Just what the hell's going on in London?

[nomadologist]

tht, it sometimes seems to me that mr. tea doesn't understand the idea of "privilege"--he thinks people are always crying "oppression", and he tries to point out that people aren't overwhelmingly oppressed by individuals or institutions, or at least as oppressed as they used to be. a problem that's as big as oppression is privilege, where you are born with a much better ticket than others in the big social lottery, and not because you deserve it or because you have more to offer the world.

at the public school in the U.S. (the one the government runs) a lot of schools do the privilege game to illustrate this in gym. they line people up along the center of the gym. then they say "if you were born white, take a step forward. if you weren't, take a step back." then "if you were born male, step forward. females step back."

at the end, you'll have a lot of kids who end up against the wall, on the exact opposite end of the room, behind the white males born to two parent households with at least one parent with a college degree and dual incomes.

 

[nomadologist]

"Stupid and annoying", especially the oh-so-oironic metatextual ones, which as you say constitute "all of our commercials now." We call that cynical pomo disavowal, not "really" believing in what they are doing but doing it - even more effectively - nonetheless, just the ideal (self-distancing) precondition for the smooth, justified, and flawless operation of ideology.

Well, I agree with you theoretically, Hundredmillion, and I don't think being detached from commercials means you've circumvented capitalism. But I do have to give credit where it's due. Americans aren't all just sitting there being spoonfed what the media wants them to believe. There are definitely a lot of Americans who hate the same shit you do and want to end it.

 

[nomadologist]

oh wait, Matt made that point up there while I was writing mine. Ignore mine.

 

[nomadologist]

"approx one-in-four children in the West will be/have been abused by a family member, whether parent/sibling/relative"

Really? Any figures to back that up?
According to nomad's apparently well-researched post, the 'victim rate' is something like 12 per 1,000 children, i.e. a fraction over 1%, and that's counting multiple cases of abuse or neglect on a single child as separate cases. One in four sounds ridiculously high.

Edit: and for the benefit of bazillionlifetimes - firstly, I posted those items in response to a specific question about whether or not something happened, and secondly you'll notice it was just a collection of links, rather than screens and screens of pasted text, which was my main gripe with your posts.

One-in-four is one of the speculative figures most social workers or other experts will guess is the real figure on rape/sex abuse. I haven't found any documented studies that make that claim, but this figure is accounting for how hard it is to actually report rape and sex abuse, and how most victims don't knowing how negative the consequences can be on their own lives.

 

[Mr. Tea]

When did I ever say some people aren't born more privileged than others? My point is *not* that these kids could just pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they really wanted to, but that it's a massive oversimplification to blame it all simply on poverty. There are many ways someone can be underprivileged, apart from having no money.
In the UK, at any rate, actual poverty is generally more widespread in rural communities and small provincial towns than it is in large cities. Unemployment is certainly higher. Yet it's in the citiies, and particularly London, that we see this culture of anti-academia, drugs, guns, and violence.

Yes, a lot of these kids grow up in council flats with a single parent on benefits, and I'm not denying the effects that can have, but it's a cultural and social poverty that does the real damage, I think. Someone growing up in that environment is massively underprivileged.

 

[nomadologist]

Well who is putting the barriers there, then?
I'm saying that there is a whole culture, that involves the kids themselves and is perpetuated by them, that prevents many of them from getting an education and having any real career prospects. I'm not blaming them, because the culture is already there and it's all around them, so they can't help but feel its influence.
At the risk of sounding like a fuddy-duddy, I think the music they listen to is a part of it, while the easy availability of drugs (and guns) is obviously massively important, too. But isn't it the case that kids turn towards this lifestyle because they've already, in a sense, given up on themselves academically? Or is it the lure of the 'street' that turns them away from school in the first place?

Mr. Tea, you might be the most conservative person on Dissensus. At least who I've read.

Could it be that the music *reflects* cultural circumstances that already exist? I think that's what the music is doing. I don't think guns and bling are becoming our reality because of hip-hop music, I think hip-hop music reflect realities and tendencies and cultural problems that already exist.

This is the same thing people get wrong about feminism. Feminism didn't *cause* the culture to change so radically that women started working--it is a movement that sprang up around culture when economic changes radically altered our way of life, so that feminism was a *reaction* to those changes, an attempt to get culture attitudes and values to catch up with reality. It's industrialization that you can blame for causing the economy to change so drastically that we needed women in the workforce. Then the world wars for forcing women to stay, and draining society of the members that would have been the most successful career people. Then you can thank the post-war boom in America and western Europe and the attending tech boom for keeping capitalism in need of workers and consumers, fueling the need to keep everyone at work for longer and longer hours.

The "breakdown of the family" as Mr. Tea sees it is ultimately capitalism's fault, not feminism's, not guns, not bling culture.

 

[Mr. Tea]

As far as the role of capitalism goes in this discussion, several people have mentioned its effect on families in this thread and I can only say I agree. I think the Reaganite/Thatcherite idea of "personal wealth by any means necessary" is, to a large extent, behind the fact (mentioned above) that these kids would rather make easy money selling drugs than get a job driving a bus or working in a shop. I don't recall mentioning feminism in this thread, although I think I mentioned the damage caused by absent fathers several times.

I don't think I'm particularly right-wing. I sometimes talk to people and come away feeling like a big old pinko tree-hugger. Maybe being the most conservative person on Dissensus is a bit like being the world's tallest pygmy?

 

[nomadologist]

I happen to think the traditional family structure needed breaking down, in the service of making sure our biology no longer had to be our destiny.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I happen to think the traditional family structure needed breaking down, in the service of making sure our biology no longer had to be our destiny.

Well what do you suggest instead? Kids brought up communally, like in the great apes and some 'primitive' societies?

 

[nomadologist]

No, I would say it's important for people to be building relationships that are strong no matter who a person'a primary caretaker is--we should focus on individual psychological health and on building a strong "web" of support comprised of friends and and their relatives and whoever you know and trust. There have been tons of sociological studies of queer culture and the way many gay people have to build up "surrogate" families when their families reject them. Those surrogate families are actually amazingly functional and a wonderful model for straight people. They illustrate how biological ties aren't always more important than the ties we build with others...

And there's nothing "primitive" about matriarchal or tribal living--at least those people who are still living in tribes live ecologically "sustainable" lifestyles!!

 

[Mr. Tea]

And there's nothing "primitive" about matriarchal or tribal living--at least those people who are still living in tribes live ecologically "sustainable" lifestyles!!

Ahh, the myth of the noble savage living in perfect harmony with nature - best not to mention the extensive extinction and deforestation caused in some parts of the world long before 'civilisation' turned up.

The 'primitve' was meant as a convenient, conventional term, hence the ' '.

 

[nomadologist]

When did I say perfect harmony? There are tons of problems in African countries alone, sadly it's hard to think of where to begin with them--genocide, AIDS, etc.

I'm just saying that what you've called a "primitive" way of life could in fact win out in the face of, say, a cataclysmic event where our technologies are destroyed or rendered useless.

Many Carribean cultures don't have a "father" figure, where mothers get pregnant, have the children, and share the child rearing responsibilities with their other children and their mothers-- and these people turn into fine healthy adults, this culture is in fact a great model of that "village" raising a child notion, and I think would serve as a great prototype for us.

 

[nomadologist]

of course species have always been becoming extinct. that's called "evolution." the question is whether species have always been driven to extinction by the overbearing presence of humans and their lifestyles invading ecosystems...

 

[Mr. Tea]

Many Carribean cultures don't have a "father" figure, where mothers get pregnant, have the children, and share the child rearing responsibilities with their other children and their mothers-- and these people turn into fine healthy adults, this culture is in fact a great model of that "village" raising a child notion, and I think would serve as a great prototype for us.

I don't know about the rest of the Carribean, but I would NOT call Jamaica a country with 'fine, healthy' culture.
Your description of the child-rearing system sounds a lot like an excuse for men to get women up the duff and then bugger off, absolving themselves of all responsibility. Or is this only bad when white guys do it in developed countries?

 

[nomadologist]

Hm?? First, I said those people turn out to be "fine, healthy adults"--i didn't say anything about a "fine, healthy culture." Jamaica may have problems--it wasn't the culture I was talking about, i'd have to look up which island it was i read about--but I guarantee you that the problems are not caused by women who decide to or are forced to raise children without fathers.

I don't think single parenthood is wrong when anyone decides to do it, anywhere. Some women, believe it or not, would rather not even bother trying to get alimony from the father of their children. If a women wants it, and goes after it, more power to her.

I just don't think the traditional family structure is any sort of guarantee of emotional or psychological health for children, or any sort of guarantee that there will be fewer problems in general for the family in question. Psychological health is something anyone has a right to, and can have. It's not achievable by some sort of formula where you put x y and z in a household and you have perfect harmony.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Well of course there's no magic formula, and there are going to be people who turn out OK in the most adverse conditions and also people who have the best possible start in life but still fuck up - but in the UK, at any rate (and I am talking specifically about a densely populated, urbanised, post-industrialised society here) there's a noticeable correlation between single parenthood and poor school achievement, abuse of drugs and alcohol, teen pregnancy and so on. Certainly doesn't mean a kid brought up in that kind of environment is doomed from birth, just that they're statistically more vulnerable.

Alternative models like the ones you've mentioned might work brilliantly in very different societies, I'm not denying that.

 

[nomadologist]

The problem is, the root of the problem that you have with the children of single mothers in a society like the U.K. is that the single parents themselves have lost out at the hands of the "system" already. They are having children when they are not ready emotionally, financially, psychologically, and obviously in terms of their relationships, because they have already "lost", they have already fallen through the cracks. They are symptomatic of a problem, not the cause of one.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I agree with that. It's the sad old tale of what comes around, goes around, and people turning out just like their parents. There are now 'parenting classes' for first-time couples and young single mothers, and whether you think it's a drop-in-the-ocean measure or not, it's good that people are at least trying to do something about it.

 

[nomadologist]

Yeah, we need more of those programs here, too. That's the short term sort of solution. I really balk at the idea that single parenthood is the "cause" of problems because historically that viewpoint has been espoused only to blame women who are awful enough to have sex before they're married, which is of course a huge offense to the religious right, for all the world's problems. Unsurprisingly, these same people have little to say by way of condemnation about men who behave similarly.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I think I should clarify a few points here where you seem to be misunderstanding me as some kind of draconian lunatic who who thinks these damn kids should just sort themselves out, pull their socks up, count themselves lucky and so on and so on. I am very aware that these kids grow up highly underprivileged, and I'm aware of my own privilege, too. My main contention is that the root cause of this underprivilege is not, primarily, absolute poverty. After all, if that was the sole or main cause of juvenile crime and underachievement, surely all the countries less wealthy than the UK (i.e. nearly all of them) would have proportionally far worse problems with their childrens' behaviour? Yet this is not the case.

I think the main problem is twofold; firstly, as I've mentioned above, there is severe relative poverty, in the sense of the gulf between the lifestyle most working-class people can reasonably afford by legitimate means, and the aspirational lifestyle displayed in adverts, films, pop music and vidoes and so on. As I'm sure you'd agree, this is a product of an excessively consumerist culture, where personal worth is measured by personal wealth.

Secondly, there is a very severe social poverty, whereby children grow up with no real idea of who they are, where they've come from, who they should aspire to be like and who they should look to for values and social guidance. Your typical 'breakdown of the family' type stuff (and as far as the society I know about goes, I would certainly call the breakdown of the traditional nuclear mum-and-dad family a Very Bad Thing Indeed. Without bringing up any idea of blame, the statistics on single-parent families speak for themselves).

Put these things together and you have a recipe for a very disfunctional society. Anyone born into this sort of situation is very disadvantaged from the very outset, and that's what I've been trying to get at all along.