I do not know how many of you saw part one of this two parter which the history of community care for orphaned or otherwise unwanted children in Britain. It did not paint a particular caring picture for the children taken into care and the brutality and abuse was so much a part of life in those days. As a guy who was brought up in a children's home from the age of 5 and at almost 60 now puts me right in the era when things were not good for kids in care. The affects of the pervading ideas of the day and my overall treatment have profoundly affected my whole life. I saw and experienced cruelty and this was mainly from female 'carers' and the lack of emotional connections with these people has made forming an emotional attachment throughout my life difficult if not impossible. I left school at 15 because that was expected of you but at least we could read and write and were reasonably numerate. Another oddity you would think that being brought up in an environment where there were many children in exactly the same position as myself that I would have loads of friends throughout my life. Quite the opposite because of the lack of any real emotional aspect to my character I have had very few friends in my life and none that I would consider lifelong. We still hear on a regular basis horror stories of the treatment of kids today and I wonder has society really changed? Or are we more aware and at least like to give the impression we actually care? I am not looking for sympathy here, sh** happens, just the program brought back memories I thought long buried and just wanted to say something.
It really is becoming a long, and very constant issue. We all know it's not just in children's care that this is happening, and it is one of the things I don't like to see on the news, despite me being an absolute emotionless so and so at the best of times. I'm going to leave the comments on the changes in society to people who have grown through multiple decades- rather than myself whom has experienced a generation of people who I can only say I despise, despair with and just don't want. I'd like to say we care more as a society- you'd think so with the amount of public awareness of things. Of course, awareness doesn't mean doing something about it. I know only too well from my recent school years how shocked people are to hear of these things, and yet either barely know what's going on in the world in the first place, or make a fuss of the situation and leave it at that. I will admit to hardly being the most charitable of people unless the issue is close to my heart, but it's something I feel I need to put out there, and taking it any further will only lead me to pointless ranting. So, for people older than myself: Would I be correct in saying that in decades gone by, community spirit was overall better, and this led to people and society in general being more caring? Obviously, that's just one of the many issues that can contribute to lack of care in a government or privately run facility. I don't however, feel I'm in a position talk about the financial or legal implications of these situations, so I'll leave that one.
It boils down to a total and utter lack of respect. More and more are thinking of and looking after number one, rather than doing things to both better themselves and those around them, which would ultimately bring far more happiness and worth than material wealth.
The majority of people are enveloped in in incredibly strong SEP field... For the majority of the populace: Kids in care treated like crap?... Someone else's problem... Nutritionally dubious school/hospital food... Someone else's problem.... The economy... someone else's problem... Neighbours having a hard time?... someone else's problem... and so on...
In answer to that question in the 6 decades I've been around I can honestly say there is no community spirit any more and people are far more self absorbed and selfish than ever
Even though its been taken out of context Margaret Thatcher did say "There is no such thing as society"
I can't disagree. If anything, I would take opinion from the GTA5 thread in this section and advance upon what RedFlames has said: It's always someone else's responsibility now. Even in a care job, it's apparently not their responsibility. I'm just begging myself not to go on a my generation rant.
Society has always been dismal at looking after the disenfranchised; we are just more open and aware of it now (but we are still not doing much about it). I'd even go as far as to say that society has become slightly better at looking after them --even though it is still nowhere near adequate. The notion of community spirit is a myth, or at least a two-edged thing. Yes, in some poor communities people looked after each other because who else would? But the price of this was absolute conformity to the community culture and its expectations. You could rest assured that your neighbours would look after your kids if you were indisposed --as long as they were your legitimate kids. Yes, your neighbours would give your refuge from the late-night battery by your drunken husband --as long as you didn't divorce him, and hid your black eye from the public and didn't make a fuss about it the next day. Yes, you went to church on Sundays. No, you never, ever left your daughter alone with the vicar. Yes, you looked after widows and orphans (a bit). No, you ostracised single unwed mums and illegitimate children. These days we're more open and less hypocritical. We may not do much about it, but at least we don't pretend it's not going on.
I was waiting for that, and what I said earlier boils down to the fact that everything is so much more public now. Despite that, I don't intend to help cure cancer by creating awareness by liking on Facebook or making a mystery post about the colour of my bra. That doesn't help. People can call instant news feeds and all that a blessing until the cows come home, I hardly believe it's made us better people.
It's made us more aware people. Although that isn't a sufficient condition, it is a necessary one. You cannot challenge a problem that you don't know exists. That BBC4 documentary? Unheard of even 40 years ago. And don't think that nobody knew about various celebrities' proclivities for feeling up a young girl's skirt. It was just accepted as one of those things, and not talked about --except in hushed terms by mothers telling their daughters to keep their knees together, both feet on the floor and not to get caught alone with any man that wasn't your husband. Now a single grope will get a celebrity the kind of national exposure they don't want. All those church abuse scandals? Happening for centuries, but only now becoming open, public knowledge. There is power in public acknowledgement. It shows the victim that they are not alone, and that yes, it is wrong and should be challenged loudly, not hidden in silent suffering and shame.
During my time as police officer I formed the view (skewed no doubt because of the sort of situations that job puts you in) that, in this country at least, 'society' (I too place little value in the concept) and the State is unlikely ever to be able to effectively manage the problems that fester within our borders, due to the sheer scale of them. All the government can realistically hope to achieve is to keep a lid on it all i.e. do just enough to allow the population to pretend that things are generally ok so that they can get on with normal economic activities without regular, significant disruption.
Which even then, is difficult to say the least. It's hard not to adopt the "put me first attitude" when a lot of us have so many more issues closer to home. Giving to charity would be fine if a lot of us weren't worrying about the increased cost of living and everything else ourselves.
See the average population: the vast majority operates at the intellectual level of a twelve- to sixteen-year old. Average reading age is that of an eight-year old (10-12 for the working population). There is a direct link between people's language ability and their ability to self-regulate (i.e. exercise self-restraint, look after themselves psychologically), reason, plan, problem solve, make sense of other people and communicate effectively with them (including conflict resolution). Emotionally people on average function at the same level as they do intellectually --see the above. One-third has some psychological hang-ups from childhood that affect their emotional maturity and ability to relate to others. One tenth has anxiety/depression problems. One in a hundred has severe psychological problems. We, here on this forum, are mostly of above average intelligence. Look around you on any street, in any supermarket. You are likely to be brighter than nine of every ten people around you. See the average population: they get to vote. They get to drink alcohol. They get to drive one-tonne high velocity vehicles. They get to borrow substantial amounts of money and use credit cards. They get to have kids and raise them. They may get to hold jobs of some responsibility. This is society. These are the people that we expect to be reasonable, informed, make wise choices, delay gratification, not act on impulse and be understanding, tolerant and compassionate and look after each other while dealing with complex, messy, sometimes outright scary life problems. And you know what? They're actually not doing too badly, given who they were raised by and who they came to be. And here's the funny thing. When you treat them as having the potential to be better people, they often become so.
