but that it's what makes life worth living... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
I have had a debate over the years with a friend: about treating Triumph and Disaster as both impostors (after Rudyard Kiplng). I believe in the No. 6 happiness in line with Kipling, my friend in the grappling with extremes (because a continual No. 6 gives short measure). | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.247.171 |
'No. 6' is like that Jarvis Cocker line about needing "some kind of life with the edges taken off". But a stable mild contentment would kill me. Give me the roller-coaster from 1 to 10 any day. Even a momentary superhigh would be worth the downswing. No ecstasy, no nothing. I'm quite serious. When I say ecstasy I don't mean Ecstasy, however. Drugs don't count. They're like watching a film of someone else's emotions. It's not a real high unless you get there under your own steam. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.247.171 |
I still think we'd be better off talking about WEIRD TALES. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
Hmm. I'm on meds - mild ones - so I get a sort of edited rollercoaster. And it's great; it seems to be suiting me. I still feel a sort of sharp series of ups and downs in quick succession - which REALLY helps the writing because it means my sentences feel quite rich, never one thing. Marie reckons we are punishing the wrong crimes. She thinks we should punish litter droppers more than killers because the litter dropping is where the bad side of human nature begins, the rot, the casual disregard for society. I believe her. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Why choose between them? Above it says: >>>If you do too much Level 1 happiness, then you won’t really get to achieve much Level 2 happiness. Also, if you dedicate your life purely to Level 2 happiness, then you won’t experience much Level 1 happiness, and maybe your life will be lacking something as a result. There are clearly disadvantages to both approaches. But isn't it wiser to make your centre of gravity in the Level 2 field, without precluding highs? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
That's an interesting view, Tony. I can see where Marie's coming from with this. I see this casual, arrogant disregard for society everywhere - groups of kids standing in the road and blocking traffic, people dropping litter, fireworks going off until 6AM on Bonfire Night...small seeds of human evil; an utter disregard of the quality of life of others. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
That should be: "an utter disregard FOR the quality of life of others" of course. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
But we all did that kind of stuff as kids. Didn't we? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>people dropping litter = small seeds of human evil You serious? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
I realised ages ago that if a person was at level 1 for too long they'd become satiated and burnt out. I'm rarely satisfied or content these days either. Some of the people I have talked to,who say they are happy,go around with their eyes closed and literally live in their own little world. If I talk about poverty or violence in society they don't want to know and change the subject. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.18 |
Now, about "The La Prello Paper" . . . | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Without trying to be patronising, I think that, as one grows older, one gets a better picture of how to be happy through a level graph at No 6 rather than depending on sharp variations. Of course, if one is always at No. 10, it will simply seem like No. 6. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
>>>people dropping litter = small seeds of human evil You serious? In a symbolic sense, yes. And when we were kids, if an adult told you to move on and stop causing trouble, you did - these days, they'll stab you or stamp on your head till it bursts like a melon. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Yeah, as someone once said, "a lifetime of happines - nobody could stand it." That's why Lottery winners drink themselves to death in Benidorm.  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>And when we were kids, if an adult told you to move on and stop causing trouble, you did - We didn't. That's exactly what we liked. We did anything to get "a chase". But yes, I take your broad point. The trouble is, most of the kids who do things like nick dustcaps or chuck stones at windows or whatever are just exercising a bit of typical youthful rebellion. No real harm in it. It would be unfair to judge everyone by the worst practitioners, those who, as you say, resort to that kind of violence. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
>>It would be unfair to judge everyone by the worst practitioners<< Perhaps, but it's also safer. Assume everyone is a potential killer - that way, you'll see it coming when it does. I've gone a bit mad, haven't I? That's what living in Leeds does to you... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>Without trying to be patronising, I think that, as one grows older, one gets a better picture of how to be happy through a level graph at No 6 rather than depending on sharp variations. Of course, if one is always at No. 10, it will simply seem like No. 6. Des, just as a matter of interest, do you feel that as you get older, you're less burdened by youthful passion for stuff? I mean, in your experience, does the body, uh, settle down a bit? Oh God, I can't ask this question without sounding ridiculous. I hope you know what I'm driving at. It's something I've begun to experience. Maybe I don't havea decent enough diet. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>When I say ecstasy I don't mean Ecstasy, however. Drugs don't count. They're like watching a film of someone else's emotions. It's not a real high unless you get there under your own steam. But going down to Currys and buying the latest digital Skywank telly is getting a high under your own steam, but it still amounts ot nothing more than a three day novelty period, and then a desire for a new one. The highs offered by our culture are not highs at all, but - like alcohol - depressants in disguise. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
You mean, do you stop wanting it? Yes, of course. Incrementally though. | ||
| Laird Barron (Laird) Username: Laird Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 71.212.83.62 |
"I can see where Marie's coming from with this. I see this casual, arrogant disregard for society everywhere - groups of kids standing in the road and blocking traffic, people dropping litter, fireworks going off until 6AM on Bonfire Night...small seeds of human evil; an utter disregard of the quality of life of others." Gary, I am so with you on that. Couldn't have said it better than "seeds of evil". As for fireworks, I sometimes feel like feeding firecrackers to those who set them off at three in the AM. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Crossed messages. never mind. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
This thread is like a Bach fugue now. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>Couldn't have said it better than "seeds of evil". I guess that makes me evil. I used to throw Polo mints at people from the tops of buses. That was the start of it. Now I don't give up my seat to elderly people. Worthless bastards. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Every generation thinks their youth is going to the dogs. It's kind of a tradition. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
>>This thread is like a Bach fugue now.<, :-) The thing is, Gary, it's not just youths. These days its their parents joining in because their benefit-funded lives are so vapid. For the record, I never dropped litter, even as a kid. :-) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Kids need to be a bit naughty to realise where the boundaries are. Most settle down. Petty acts of rebellion are not 'seeds of evil', in my opinion. Is there really is an incremental development towards the kind of psychopathy you're hinting at? As if a kid starts by dropping litter, moves on to Twocking, and then ends up killing? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I'm not just talking about kids, though. I think Tony's point is that these are all indicators of a complete lack of societal responsibility - it's about looking at the bigger picture. And, yes, a lot of this behaviour does tend to escalate - particularly where there is no parental control or responsibility. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
I'm not disputing the fact that there is a lack of responsibility in contemporary society (see above). I am disputing the fact that anyone who commits a petty act of crime as a kid is a nascent murderer (see above). | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
You should read accounts of the 1850s cholera epidemics in London to get a sense of what street life was actually like during the supposed height of British civilisation. Or read Thomas Burke’s Limehouse Nights for a glimpse of a time (the end of the 19th century) when child prostitution, domestic abuse, drug addiction, alcoholism and random violence were very much more the norm in urban life than they are now. As Harlan Ellison has said, the past was neither simpler nor better: people just used to be better at turning a blind eye. When I think of the ‘seeds of evil’ in British life I think of private healthcare companies circling around the NHS like sharks around a lifeboat, and Tesco declaring it will only allow its employees one day’s paid leave per year. I don’t think of the misbehaviour of ordinary people on the streets. And that’s not, believe me, because I don’t see any of it. I’ve been happy slapped, remember. And a few years ago someone blasted out my next-door neighbour’s front window with a shotgun. I don’t live in an ivory tower. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
I never dropped litter either Zed :>) I pull Heather up at every instance.If she is rude or thoughtless I pull her up. I don't give her an inch where manners or consideration for others comes in. Yes, she is very occasionally naughty but she has known where the boundaries are from an early age. About the litter dropping and symbolic sense - I see where you are going with that debate.If they don't care - they don't care etc. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Not that you do either, of course. I'm just sensitive about accusations that I'm only a socialist because I live in Moomin Valley. It's not true at all. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Posts crossing again. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
I need to get a coffee. Nothing like a lively debate to liven up a day. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
>>When I think of the ‘seeds of evil’ in British life I think of private healthcare companies circling around the NHS like sharks around a lifeboat, and Tesco declaring it will only allow its employees one day’s paid leave per year.<< I couldn't agree more, Joel - but there are many varieties of seeds from which the flowers of evil grow (insert manical laugh here). | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>If they don't care - they don't care etc. I heard millions of fireworks go off last Bonfire Night. The day after, I awoke and scoured the papers for all the millions of murders and deaths. Most disappointed, I was. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
You're looking in the wrong papers, mate. :-) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Yeah, I should be reading the Daily Mail. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
'symbolic sense.' | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
You'll like this one. When a dog jumped up and scared my little girl I told the owner that it should be on a lead. He replied, shouting in my face. "You should be on a lead." I see Zed's point in that people who think that they can do what they want, sometimes, go on to do what they want. I can see your fingers paused over the keys Gary ... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Hmm. Who's disputing that point? You're filling in the gaps according to a stereotypical notion of what I'm saying. I'm saying that petty acts of rebellion such as lighting fireworks and dropping litter and even blocking traffic do not necessarily burgeon (as the metaphor of a seed implies) into the kind of evil hinted at above: stamping on someone's head as if it were a melon. Come on, we all did this stuff as kids. All of us. Tell me you didn't. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Gary. Wickerman? Nobody here has said that EVERY person who drops litter becomes a killer. I looked. Couldn't find it. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>And when we were kids, if an adult told you to move on and stop causing trouble, you did - these days, they'll stab you or stamp on your head till it bursts like a melon. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
OK, that was a generalisation. Only a madman would think I meant everyone. Ally - it's the Me-Me-Now-Now generation. Thatcher's bastards. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
If you mean what you say, say what you mean. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
That does happen. It's not a blatant sweeping statement on all kids. You don't actually think it is. You know they are generalising about a section of youth. And I do believe kids are eviller. Well, the evil ones have gotten more evil. The good ones are more spoilt and dress like the evil ones. And look up to their evilness. They share the same gangster rap heroes and their value systems are based upon the same people.Like football players and celebs. Most will grow up, but still be knobheads. The world has changed. The working classes have more money to buy stupid looking cars. The poor can live on much longer than ever because of the health care system and the dole. So they have more opportunity to have ten babies who will be exactly the same. The police and teachers can't act as locum parentis. The sense of community has been lost, so we no longer feel safe or able to talk to the parents of naughty kids. Which means their naughtiness goes un-challenged. The prisons have softened up completely. These are all real changes. The world is not the same. Saying " It's always been like this." does not work with anyone clued into all these changes that have occured. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Pedant. And I rarely mean waht I say...it's up to you to pick and choose what I'm babling on about. :-) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I agree with everything Albie says above. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Yes, that's all true. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
>>If you mean what you say, say what you mean. Come on Gary. Surely you've had enough arguments with me to know the score. You are smart enough to accredit us with enough intellect - that when we say something like that we are expressing how we feel. Not what we think. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
OK, fair point. But - and I was never suggesting anything else - I still think it's hypocritical and scaremongering to claim that petty acts of youthful rebellion are 'seeds of evil'. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Blimey! All true? Shit. We are lost. The breakdown of communities then is due to there being far too many people living close together? That to retain a sense of space we have locked our doors on our neighbours? And then there's the fact that so many classes of people live side by side. In Hull you can have a posh street right next to a housing estate with dirty gardens. No wonder people can't bear to know anyone. Your world shrinks to the size of a house. And the increase in available fashion choices means a further split in identity. Thieves dress like thieves, generally. You can spot them a mile off. Sportswear. So why are decent kids wearing the same clothes? Who is pushing this criminal image? Who is pandering to our kid's lower side, the side that is personified as the chav? Who is selling machismo? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
But I'm not referring to petty acts of youthful rebellion - you mentioned those, not me. There's a huge difference between a bit of pre-teen boundary-testing and the blatant disregard - probably propegated by uncaring parents, absent fathers and feckles peers - to the quality of life of others. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Seeds of evil? It's a vague statement. And not completely untrue. Scaremongering? True. I think people do scaremonger because they want something done. I don't want to share a street - a world - with people who look like they rob houses and inject themselves on a dirty mattress. But if a cull is out of the question -is it? definitely? - then I don't see how anything is going to change. This is where you tell me... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>I see this casual, arrogant disregard for society everywhere - groups of kids standing in the road and blocking traffic, people dropping litter, fireworks going off until 6AM on Bonfire Night...small seeds of human evil; an utter disregard of the quality of life of others. Each example a petty act of youthful rebellion. Stuff we've all done. Now if you'd send drop-kicking cats over rugby posts, burning out cars, and being permanently and violently disruptive at school, I might have agreed with you. And don't call me a pedant. That is what you said. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
...now if you'd SAID... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>This is where you tell me... We've been here before. Let's go back to the old board. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I did none of that stuff, and I was a right little twat when I was younger. I also disagree with your definitions: to me, these are all examples of antisocial behaviour. >>people dropping litter, fireworks going off until 6AM on Bonfire Night<< And I never mentioned kids in reference to these two. I was talking about so-called adults. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Rasp.  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
So what did you do that made you a little twat? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Not that you ever ceased to be a little twat. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Even in adults, I don't see dropping litter and lighting fireworks as 'seeds of evil'. That's like saying nicking a paperclip from work is equivalent to stealing the day's takings. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Lighting fireworks all night, until 5AM? I do. The dropping of litter is a symbolic act: it means "I don't give a fuck". | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
So what did you do that made you a little twat? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Why do we always seem to assume that the agents of social disintegration and cultural decline are the working (or unemployed) class? As Woody Guthrie said a long time ago, and it's still relevant: Some will rob you with a six-gun Some with a fountain pen It's not chavs who will take away your job, your home, your right to healthcare, your place in society, the water you drink and the air you breathe. While we wonder who took our hub-caps, the ground itself is being illegally sold from under our feet. Rise up against corruption, exploitation and corporate crime! Don't blame the minnows that frolic in the stream of blood left by the great white sharks. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
While you guys debate semantics I'm going to offer a solution. Class towns. Towns for the rich, towns for the working classes who don't commit crimes and towns for people who clearly are just criminals. As long as criminals can feed off decent people they will never be forced to see how ugly they are. Let them live amongst themselves. It's what's going to happen anyway. People with cash move away to better places. So let's move that forward and save time and misery. It's stupid to divide class up geographically by street or even homes. We need to widen the gulf. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
And then there's the fact that so many classes of people live side by side. In Hull you can have a posh street right next to a housing estate with dirty gardens. No wonder people can't bear to know anyone. Your world shrinks to the size of a house. And the increase in available fashion choices means a further split in identity. Thieves dress like thieves, generally. You can spot them a mile off. Sportswear. So why are decent kids wearing the same clothes? Who is pushing this criminal image? Who is pandering to our kid's lower side, the side that is personified as the chav? Who is selling machismo? Albie, the answer is latent in your questions. Socio economic inequality and rampant capitalism are two good candidates. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
That's all true, Joel, but if we ever get around to addressing that issue (David Cameron reads Oliver James, btw...hmm), people still want action on the street to curb the consequences of these circumstances. Surely both the disease and the symptoms need tackling. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>Lighting fireworks all night, until 5AM? I do. The dropping of litter is a symbolic act: it means "I don't give a fuck". When you fuel up your car, do you buy standard unleaded, or the low sulphur unleaded stuff that's a bit more expensive? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"Surely both the disease and the symptoms need tackling." Hear-hear. "So what did you do that made you a little twat?" I was gobby, too bright for my own good, and loved besting adults in a verbal battle. Adults round our way hated me because I made them look silly. :-) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
You mean, you NEVER did anything anti-social? Pull the other one, mate. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
Inequality? The vast majority of people who work in low paid jobs are not criminals. They understand that smart people are rare and that good jobs are rare and that good jobs go to smart people. Some are not smart enough to see this and feel they should be getting top wage for being a fruit packer? Crime is the obvious answer for them. Why do we not all get the same wage? Incentive. You have to have a reason to do difficult jobs. If you take away the incentive of a higher wage then all you have is status. Wouldn't you be then encouraging elitism? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Tackling the symptoms means smashing the banks and blowing up the Institute of Directors. It's chancey and very illegal. Take their ill-gotten gains away from the Yuppie thieves by force... I don't care who's got my hub-caps, I want the fucker who got fat by asset-stripping my train service and demolishing my district to build private flats. I want to address the symptoms by taking back some of the billions that have been lifted from the public purse. I want to cut off some thieving Yuppie fingers. Bang up some local councillors and journalists and venture capitalists, and break a few faces in the process. When can we start? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"You mean, you NEVER did anything anti-social?" I didn't say that, either. Stop putting words in my mouth - they taste funny. :-) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"When you fuel up your car, do you buy standard unleaded, or the low sulphur unleaded stuff that's a bit more expensive?" Oh, stop it - you're far more intelligent than that. Anyway, may car runs on the blood of chavs. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
I blame hippies of course. There was more equality before the sixties. The spread of counter cultures has brought fear and paranoia. Which breeds solitude, locking of doors. It became fashionable to be against structure. Now we have a country confused and no real solidarity other than the desire to not be poor. All because of hippies. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
At least religion held us together. But no. Along come some fools with flowers and no thoughts. Dropping acid? Making drugs fashionable. HIPPIES! Sexing people up? Sexuality represses more people than repression did. Now we are forced to be whores! Or be considered nazis! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Zed, my point is that you DID things which would fit nicely in your 'seeds of evil' category, and yet you're okay. Except for being a twat. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>Lighting fireworks all night, until 5AM? I do. The dropping of litter is a symbolic act: it means "I don't give a fuck". Oh, stop it. You're far more intelligent than that. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
Well. I'm all fired up but I don't know which group I dislike more. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Cold Play. Terrible. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
But I didn't. The most anti-social thing I did as a kid was to smash a milk bottle in a back alley. Someone told my mother, and she called the police. I got a stern talking-to from a policeman and was to scared to ever do anything like that again. Seriously. I was also ashamed to make my mother so disappointed in me, to see the saddened look on her face - I respected her too much to do that to her again. That's respect. A key word in this discussion, methinks. It's what's missing from society. When I was 13 I was still playing with Star Wars figures, giggling over the word "boobies" and collecting Harem Scarems - these days, the 13 year-olds round our way are roaming the streets in packs and talking about who gave who a blowjob and who's licking whose fanny. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
And I used the phrase "seeds of evil" because I'ma writer - it's nice and poetic and OTT. :-) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
I remember once when I said that as a teenager I listened to Beethoven in the garden, you replied that you were getting a blow-job from some lass. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>And I used the phrase "seeds of evil" because I'ma writer - it's nice and poetic and OTT. :-) It's no wonder legalese is so unreadable. To achieve that level of unambiguity, you have to write like an alien. I blame language for everything. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>the 13 year-olds round our way are roaming the streets in packs and talking about who gave who a blowjob and who's licking whose fanny. Er, hold on. Is this wrong? I remember most of the kids at my school were like this at that age. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
I remember trying to steal a joke card from a joke shop when I was about 10. I wanted to see if I could get away with it. Some old woman collared me, I wriggled free and ran home. Scared of her I was. Another time I was with a group of kids and we tried to get some apples from a man's orchard. Almost got caught. At this point I realised that I would always be rubbish at it :>) Career change followed and never looked back. I was a goodish girl I was. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Among the charming ditties invented in our class was the following: "Open your legs and I'll fill em with cream, da, da da." 13 years old, I guess. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.192.95 |
I agree with Gary. I got up to all kinds of mischief as a kid (as did all the other kids I knew), but it was all pretty harmless. Didn't make any of us "seeds of evil" - we all turned out all right. ;-) I think we need to make a distinction between the harmless stuff kids do for fun and the antisocial, violent acts of a minority who can't or won't see where to draw the line. If kids are brought up right, they have a pretty clear notion of right and wrong and know when things are being taken too far. What worries me are the parents who don't teach their kids the difference. These kids can grow up with a sense of entitlement and think they can do whatever they please, with no regard for other people. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>I was a goodish girl I was. I'm a good girl I am! - Liza Doolittle. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
I do know someone who stuck a straw up a frog's bum and blew it up until it exploded. Pure evil that was. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
I'm still in shock about Zed's description of himself as a youngster. I'm experiencing cognitive dissonance. I'll have to rewrite his character in my brain. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
I wasn't surprised about Zed at all. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>I do know someone who stuck a straw up a frog's bum and blew it up until it exploded. Pure evil that was. No, that's fun. I do it all the time. Toads, too - they're go with a better pop. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.76.66 |
Yuckie yuck - you evil mind bender you. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I was a good lad, me. I was too scared of my mam not to be! I was horrible and gobby, with an answer for everything, but not antisocial in the slightest. Only ever had 3 fights at school. Never stole anything. I was actually a pretty happy kid - I only started being maudlin when I grew up and realised that the entire world was shit. Huw - the points you make are exactly what's wrong with this country. Unfortunately, the parents who are not raising their kinds properly are now in the majority - everyone else can't afford to have kids. The only people spawning large broods are exactly the type of people you don't want breeding. They stay at home all day watching TV and smoking fags, sending their kids out in the streets to fend for themselves. But this is the society we all created, and it's only going to get worse. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
There's an old joke about this: kid goes to school and the teacher asks him what he did in his holidays; kids says, I stuck a firework up a cat's arse; teacher says, Don't you mean rectum? kids says, Rectum? Fucking splattered em, miss. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"I think we need to make a distinction between the harmless stuff kids do for fun and the antisocial, violent acts of a minority who can't or won't see where to draw the line." I tried to do that a few posts up, Huw... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>I was a good lad, me. I was too scared of my mam not to be! I was horrible and gobby, with an answer for everything, but not antisocial in the slightest. Only ever had 3 fights at school. Never stole anything. I was actually a pretty happy kid - I only started being maudlin when I grew up and realised that the entire world was shit. If this is true, it may account for your seeing evil in every little act of harmless misbehaviour, mightn't it? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Amazing that we're talking about criminality in terms of fireworks and kids breaking windows, on the day after the terrorist who tried to mount an attack on the government buildings in Equatorial New Guinea told the court how his terrorist campaign was funded by Mark Thatcher. Who has already faced trial and been convicted of funding terrorism – he got a suspended sentence. His mother has not yet faced trial for failing to go to the police with what she knew. By contrast, a few weeks ago a British Muslim who had planned to blow up a bus got two life sentences for conspiring to commit a terrorist atrocity. His wife got 15 years for not going to the police with what she knew. Here's another case: last year a leading BNP member was convicted of stockpiling explosive chemicals with the intention of making bombs that could have killed hundreds of people. He got four years. But never mind. Obviously chavs are more important. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Yes, but did any of them drop any litter? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
But it's all part of the same mess, Joel - people simply tend to focus on the immediate, the things that make their actual day-to-day lives intolerable. Isn't that how one approaches most problems? Tackle the immediate stuff, the stuff that's in your way, before you can hopefully progress and sort out the rest? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
No, it's called not seeing the wood for the trees. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
The immediate things have hedonic relevance, for sure. We feel them at the coal face, which makes them more real, I guess. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Exactly. That's human nature: we are most bothered by the things which affect us right in our faces, in our homes, where we live. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
And rage over a lost penny. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Nothing changes. A panorama of tribes and constellations. Trivial abrasions and wars. Some of us committed to some causes, others to others. Goodness as a foil to bad, and vice versa. We just do what we think is right from minute to minute, accepting our own pettinesses and weakenesses as well as building on what we see as our strengths - and this pattern changes from day to day. As a kid, I never gor into scrapes, petty or otherwise. Today, the world is the same world as yesterday and the same world as tomorrow. Just knowing things sleepless 24-7, but knowing them no better, or no worse, just living with them more often. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
...and I trust I can rely on your vote. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
Joel; I wasn't saying that. I was saying respect for people is important. Once that bedrock is laid down other things would dissolve. Society isn't linked any more, and stuff like litter and swearing and noise keep those gaps growing. Is that really just bullshit? Or is it the other way round. Are we horrible to each other because the world is uncomfortable. Not being certain, being shoved this way and that by one argument and view after another by people who defiantly say they are right totally pisses me off to the point I just want to say fuck everyone. I'm sick of us going to war for something that initally felt right and then being made to feel like the villain, our media perpetually reminding us how horrible we all are. I fucking hate hate HATE it. And I encounter the chavs often; they make my life a misery, and I despair of - fear for - their children. Should I really ignore them? Dismiss them? Oh, here we go again. Don't even bother to answer. We never listen to one another anyway. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Tony, your voice in the above discussion was so quiet I didn't focus on it – it was chiefly Gary, Zed and Albie I was responding to. But do carry on feeling bad about our annexation of Iraq. It's a war crime for which, ultimately, we will pay. Our leaders will pay in an international court and we will pay in terms of the reprisals that lie ahead. It won't go away for many years to come – longer than our lifetimes. I'm not suggesting anyone should ignore or dismiss anything that is important in their lives. Only that we remember that our lives are part of a bigger picture: the single world in which we all live. I don't think it's either cheap or narrow-minded to say that we are all connected to each other, and that what affects some of us affects all of us. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
Thanks Joel. But I do agree about the Iraq thing; it's just it makes me feel so bad all the time, and it makes life a psychic drudge. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
It feels like there's never a good thing we do, just all bad. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I hear you, Tony. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
And the chavs don't make my life a misery, that's a lie really, but when I see them my heart does sink and I do despair for them and us, and they do deeply bug me for the duration. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
That's one reason why, when our leaders tell us Iran has to be next, we have to be out on the streets telling them: not on your life. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Er, three postings came in between there. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Two rather. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
No, three. Sorry, I've got a headache. I'll catch you later. Be good. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.239.75 |
This whole oil crisis currently is a pin-prick, and look how people react. Imagine if the flow of oil was TRULY at crisis levels, or shut off... people would kill people in the streets to get at it, let alone sanction their government's doing whatever it takes to secure it. Which, governments understand, having been winked-and-nodded to by their oil-ravenous populaces. And if someone simply weren't selling the oil they rightfully owned to YOU, well, that's just being a dog in a manger. How dare they! Eventually, one would realize those pesky nogoodniks OWED you that oil; and, a few minutes reasoning after that, that YOU actually owned THEIR oil; and you'd pull out a knife, and they'd pull out a gun, and you'd pull out a bomb, and blood would flow, and the dust would settle, and the oil would be back in your veins.... And lo, it was proclaimed a "just war." | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
It'll be like Mad Max 2 out there... | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Clockwork Orange | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Or should I say Clockwork Virgin? | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.245.218 |
Worse, Zed. So as long as I'ms gettin' me oils... Am I the only one here who loves Big Brother? (Not the TV show - gawd, what a wretched time we live in, that I have to clarify a joke like that....) | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Am I the only one here who loves Big Brother? Weepy, creepy, inscrutable, immutable - the collective consciousness creature of BB9 squirms upon a crumbling plinth like a Lovecraftian Old One knitting its own tentacles. Meanwhile, the House's 'genius loci' defaults to an aura of BelindaBelindaBelinda. Or BeLukeBelukeBeluke. Or BeLisa Beacon. The Bebex and Berex of the shallow night. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Des, you took the words right out of my mouth. I was just about to say that. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
I loathe Big Brother - a show that gathers a bunch of unintelligent, unnatractive, dull people in one place and watches them slowly unravel. The nadir of television broadcasting. I'm hoping someone will die on the show so it gets cancelled forever. It would be a small price to pay. | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.45 |
I would echo Zed's sentiments here. I have never watched an entire episode of BB through and I don't want to. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
BB is the ultimate Horror beyond the capability of even Horrorists such as Zed and JLP to stomach. | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
So I'm a horrorist am I? There's something else to add to the CV | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.92.163.130 |
When we were doing childish things the future respectable adult was already inside us, destined to come out. When a chav is doing the same thing the future criminal is already inside him, impossible to avoid. That future fact alters the present and the past. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
I heard this thing yesterday saying they didn't know how to talk properly, and that this affects the personality. Right now some schools are trying to address this by making them use 'fuck' only as every third word. Sorry, that last line was a cruel joke; there are a few schools trying to ensure kids stretch their language a bit further. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.92.163.130 |
hoho. Guess where I am. I'm in Beverley. Can you tell? Only seen one chav yet. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Tony, have you heard of that work done on 'restricted' and 'elaborated' code in speech? It's to do with how language allows you to orient yourself in life. For instance, a working class kid is more likely to experience restricted code: Kid in car: Mum, why do I have to wear a seatbelt? Mum: Because you do. Kid: But why? Mum: Just shut up. Whereas an elaborated code would involve an explanation that allowed the kid to make sense of this and other similar experiences. That's just part of the problem, though. We were talking about Pygmalion on another thread. What Liza learns is that it's the way Pickering treats her that makes the difference, and not simply 'knowing the words' (what she gets from Higgins). | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
As David Smail points out, social disadvantage is stamped into the body from birth. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.92.163.130 |
Ultimately is no more than learned behaviour....and evil genes. MWAHAHAHAHA! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
One solid indicator of the corrosive effects of social disadvantage is performance levels at school. The biggest predictor of academic failure is social-economic status. White working-class boys are among the poorest achievers at GCSE level. Even ethnic minority pupils from poor backgrounds are overtaking them, and that's largely because their parents understand that there's an ethnic penalty to be paid in the employment market and that qualifications are one way of overcoming that. Also, some minority ethnic groups have had to drop a social class (say, from non-manual to manual labour) since entering the country, yet continue to preach the importance of education. Other minority groups - eg, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis - are internally polarised, with some doing very well at school and others struggling. And the difference in all cases in socio-economic status. And the conclusion: change at a structural level is the only answer. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.92.163.130 |
And not a cull? Blimey, where's the fun? I'll tell Davros, but he won't like it. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Again, from Pygmalion: Higgins: Don't you have any morals? Alfred Doolittle: Can't afford em, guvnor. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Northern Ireland in the Sixties, Seventies. Nowhere and no times are different from others. Defeatism? Maybe, but more life-embracing, horror-embracing than any self-defeating didacticism. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Des, this may all be very profound but until you explain it clearly, it's impossible to respond to it. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.92.163.130 |
It's something to do with cones. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"social disadvantage is stamped into the body from birth." That's very true, but we all have a choice: you can continue being an ignorant cunt and raise a litter of ignorant cunts, or you can take responsibility for your own life and be a proper human being. Reductionist? Yes. True? Also yes. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Pardon my French... ;-) | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
ignorant cones | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>That's very true, but we all have a choice: you can continue being an ignorant cunt and raise a litter of ignorant cunts, or you can take responsibility for your own life and be a proper human being. We have a 'situated' choice. There's a big difference. Actually, it's no use going on with this debate. You're clearly an dyed-in-the-wool individualist. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
The simple fact is - and anyone who disagrees is obviously blind to the facts - that unless change is affected from the top-down, then nothing will ever happen. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
New Labour policies in education, for example, are geared towards making communities and schools responsible for what are clearly structural problems. It's like trying to plug a geyser with a wine cork. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"You're clearly an dyed-in-the-wool individualist." I don't think I am - at least I hope not. I believe strongly in community and society...it's just that nobody else I meet in real life seems to. :-/ "unless change is affected from the top-down, then nothing will ever happen" I couldn''t agree more, old chum. This is our common ground. But I also think that people need to stop using their social status/broken families/etc as an excuse for general fecklessness. I am the product of a broken home. I was raised in a council house. My childhood was a struggle (boo-hoo). We had nothing. I am of average intelligence (maybe even less, if I'm honest). But I've come good, got myself educated, worked towards a decent job, and fully intend to raise my son as a valuable member of society. Change certainly needs to happen from the top down, but that's no excuse for those of us at the bottom to try and claw our way out of the shit. Regards, Muscle Leeni. ;-) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"We have a 'situated' choice. There's a big difference." Again, I agree - but I see far too many people not even bothering to make a choice. They take the easy option. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>But I also think that people need to stop using their social status/broken families/etc as an excuse for general fecklessness. Agreed. But the only way they'll stop doing that is by change from the top-down (see above). >>>I am the product of a broken home. I was raised in a council house. My childhood was a struggle (boo-hoo). We had nothing. You had your mother's love (see above). >>>I am of average intelligence (maybe even less, if I'm honest). Total bollocks. You're easily in the top 2%. And I'd argue that's principally why you managed to work your way out of that mess. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Let me repost this: But there’s another interesting difference between intellectuals and the rest of the population, which is that intellectuals tend to be what psychologists call internal in orientation. Internality and externality are two key dimensions the psychologists feel you can divide the population over. Internals are people who take responsibility for their lives, they believe that they can have an impact on the future of their life, on their destiny. And they believe their destiny is in their hands. Externals, on the other hand, believe that their life is down to external forces beyond their control and they have very limited ability to control their future. This key dimension has a profound effect on behaviour. Internals tend to vote; externals tend not to vote. Internals vote because they believe they can have an impact on the political system; internals tend not to commit crime because they believe in the value of hard work; externals don’t believe in the value of hard work, so they tend to take short cuts. And externals are more prone to various problems. Now here’s the fascinating result: a psychologist based in the US has been looking, doing a meta-analysis of internality and externality in the population, way back to the 1960s, the early ‘60s, when it first began t And she has discovered an alarming shift in the general population on this dimension, to the extent that the general population has shifted alarmingly in the direction of more externality. To the extent that the average young person today around the age of an LSE student, is more external than 80% of people of the same age around in the early ‘60s. That is a dramatic shift in externality, and it has dramatic implications for happiness, which we’ll come to in a second. But one of the questions is this: Why is the population getting more external? Why is it they’re not taking personal responsibility for their lives? Now there are various theories. One profession that gets blamed are the lawyers. The lawyers have this interesting habit of coming up to you at a cocktail party and saying things like, ‘I happen to notice you’re really rather overweight. Let me sue McDonald’s for you, because it’s quite clear this big fast-food corporations have made you overweight.’ As you trip over your paving-stone outside your front door, a lawyer will appear magically and press his card into your broken hand and say, ‘Let me sue the local council for you for placing this paving stone to trip you up right here’ So it’s the rise of the blame culture that might be pushing the population in a more external direction. There’s another interesting profession that are blamed, and that is people like Richard and myself: social scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists. The idea here is the rise of the social science explanation is squeezing out personal responsibility. But people now say ‘Well you know, it’s my genes that made me do it. It’s my childhood. It’s my dreadful parents. It’s the terrible school I got sent to. It’s society that made me do it.’ And the squeezing out of personal responsibility means that people are much more external in orientation. And it has dramatic implications for happiness, because externals feel happier in the short run, because when bad things happen to them, they can always blame someone else for why it happened to them. But in the long run, because they don’t take personal responsibility for their lives, they’re not going to be successful. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Unless change is effected, you mean. Just thought I'd inject a note of pedantry here. And Gary, where are your dialectics? (I know, they're in your other pair of jeans.) No social change comes simply from the individual, but also no social change can possibly come from the top down like rain. The people at the top don't want any change anyway: it's not good for business. Positive social and cultural change comes from broad-based collaborative action between people in different social strata and regions, with input at different levels and interaction between them. If Government are involved, it's only because the electorate, trade unions and professional bodies pushed them. Government never ever leads social change, but it can play a role in making it happen. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Five postings in between. How is a lad supposed to keep up when you guys type so fast?  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Flattery will get you nowhere, mate - I'm of average intelligence, but I use what little I have well. For example, I only understand what you talk about if you dumb it down. :-) Oh, and my mother hates me. :-) That stuff you've reposted is fascinating, btw. I can't find myself disagreeing with it, except to say that more people are probably a mix of both those types rather than one. When I was ranting about excuses above, I actually had that last paragraph in mind. Personal aspiration also has a lot to do with this, you know. If you have low aspirations, you can feel that whatever shit you are in is going be like that forever. Higher social aspirations mean that you are always working towards something better, and can always see the light at the end of the tunnel; and you know that you can make things even better for your kids. Here's a good example: Whenever I ask my chavvy sister if she wants life to be better for her kids, she says "Why? What's wrong with my life?" Instead of realising that surely all parents want better for their kids, she sees it as an attack on her lifestyle. Low aspirations have kept her down; her life has been static for decades. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
In the future, if there is one, people will ask what the intellectuals of the West were doing while their world turned to shit. There will be three answers: 1. Cataloguing their DVD collections. 2. Reminiscing about TV from their childhood. 3. Arguing on message boards. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"Positive social and cultural change comes from broad-based collaborative action between people in different social strata and regions, with input at different levels and interaction between them." See, if I was even slightly intelligent I would've said that. :-) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Yes, Joel, as I've said before: any epistemological mutation must start with the lived circumstances of everybody's lives. That's what I mean when I refer to the situatedness of change. I was just trying to steady the pendulum. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
That relates to a point you made elsewhere. As you get older swinging becomes less attractive. Or so I've heard. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Pervert. Where Sartre got it wrong and Merleau-Ponty got it right was in their chapters on Freedom... [blah blah blah, someone hits him on head with shovel cos he's talking about those French cunts again] | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Freedom? Wasn't that george Michael, not Pointy Marlowe? | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
I am a CONFUSED nihilist, torn between guilt at not caring a shit and not-caring-a-shit. Joel hit the nail on the head: by implying that we'd be better off not indulging in such discussions on the internet as they increase CONFUSION rather than reduce it. I sometimes think Art is better than Religion and/or Social Sciences in helping clarify the CONFUSIONS by actually CONFUSING things more! ... with double-entendres and music of music and music of language. What I meant by my earlier post, Gary F. Confusing The Horizons. Cone-Fusing. des | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Ah, yes, that's clarified it.  | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
The very point I made about CONFUSIONS. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Cat zang dibble you piss like. Hats good when snow plays menace. How do jacks fart. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
That makes more sense than lots of other posts here and elsewhere. Not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. ... Unless I'm pointing them at me. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I might have a little cry. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
The Girn of the Dark. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.79.141 |
I feel like crying too. If we don't discuss all this on message boards and vent our feelings what are we supposed to do? Just keep stuff to ourselves? Zed brings his child up right as I do. We are both from council house backgrounds but dragged ourselves out of the shit. What do we do next? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Keep dragging, Ally. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
I'm sure all posts above are seriously meant (including mine). Venting about not venting is excusable, too. We didn't have message boards ten years ago. Are we better off now ... with them? Serious question. I think I have wasted a lot of my life on them. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
If we don't discuss all this on message boards and vent our feelings what are we supposed to do? Indeed, that question is quite extraordinary if seen from the perspective of our earlier selves in, say, 1995. Were message boards invented as a safety-valve for social pressures? If so, they haven't worked, I suggest. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Why is it a waste of time? What else would we be doing? Watching telly? I've made a lot of good friends via the Internet, people I've never have met otherwise. I've also had some attitude-changing debates, etc. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.79.141 |
Yeah Zed I will. Every day when I get up. I make sure I achieve something, learn something new. I've taught Heather that if yesterday turned out wrong make the day a new day and push forward - through the shit. Mind you it is nice up here, proper community. If your kid is cheeky to someone your parents get told and it is sorted. You daren't get a bad reputation in this town as nobody would bother with you if you did. Everyone seems responsible for their actions- well it is as good as it gets. The kids try hard to get on. If someone actually has a problem there are people who make time to listen and help. Although there are rich and poorer most get on with each other. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.79.141 |
Exactly Gary. Couldn't agree more, although I've been targeted once the debates have really made me think. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"I've made a lot of good friends via the Internet, people I've never have met otherwise. I've also had some attitude-changing debates, etc." Ditto. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
>>Cat zang dibble you piss like. Hats good when snow plays menace. How do jacks fart. You have learned well, Garethsan. I still say choice is an illusion. Nobody ever really had a hard choice of who to be. The choice is always the obvious one. No chav will change unless we only give him that choice and no other. Once a chav, always a chav. stopping the spread of chaviness is interfering in the chav process before the child is tainted forever. never give anyone a choice. they never really had one anyway. Shall I carry on or stop? Your choice? Was Pac man Tubby Thackeray in hell? | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>You have learned well, Garethsan. Thanks, oh learned master. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.163.170.232 |
Just got back from the bottle bank. yes, I've made a lot of good friends, artistic brainstorming etc. on the nternet. What I meant was - one can vent about not venting, if venting is allowed at all. Venting implies to me arguing about basic beliefs that lead nowhere that have destroyed many more friendships than created them. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
Yes, poor Danzinger. He took offence so much. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.6.6 |
What's wrong with loving the State? They protect you from the nasties out there. They give you well-paved roads to drive upon. They make sure if someone konks you on the head, that person will get his comeuppance in a court of law. So there's some pesky wars "out there." So there's some corrupt politicians living like Caligula in mansions of gold. So a few "innocents" get paved in with those same roads. If someone chooses to LOVE the State - the Love of God Himself, which is: from afar; in word, not deed; and affecting no change - does that make him so bad?... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
By the way, everybody - and because I can't resist a punchline - the quotations above come from Raj Persaud. I didn't bother referencing him. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
He probably plagiarsied them from someone else... ;-) | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
All academics do. Actually, having looked into the case a bit, I realise now that it's much ado about nothing. It was apparently the Church of Scientology which identified the examples of plagiarism. And we all know what staunch defenders of psychology they are... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I once sat the Scientology test after being buttonholed in Sunderland town centre. It was most amusing. But not for them. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Try telling the Scientologists they deprived L. Ron Hubbard of access to psychiatric help when he descended into catatonic schizophrenia, condemning their own beloved leader to a squalid death without dignity or comfort. They'll leave you alone then. I've tried this and it works. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Oh, they left me alone as soon as I took the test. Their fear tasted...delicous. :-) | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
They had this multi channel installation about the horrors of Psychiatry that led all the way to an 'interview desk' at the end. Scientologists don't approach me, maybe its the look I get when they try to make eye contact, then they steer right on away on their own. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
"Happiness is like the pox. Catch it too soon and it wrecks the constitution." -- Gustave Flaubert |