Is Ireland getting this bad?

TomF

Two days ago, I was walking along behind a shopping centre and both sides of the path were thick with packaging litter. I suppose most of it was from school children discarding food wrappers but plenty was from older litterers. My older son just sent me this article which makes me wonder if we are heading this direction or are already there. Even insurance applications nowadays ask for the name of your "partner" instead of "spouse" although yesterday I saw an application that had "common law spouse" instead of "partner" and felt a warm glow of satisfaction.

The site that has this opinion piece requires registration, but I'd say the article is worth the trouble.

"When self-expression is king, of course people behave badly"

"I mentioned that it was once regarded in this country as rather degraded to eat on the street: that people were expected, and expected others, to control themselves until they reached a more suitable place to eat.

My students regarded this refusal to eat on the street as a weird inhibition, an utterly alien and quite unnecessary custom, bizarre and even offensive to human rights. If one is hungry, why not eat there and then, when one feels so inclined? I'm hungry, therefore I eat; I want, therefore I have; I'm inclined, therefore I do: this is the modern Cartesianism.

Of course, if you examine the litter on our streets, you will find that the great majority of it derives from people eating on the streets - indeed, people often seem unable to progress more than a few yards without such refreshment. Our streets are filthy - the worst in Europe, if not most of the world - because people eat on them.

If you consider this matter - which at first sight seems trivial - more deeply, you will soon discover that a large proportion of young Britons never eat in the company of others, except possibly in feral packs. Many of my patients, for example, have never, in their entire lives, eaten round a table at home with other members of the family, but have eaten only when and where they felt like it, on their own, almost furtively.

In other words, they have never learnt to curb their appetite for the sake of the convenience or conviviality of others. Such radically asocial people easily behave in an anti-social way because they see nothing wrong with it. The truth is that others have ceased truly to exist for them.

Why has this happened? The reason, of course, is to be found in that other great manifestation of radical and unbridled self-expression, the destruction of the family. People come together, have children, and fly apart, not according to any understanding of what is good for their children (let alone good for society), but according to what they want for themselves at any given moment."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/10/15/do1501.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/10/15/ixportal.html

bonkey

This may be more suitable for somewhere like politics, depending on where you see the discussion heading, TomF.

jc

Sparks

Ah yes, the old "nuclear family". I remember them days - you got married and you stayed married. And the odd few times that the husband turned out to be a drunk and beat his wife to the point of broken bones and miscarriages, well, that was the price we paid for an orderly society, wasn't it? And then there was the church, the backbone of our society. Generally because the backbone was what they saw most of with the altar boys, but hey - that's the price we paid for an orderly society, wasn't it?
And the troubles with those darn B specials up north, well - that's the price we paid for an orderly society, wasn't it? And the industrial schools and the magdeline laundries and the brown paper envelopes for the politicians, and the arms trials and the poor food and the poverty - hey, all part of the price.

So tell me again, what's wrong with having healthy, unabused children who feel that their rights cannot be subverted by other people? What's wrong with a state that recognises that the relationships between people are more complicated that the church laid down? And what in either of those ideas requires a parent not to teach their child to not litter?

ronano

*mutter NAZI mutter* i thought we were beyond this type of childish bs but hey!

Zombrex

I'm confused .. are we talking about litter or about children not respecting eating habits or about the colapse of the traditional idea of family or what??

Or are you saying that not respecting marriage leads to litter (or litter causes marriage break downs)?

Sparks

Originally posted by Wicknight
(or litter causes marriage break downs)?

Well, if the litter is some other woman's underwear...

bonkey

Originally posted by Sparks
hey, all part of the price.

For a man who spends most of his time on this forum complaining bitterly about what is wrong today, I find it funny that you try and associate the problems you list with being somehow connected with "an orderly society". Do you think things are getting better?

Problems of that nature and type are endemic in society today, just as they always have been. Or are you suggesting that abusive husbands were only driven to violence by marriage, and had they been left single they would have remained nice peaceful chaps or something like that?

As to the comment about priests...humorous though it was, I hardly see a connection with priests and the family unit which is what the argument was focussed on.

Nothing in that article is denying kids rights, or suggesting that they should be denied. It simply points out that there is quite possibly a direct connection between the collapse of the family unit, through to the "eat on the go" mentality which is becoming more and more prevalent, and on to the streets of the author's home town being filthy with litter as a result.

Now, personally, I think he's wrong in some respects, but I have to agree entirely that littering of that nature is an extremely anti-social act. I'm almost shocked that you seem to be defending it. Surely if there was less litter around, you'd be charged less for the collection of it. Both times (Sorry, couldn't resist).

I still can't see it as a political issue, though.

jc

shotamoose

I'd speculate that what Sparks might have been getting at was that family units have always had a strong tendency to collapse, it's just that in the past families were forced to stay together by tradition, patriarchal society, immobile social structures, etc. So the box stayed solid whatever was happening to the contents. This in itself produced all sorts of problems, problems which have arguably been alleviated now that people are freer to detach themselves from destructive or collapsing families. Now that, er, the box has become more liquid, or something (hold on, I can rescue this ...).

So maybe it's a trade-off. Do you prefer a society where people do not feel so stuck in loveless marriages and lifeless lives but where there's more litter on the streets, or do you prefer a society where people stick together come what may and no matter how miserable they are because the integrity of the family unit is oh so important but where the streets are that bit tidier?

It's a gross over-simplification of course, but that seems to be the name of the game with this thread.

Zombrex

i think it is streching a bit to blame littering on broken families ... if that was the case then surely kids from happy stable homes (such as myself) would not litter, when in fact all my friends growing up (most from stable families) littered all the time.

Littering is a result of everything being packaged in plastic, the advent of junk food and sweets and kids being irresponsible kids ... i could go on and on about the root causes of littering, but I don't think i would get round to divorse as being a cause

People from broken homes litter ... people from stable homes litter .. i don't see the connection

Sparks

Originally posted by bonkey
For a man who spends most of his time on this forum complaining bitterly about what is wrong today, I find it funny that you try and associate the problems you list with being somehow connected with "an orderly society". Do you think things are getting better?

Erm, bonkey I don't know if you saw it, but I had my sarcasm light on for that post.
And yes, things are getting better. It's just that there was so much wrong in the past, that we can get better for thirty years and still be living in a country you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy...

Or are you suggesting that abusive husbands were only driven to violence by marriage, and had they been left single they would have remained nice peaceful chaps or something like that?

Actually, I'm suggesting that had one of my aunts been able to get a divorce instead of being councilled by the priest to go back home and "give the poor fella another chance", she wouldn't have been beaten so much and neither would her kids. But hey, you go ahead and think I'm being a bleeding heart liberal why don't you?

As to the comment about priests...humorous though it was, I hardly see a connection with priests and the family unit which is what the argument was focussed on.

Well, the article was a standard telegraph article - highly reactionary and looking back through rose-tinted lenses to a halcyon era that never existed, when families were functional and the church was a pillar of the community. Ignoring completely the reality of the situation.

Nothing in that article is denying kids rights, or suggesting that they should be denied. It simply points out that there is quite possibly a direct connection between the collapse of the family unit, through to the "eat on the go" mentality which is becoming more and more prevalent, and on to the streets of the author's home town being filthy with litter as a result.

Yes, but in the days of yore that the author is recounting, kids didn't have rights. They did what they were told, or else. And or else was quite often the sort of thing you'd get arrested for doing today.

Now, personally, I think he's wrong in some respects, but I have to agree entirely that littering of that nature is an extremely anti-social act. I'm almost shocked that you seem to be defending it.

I'm not - didn't you read the last line?
I just don't see why you need a family unit to tell a kid not to litter. The "eat on the go" attitude (which is about 60,000 years old or so), and littering aren't linked, and you don't need a family unit to seperate them. It's just all reactionary nonsense and to be honest, I don't believe we're actually debating over a Telegraph article! Next we'll be debating over the validity of a Kevin Myers "Irishman's Diary" column!!!!