We have occasionally discussed the various forms of "the English disease" - usually in connection with footy violence.
I've been feeling rather negative about our 'Sceptred Isle' recently, and thought I'd share the following references that I came across rather curiously in the programme for the RSC's Henry V, presently playing at the Theatre Royal (excellent, incidentally). I thought you might just find them of interest.

"I used to think the British knew themselves very well. But today they seem to know mainly what they used to be.

In the past British self-confidence meant that foreign opinion was just so much lint to be flicked off the English sleeve. Nowadays, however the British are more restless about their own direction and more interested in what outsiders think. They feel less in control of events than they have for centuries, and for a nation accustomed to taking history by the scruff of the neck, this is a major adjustment. The British now spend a lot of time trying to figure out whether what they used to be is what they still ought to be. The national Press is full of national introspection…

Sometimes it seems as if the whole country has stretched itself out on the psychiatrist's couch, recounting its earliest memories and describing its deepest anxieties…"
Raymond Seitz (former US Ambassador to Britain)

"Was the making of useful and necessary things really more oppressive than the culture of guns, drugs, crime and fear which has replaced it? Or is this merely another stage on the sunny road to a golden future?

Certainly voices are no longer raised against its inevitable coming. And in the course of these benign changes, all those characteristics, the self-fulfilling myths with which Britain has consoled itself - our unique tolerance and good humour, our sympathy with the underdog, our fair-mindedness and sense of justice - have been violently disconfirmed.

It is clear we have become less tolerant, that we celebrate wealth and power with a fawning sycophancy that makes even archaic deference to birth and breeding appear modest and reasonable.

Our love of fair play has turned into an admiration for 'nice work if you can get it'. As for the underdogs, we regularly step over their bodies sprawled on the sidewalk.

We are xenophobic, unjust, and unkind: qualities no doubt appropriate in a people on whose behalf its leaders must now - and for the foreseeable future - manage economic and social decline".
Jeremy Seabrook ('An English Exile')

-- Anonymous, November 25, 2000

Answers

All just part of becomming a cosmopolitan nation?

-- Anonymous, November 25, 2000

Very interesting comments there Clarky!

I think the first comment - I used to think the British knew themselves very well. But today they seem to know mainly what they used to be - is very telling. This is a HUGE subject to discuss, but my initial gut reaction is that (and I`m risking a generalization here) as a race, we don`t accept change very easily. The century we have just left behind is mind-boggling. There has never been a century like it for change in attitudes, scientific discoveries, technological advances, and probably most relevant, information technology. Add to that the acceleration in the rate of change in the second half of the century, and particularly in the last twenty years, and really it`s no wonder we aren`t coping too well.

I think what I am trying to get at is that we have a population of people who`s values were set at different times in the last century. For example, I was born in `51. We got our first television when I was five, we didn`t have a car until I was ten, by the time I was fourteen/fifteen the pill was readily available. I experienced the `space race` as it was happening. But, my parents who are only twenty years younger than me, lived through WW2, and I have no concept of how that felt, what it did to their values etc. Move on a generation, and Yelli can`t remember not having a computer, has never bought a `record`, all her communicating is done by mobile phone and e mail, doesn`t see `gender preferences` as an issue, and in all her friends, only knows of three others who don`t have divorced parents. The deseases she fears are not polio, measles whooping cough etc., but aids, ibola, and galloping penicillin-resistent bacteria lurking in, of all places, our hospitals! Consequently her values are naturally, different to mine.

So what we now have is a population with a whole mishmash of values, who generally don`t adjust well to change anyway. To that you have to add, global changes generally, virtual loss of our `island` status (very precious to many in the UK), and a new analytical attitude to history, which quite possibly undermines and questions many peoples values.

I haven`t even touched on consumerism, or on the present generation of kids who are being fed on a diet of unrealistic aspirations and are consequently riddled with low self-esteem. No wonder we don`t know where we are at!

And there I must end, as there is a fully saddleded, riderless horse galloping flat our around our garden - I shall return!(:o)

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

“ To be born British is to win the lottery of life” or something along those lines

Interesting reading Clarky. Are we still hanging on to the apron strings of an old defunct empire?

Get rid of the gutter press! They do more damage to public opinion abroad than anything else does.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Galaxy, are you a member of the Royal Family, (genuflects to the waist) I don't know anyone with a garden big enough for a horse to walk around never mind trot.

In yours you have one at full gallop!!!

The point you make about change, I feel we are the generation who have experienced on a personal level the greatest amount of change.

My parents were used to armed conflict, there were always flying devices in their life time. A lot of the stuff like computers space travel etc occured at arms length for most of them. (I know that this is generalizing). We on the otherhand have had to come to grips with all the technology in our day to day work and lives.

The English attitude to change is not one that is unique. I think it is more to do with generations than nationality, our children will be, as is Yelli, from your description of her, more receptive to new things. (As Screacher would say ooooeeeer missus.)

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Oh no! We`ve blown our cover! Arise Sir Gus!!!

Yours sincerely,

The Queen

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Hiro - I do so agree with you about the gutter press. Anyone who living abroad who bases their opinion of the Brits on that information would be misinformed. Or maybe, badly informed would be a better description - the mere fact that the gutter press exists must say something about us as a nation.

Gus, I agree with you wholeheartedly about each generation accepting change more easily. But it`s reconciling the values of someone who fought in the First World War, with someone who was born in the Depression, with someone who grew up during the Second World War, with the Baby Boomers, with to-days techie children - as I said, so many different starting points. In an ideal world, all this combined experience should be benefiting society, but in reality it doesn`t always seem to work that way. Whereas rapid progress/change(?) can be exciting and exhilarating, I can see how easy it could be to be disconcerted by it - especially if you are feeling `left behind` or`obsolete`.

Another area which I think is causing a good deal of self doubt and unease is our integration with Europe. On the one hand we have devolution, on the other IMHO we are being forced into an allience which does not come naturally, jeopardises our individuality (as a nation that is) If England was an area in the middle of the USA, I swear to God we would be just as insular as any of the odd groups out there such as the Mennonites. Determined not to change or be affected by the `outside` world.

My word I`m in full blethering mode today!(:o)

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Some excellent points made.
Ref. the "gutter press" - I'm afraid that we get the press/media we deserve. They only exist in the manner they do because sadly there is a receptive market for their unending trash.
They not only damage our national reputation, but profoundly and negatively impact the minds of our youth.

As a nation we spend far too much time concerning ourselves about what we used to be. You are all correct in identifying the problems created by the maelstrom of change the older ones of us have lived through, and indeed the challenges we face through the ever-increasing pace of change.

My concern is that other, less introspective nations, are just getting on with it. Britain still has so very much to offer the World - if only it would stop and allow us to get back on!

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

In Clarky's original post one bit Seabrook wrote struck a real chord with me:

"Our love of fair play has turned into an admiration for 'nice work if you can get it'. "

I know this is a little off the thread which has been picked up but this remark would jump out and grab every fellow teacher by the throat. I know I'm going off at a tangent here (no change there then) but the lack of honesty and willingness to accept responsibility for one's actions is a major problem with the youth of today (and no, I am not a retired colonel from Bognor Regis before anyone asks). I may be idealistice in even suggesting that honesty used to be a British characteristic but it certainly isn't any more. When caught out in a "crime" kids no longer say "sorry, sir/miss, it's a fair cop" they simply lie in your face and deny they have said/done what you have just witnessed with your own eyes. I don't know whether this is a British trait but the failure to accept responsibility for your actions is increasingly a problem in my eyes. Even when "guilt" is proven beyond all doubt culprits now have excuses for their behaviour - usually these relate to some social problem from which they perceive themselves as suffering. The folk who are idolised in our society are those who "get away with it".

Similarly, Seabrook wrote "It is clear we have become less tolerant, that we celebrate wealth and power". The last part of his statement is sadly very true. I watched an advert on telly tonight exhorting people to buy tomorrow's Daily Express because it had exclusive photographs of the wedding of a second rate actor who owes his fame to a fortunate birth and some Welsh lass with a nice face. So bloody what? Why in heaven's name should anyone give a stuff about that - why should we celebrate the fact that this pair spent in excess of a million quid on their wedding when there are literally a million better things to spend the money on? This obviously isn't just a British failing but it leads me back to the original question about whether or not the British know themsleves. We don't because history has reversed itself. America used to be a British colony - the reverse is now true. We have adopted all the evils of America as our own - big is beautiful, money is god, having is more important than living.

The fact that we are now alienated from our British identity is because we have accepted as a role model a country whose inhabitants cannot work out how to punch a hole in a piece of paper correctly.

God, I must stop drinking on a Sunday evening!

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Here's my tuppenceworth [in response to the original posting]:

I think in many ways the problems we face today are similar to those faced by previous generations. The main difference i think, is that the formal structure of society [a pyramid] has disintegrated and as such we now look around for a sign, an answer, approval, direction which we never find. There was an 'old order' - based largely on class - which was destroyed largely, i think, by successive world wars. My great auntie was a vociferous supporter that 'people knew their place [in the] old days'. That it was fine when we looked to King and Queen for a lead. And that's along the lines of where you'll find the xenophobic little Englanders. They look to the past to support the lunacy and stupidity of their current predjudices, failing to realise that the people were responding in the only way they knew how, because their lives and lifestyle were threatened.

I think the problem today is to with identity. What does it mean to be English? i think we've got a better sense of identity because its so closely connected with language [Geordie] and the region. It's also to do with the football team. Where once we looked to leaders, we've kind of replaced them with NUFC and all our hopes and aspirations, as a nation of Geordies, is wrapped up in how the team does. Witness the soul searching and utter disbelief after the makems game.

How many times have you heard a Geordie accent in the street or in a shop away from the region and ended up chatting to them? You hear an English accent overseas and you hardly end up talking about England's greatest ever goal or greatest player within five minutes, which I tend to do when i hear another Geordie.

anyway, i'm rambling so i'll leave it at that. It's a BIG topic with loads of theories. Mine is that it all comes down to identity. We can't, as a nation, define who we are, because we have all this history which isn't relevant to anyone else anymore and the world is much smaller than it used to be. Celebrate it. People are coming together. Instead of wanting people to be the same as us, we're starting to celebrate that difference.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2000

Jacko - nice to see someone else having a Sunday rant too! I do so agree with you about kids not accepting responsibility for their actions. Not much chance now of a child being caught for some misdemeanour, accepting that they made a bad decision, apologising and learning from their mistake. Brought up in an aspirational society and fed on a diet of psychoanalysis(sp), the clever ones use it to there advantage, the not-so-bright think `Oh God, that`s me` and neatly slot themselves into whatever disfunctional category fits best!

Min good points - I think most people have a basic (maybe subconscious)need to belong - back to the `tribal` theme I suppose, which has been discussed before. You also illustrate perfectly the point that this generation welcomes/accepts change so much easier.(:o)

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their, their!

Sorry Teach! (;o)

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

I'm sure that the Scots, Welsh and Irish will notice how many times this thread has used the words BRITISH and ENGLISH as essentially interchangable.

"In the past British self-confidence meant that foreign opinion was just so much lint to be flicked off the English sleeve" from the programme quoted in Clarky's original post is particularly telling.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Dread,

I think if those terms have been used then it's not been deiliberate. Doesn't make it right but doesn't mean there's anything sinister behind it either.

Anyway, that's just about the crux of what i was saying: The Irish, Scots and Welsh have a much better sense of identity and culture than the English. They've never looked on being British as a sense of identity, whereas the English have [union flag etc]. Once the empire crumbled, they were like lost sheep.

Change is reflected in the increased use of the George cross for football though...

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

This may be a little bit out of the context of Clarky's original posting, but isn't this sort of disintegration bound to happen in any society ? Being introspective in this way, I think, is an aspect of a more general malaise the world's suffering.

I think it's a sort of lemming scenario. Eventually we'll reach a point where the whole thing will be so completely unmanageable that there'll be an unconcious rush to find some sort of cliff to jump off.

It often seems to me that the only hope we have of even just ensuring that the human species survives is to be driven just about to the point of extinction - some world wide catastrophe that would reduce the population of the earth by about 99.9 percent.

OK, that wouldn't guarantee that the survivors would be any better at coping than we've been, but we'd really have no hope at all if there weren't enough among them who could convince the rest to try something different, so that history wouldn't repeat itself. Don't ask me what that would be, though.

The arrogance we have that we can control our own destiny is misplaced, IMO. Yes, it is within some of us to take advantage of circumstances to our advantage, with some spin off that might temporarily be to the advantage of others, but that isn't what I'd want controlling our destiny to be about. Maybe it's all that's needed though. And it may even be all we're capable of.

There's no such thing as benign survival. For one species to survive , others must be exploited. The frightening thing is that the human species seems to be the only one that exploits it's own to the detrement of most of the rest.

What has this to do with how we see ourselves ? Probably not much. All of the above was prompted from trying to see it from a more distant viewpoint, and it's a turned out to be a bit of a jaundiced one, surprise, surprise.

It seems to me that worrying about where we as a nation, fit into the scheme of things is a bit short sighted because it gets more and more difficult to shut out the rest of the world, so whatever conclusions we come to will depend mostly on what's going on in the rest of the world, with minor local disturbances.

There might be a glimmer of hope if we become citizens of the world, even if that means giving up all nationalist aspirations. If we have to do this by first becoming citizens of Europe, then so be it. The rest of the world would obviously have to make a similar committment.

I don't think I can sum it up better than to paraphrase Dad's Army. 'Doomed. Doomed. We're all doomed - if we're not careful'.

Phew.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

two things:

1/ we can all be 'citizens of the world' with our national and regional identities fully in tact. It's just about recognising the bigger picture and allowing for people to be who they are. Nationalism invariably gets hijacked by extreme right wing groups because of apathy and indifference to identity - frightening. I suppose you need to know where you come from before you can know where you're going.

2/ Basically, the Gaia theory suggests that just as an animal with fleas scratches to get rid of them, the Earth is a living organism and will do the same: man destroys the ozone layer, the global change kills man. the Earth carries on...for a few hundred million years at least.

ah...cheerful thoughts eh? ; - )

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Your Royal Highness, Queen Galaxy.

I have noticed a startling change in the youth of our world around the time the Governments decided that they will "help" parents bring up their children. This in tandem to the social engineers telling everyone "that it is societies fault not yours" has hastened the change in attitude.

No one now has to accept responsibility for their own actions, no blame no guilt. No parent figure of authority. It will continue. Maybe until the trend reverses slightly in self correction, or, perhaps genetic engineers picking who is suitable to breed and who is not!

I remain your obedient servant,

gus

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

I was standing at the bus stop in the estate where I live in South Shields on Saturday night. All of the shops have metal shutters to protect them, and a group of kids were kicking footballs at them in a quest to make the most noise possible. I wanted to tell them to stop but in common with everyone else at the bus stop I made believe it wasn't happening. Thus reinforcing the view to the kids that they can do as they want when they want no matter who else they are disturbing. But why did I ignore it? I'll tell you why.

If I had politely asked them to think about the people living above the shops they would have told me to "f*uck off". They would have said it loudly in front of everyone in the bus queue. If in my attempt to save face I had threatened them then I would have had their piece of shit mother come screaming up the street threatening to kill me as "nay one tells my bairns what to do". Probably then her latest boyfriend (the kids 15th dad) would have appeared - tried to infer that I was a peodiphile and then attacked me. If they had not appeared then I'm sure a passing social worker would have reported me for abusing the kids. Not letting them express themselves fully. A policeman would then have arrested me as you shouldn't tell kids what to do anymore.

I could go about why this state of affairs has occurred. I am sure 95% of you would be appalled at what I had to say (as I am most definately not politically correct). But at the end of the day a whole host of social ills are being encouraged because people like me are afraid of being told to "f*ck off".

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Can I join your gang Ginga? Couldn't agree more.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Howay Ginga, you're a coward who is unable to stand up for your own convictions. Nowt unusual about that, so are the vast majority of us. But don't blame the kids or their parents or the police or political correctness. YOU said nowt because YOU were afraid of the consequences. I would probably have stood silently seething as well. As people have done all through history.

It's not a modern disease. Would you have raced up to a Viking hoard to tell them to stop making a noise whilst they were pillaging your village? Or tried to stop the Nazis loading your Jewish next door neighbour on a train to Auschwitz?

Self-preservation usually over-rides principles.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Ginga - I bet most of us on here have come across similar situations and gone against our natural instincts as responsible adults to do something. It leaves you feeling guilty and ineffectual, and totally frustrated at a system which allows kids to be so anarchic with such barefaced confidence.(:o|

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

It's not cowardice Dread it's just totally pointless....Ginga's right, they're gonna tell him to fuck off and then there's absolutely nothing he can do after that....he could twat them like he so desperately wants to (as I want to as well!) but that'd get him nowhere either....

You are right about it not being a recent thing though....

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

I blame the teachers.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Coppers and others used to be able to give you a clip round the lug if you 'misbehaved' and it was left at that.

And you'd be more than likely to get another off your da cos you probably deserved the one you got from the copper.

An assault charge would be the least you could expect these days. And we wonder why it's all going down the tubes. I mean do you 'learn' discipline or is it forced on you ? Where does discipline stop and cruelty start.

Doomed, I tell you. Doomed. :-)

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

I don`t believe you mean that Jacko. (;o)

Pit Bill - I think what you are quite right. It is impossible to view ourselves, and our place in the World, without looking at the bigger picture and taking into account changes in the World as a whole.(:o)

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

".....totally frustrated at a system which allows kids to be so anarchic....The "system" is our "system". We bemoan the values of kids who deny responsibility for their own actions - and yet we openly demonstrate our own a lack of ownership for the system that tolerates the unsocial behaviour we are deriding.

This is part of the wider problem - we all expect societies problems to be solved by others. How often do we say "it's about time they did something about xxxxx or yyyyyyy". After all, who are "they"? The Police, Teachers, Council, Company, Government etc. etc.?

Unless and until "we" accept responsibility for changing the course of our society, and seek ways of positively influencing it's values, things will continue to deteriorate - everyone just blames everyone else, the mythical "they".

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

Ouch! Did you just rap my knuckles Clarky!

Ok maybe I worded that badly - maybe I should have said frustrated at our own inability to change a system that allows kids to be so anarchic. Or maybe I should have said - change society, not the system - I don`t know. It was badly worded because I can`t put my finger on what it is I need to be doing to make any difference!

What do you think I should be doing differently?

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2000

I'm suprised that no-one (particularly Gav) has raised Thatcher's twenty year reign of social terror. If you're looking for a reason for a 'lost social generation' that woman's actions are pretty high on my list of causes.

Coach bookings for future Grantham-based grave dancing still being taken.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Oh, and about taking a responsible place in society and making it change, it used to be that you educated yourself well enough to vote for people who represent the ideas you believe in, and that in most cases, government of the day would attempt to carry out the will of the people.

Well, I guess most of us on here still do that, and vote at every opportunity. However, the removal of appropriate local government power and local relevance (again by MT), and the shift in central governmental structure towards a presedential style of 'benign' dictatorship has left many feeling serious discomfort about their votre at whatever level being worth anything. Your right to peaceful protest has been drastically reduced (with trespass and 'gathering' passing from civil to criminal offences), and in many work arenas, the right to withdraw your labour in a legal manner has also been removed.

Couple that with a shift towards 'offender's rights' (be it naughty schoolchild or plea-bargaining for self-confessed sex offenders), then jeez, no wonder that people just ignore stuff and shuffle away.

On the upside, we still have a constitution that......oh, we don't do we. Never did. Not written down anyway. Aah the good old days where you could trust the upper class to look after our interests.

All aboard for Syracuse. Philosophers with qualifications in perfect society construction most welcome.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Sorry if my reply last night was a bit sharp, I guess I took it a bit too personally. But I do, like the rest of you I`m sure, feel totally frustrated and ineffectual. Believe me, I`m no paragon of virtue, but I have tried to stay true to my ideals.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

My Girlfriend is a teacher in Northampton. Two examples of society's failings were shown in the last week and were vey frustrating for a young teacher who is giving her all to try and educate these people.

Example 1. A young girl aged about ten, is chopping up chalk acting as if it's like cocaine. She rolls up a piece of paper and snorts it. She then wraps the rest up carefully into a square package and gives it to another child saying, "there you go, that's for you".

When the child was 'excluded' (Suspended to you and me) the father comes in and is told what his daughter had done. He laughs it off and asks when she will be allowed to return.

Where do kids learn to snort white powder and 'wrap' professionally like that, not in any films I'v seen.

Example 2. My girlfriend has introduced a system whereby parent have to sign a reading diary to say they have witnessed their child reading for ten minutes a night. This is all to improve the reading ages of the children which are lower than they should be.

A few of the prarents woun't do it, they can't pay attention to their children for ten minutes at night. "I haven't got time". My girlfriend gets all sorts of abusive phone calls saying she can't do her job etc etc when she is trying to educate. For little thanks.

I obviously have a personal bias here but I blame the parents! That is where discipline starts. My parents disciplined me without violence and I haven't turned out a disruptive human being (?!).

Unfortunately there are far too many people bringing up kids these days who would rather be down the pub or in a club trying to get the shag, when in fact they have taken the decision to have children but cannot take the responsibility. If it were a job they'd be sacked, what's the difference?

It all boils down to the age old problem, too many people living too close together!

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Debuilder - that is so sad. I don`t envy your girlfriend, it must be soul destroying.(:o|

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

She came home demoralised after the thick slapper had criticised her that day. I did the only decent thing and took her to the pub where she drinks only a couple of alcoholic drinks because wants to have a clear head in the morning. Misplaced loyalties there I think.

If any of you know Northampton she teaches in the Eastern District (Scumsville) where that woman is probably going home chucking some chicken nuggets in the oven then going down the pub, getting pissed trying to find the next father of her children, then she comes home and little jonny says she has to listen to him read for ten minutes. What chance does the poor lad got.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

DB

You and yours have my sympathy. My wife was a dedicated primary school teacher for 7 years; typical working week of somewhere around 65 hours. For less than 20k per year, and this for someone with a four year degree in primary teaching.

After 7 years and at the age of 29, she 'retired'...gave up because of stress, disillusionment and sheer exhaustion. We're two years after the fact and she still has genuine nightmares about some of the kids, but usually about the parents. It broke her heart to give up, but frankly it was making her ill.

I could tell you stories about parental responsibility (and lack thereof) that would make your hair curl.

Eugenics anyone?

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

I wonder if there's anyplace that teachers get anywhere near the respect and compensation they deserve? Certainly they don't get anywhere near the compensation. And how many people who would make fine teachers don't take up the profession, or leave it early, because of the pressures? What's left? And how much more is this hurting kids? I could ramble on and on and on about this topic. Been one of my pet peeves for as long as I can remember. And I've yet to figure out what's to be done.

Interesting thread (lots this week actually!). The US is so good at trying to ignore the rest of the world, that it's not until you travel or, thanks to the internet, read the views of people in other countries, that you start to see the problems of everyday living are the same everywhere. Right down to unruly kids, and worse parenting.

Still makes me a bit sad to also see the Americanization of culture overseas. I just want to cringe when I go to other countries and see the worst of our consumerism and worship of wealth and power.

Not sure if this rambling makes any sense. Trying to read and write in between updating the World's Worst Database(tm). :-o

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

'It all boils down to the age old problem, too many people living too close together!'
DB
Spot on young man. Back to my 'lemmings' analogy on one of the other threads.

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Galaxy,

It certainly wasn't my intention to "wrap your knuckles" - but merely to point out a trait that we all suffer from - and how negative and unhelpful it really is.

While I can identify the problem, I'm afraid pin-pointing the solution is far from easy. However, I do feel even a general recognition of this common trait, and the simple fact that these are "OUR" problems to be addressed, rather than waiting for, and indeed expecting, some mythical "THEY/THEM" to solve them, would be firm step forward.

I believe that if we collectively feel strongly enough about certain issues, and enough people recognise that as a society we are collectively responsible for identifying and implementing the solutions, we will have a better chance of changing the present course of events that is leading inexorably towards continuing social decline.

The posts that have identified the unwillingness of parents to accept their personal responsibility for educating, nurturing and guiding the development their own children, is certainly at the core of many of societies problems. And yet what as a society are we doing to positively address this problem?

I feel instinctively that this problem in itself is just another more manifestation of the trait of expecting "THEY/THEM" to address all tricky or difficult issues, instead of being willing to accept their personal responsibility, and acting accordingly.

This is an incredibly difficult issue that of course can't be resolved on here. I believe it is intertwined with the general disillusionment of the people with our political processes - a fact that I find extremely worrying, and one with potentially devastating consequences for our society.

As a society we must all waken up, and begin to recognise the critical importance of accepting our full responsibility in creating and sustaining the kind of society we wish to live in. A key part of this awakening has to be a clear recognition that this cannot be accomplished by Government alone - and for politicians to stop pretending it can.

Does that make any sense at all?

-- Anonymous, November 28, 2000

Clarky
Surprise, surprise, I'm even more pessimistic than that. I don't believe we are capable of sorting it benignly. Any improvement will only come about after some sort of violent upheaval. That seems to me to have been the case all through history, and I don't see any signs that next time it'll be any different.

Any attempts that are made to solve a problem are nearly always in arrears of the events that brought the problem to light, and I can't escape the conclusion that the compromises that are made are mostly on the side of some vested financial interest.

In fact, I'd say that humanity got off on the wrong foot from the word go. It would have been much easier if we'd developed along the lines of ants, where individuals have no sense of their own individuality.

Taking the argument a step further, that seems to me to be the way genetic engineering will lead us. Physical shortcomings will be eliminated and it'll then be a short step to eliminating the personality shortcomings. Not 1984, more like Brave New World.

I'm seeing this from a (probably very simplistic) point of view that it's a basic human 'aggression' that indiscriminately manifests itself as a Beethoven, a Shakespeare, a Gazza or a hitler.

Whatever it is in our basic makeup that turns a person into a hitler, as opposed to a Beethoven, will be detected and eliminated and everything in the garden will eventually be lovely. Heh !

It even might come about anyway through evolution, without any interference from us - only the timescale being very much longer. Some hope.

We're fiddling while Rome burns, if you ask me.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Hmmm, natural selection or eugenics, eh? Well, I'm up for a challenge today.

Natural selection takes a VERY long time to have a discernible effect. The best-known example of it actually being observed in action took decades of study to demonstrate, and that was in moths in Salford, where a light-on-dark winged variant became dominant over a dark-on-light form becuase they were better camouflaged against the birds that fed on them with all of the industrial smog deposits on the trees. Think about it - that's decades for a very minor change in a species that has a life-cycle of weeks. How long is a serious behaviour change going to take in humans through natural selection?

And then again, why should aggressive or unpleaseant people suddenly be at a survival disadvantage now? There little or no reason for them to be any less effactive at surviving to breeding age and at reproducing (you might even say the reverse). For the vast majority of human (pre)history, the survival advantage has been the other way around - ug-hitler ruthlessly eliminates his rivals for the food supply, while og-beethoven is still sitting around banging the different-sized rocks together for the sound it makes. Just because we have been tolerating Beethovens for a few thousand years (and even encouraging them with Arts Council Grants more recently) it couldn't possibly undo the effects of all those earlier generations in the forseeable future.

Eugenics gives me the willies, if you see what I mean (quiet, Screacher). Who decides which genes are "right", and which should be eliminated? On what basis? Would my short-sight and, er, follicular deficiency eliminate me? Not to mention the other things I'm not going to tell you about...

We are now in a position to test for some genetic states at the embryo stage. What this usually means is that an 'abnormal' embryo is detected and terminated. Sounds OK maybe? Well, there is now a recorded case of parents with achondroplasia (the most usual type of dwarfism) requesting testing of their pregnancy for achondroplasia - so that it could be terminated if it was NOT achondroplastic. That's normal for them, you see. Still sound OK?

I'm not so sure we should even be doing the tests sometimes.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Bill
I take your point about the time scale involved if we rely simply on evolution. I did mention, but didn't specify, a timescale. On the figures you quote for the moths, it does look as though we'd probably have blown ourselves to smithereens long before any of the good effects of evolution could have an effect.

Your Ug and Og analogy was apt. Surely though, while Ug is trying to corner the food supply and Og is letting it all hang out, baby, there'll be the rest of us just milling around watching what's going on, so hopefully we might have enough sense to gang up on Ug and sort him out before he get's too far along the road of elimination, even if Og looks as though he still couldn't care less.

The problem I think is that it's never that clear cut. There'll be those among the onlookers who'd leap at the chance of climbing on Ug's bandwagon, and obviously the converse, and the outcome will hinge only on which point of view has the most supporters.

They'll still end up kicking seven kinds of sithe out of each other till one or the other lot dominate. And so it'll go on.

Whether or not science will ever come up with ways of differentiating among all the traits that make us what we are, so that the negative (from some arbitrary point of view) traits can be eliminated, is a moot point.

If I've understood you correctly Bill, I agree that we may be dropping an even bigger bollick by investigating any of the 'chemical' aspects of our humanity.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

It's not so long (no time at all in evolutionary terms) since all other conerns paled into insignificance against where our next meal was coming from. Who would you side with - the guy who would get out there and rip the throat out of the next passing mammoth, or the one sitting in the corner dreaming about musical scales?

I'm not as optimistic as you (blimey, never thought I'd be saying that!) that collective human nature has changed much since then either. Hence we all keep electing (or nearly electing, in the case of the US) leaders who are good at projecting confident, decisive, macho (especially MrsT) images, despite the fact that they all turn out to be no better than we should have expected. What happens when their position is challenged? Tthey rattle the sabre, if possible to the point of an actual war, to increase their popular support. It's the same story from the Falklands via Grenada to Milosevic.

It's all very depressing, and if I thought there was a way to alter those genes I might be tempted. But, hey, who's to say we wouldn't then all be wiped out in a Mars Attacks type scenario?

I think I'll go back to worrying about tonight's match.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Master Bill,

>>a Mars Attacks type scenario<< is one thing, but a win tonight would be a bounty, bar none.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Ooh Dr. Bill - how refreshing to hear a doctor saying he`s not sure we should be doing the tests sometimes. I find the whole issue of medical ethics very taxing to my mind. I`m sure, at times, most doctors do too - and I see some terrifying dilemas looming in the not too distant future. The progress in medicine in the last fifty years has been breathtaking and wonderful, and I doubt there is one of us who has not been thankful for the wonders of modern medicine - but I`m beginning to feel kind of uneasy at what could lie ahead. (:o|

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

No question Bill, if I couldn't manage it myself, I'd side with the guy who could rip the throat out of the next passing mammoth. What would worry me, to put it mildly, would be when he doesn't stop at ripping out mammoths' throats and starts ripping out his neighbours'.

But you're right, footy is more important than life and death, so howway the leirds.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Don't worry about the dilema's Gal....there are gonna be some unscrupulous doctors/scientists/governments which are gonna do all these tests/modifications/experiments regardless of what the rest of the world is moralising over....

Humanity will either survive that experimentation or it won't.....natural selection you see ;)

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Oh....excellent debate by the way.....not see that kind of thing on any other bbs eh :))

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Thanks Galaxy, glad to be refreshing (as opposed to bitter, say).

The thing is, taking a popoulation view of these tests and things, they all too often turn out to do more harm than good, never the mind the ethics of 'correcting' people until they match up to some ill-defined 'ideal'. As a 50 year old male, I was invited by my GP to take part in a trial of screening for prostate cancer. No way, matey! Two thirds of prostate cancers are so slow growing that they never cause a symptom before the individual dies of something else. If I have one of those, I just don't want to know thanks. The other third are so nasty that it's unlikely that any treatment, however early it's administered, will make a difference. So I don't really want to know about that any sooner than I have to, either. Oh, and the treatment - even for the slower growing ones that will probably never cause a problem - will almost definitely remove whatever sexual function I can lay claim to, and will also seriously threaten my continence. Progress? - I don't think so.

Well it's a distraction from the football, anyway.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Heh heh, bet I've just made the males over 'a certain age' on this BBS wince! Join the club fellas - you know who you are...

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000

Good for you Dr. Bill! Once again - a very Heineken remark from our resident doctor!(:o)

-- Anonymous, November 29, 2000