Drunk, violent, promiscuous...

[TheBloom]

There are certain people in this world that hold themselves higher than everyone else. This makes it very difficult for them to understand when someone disagrees with them. They can't understand why someone would dislike a person as fantastic as them.

[questionmark]

After having seen this back and forth for two days, where it seems that the discussion seems to get more and more towards a subgroup blame game we should get back to the original theme:

How accurate is this report?...or did they just go Saturday night to council housing and wrote what they saw?

[GreyWeather]

After having seen this back and forth for two days, where it seems that the discussion seems to get more and more towards a subgroup blame game we should get back to the original theme:

How accurate is this report?...or did they just go Saturday night to council housing and wrote what they saw?

I'd say pretty accurate. To a degree.

Chav (hoodies townies ect) girls are pregnant at 13-14. The guys are huddled in groups of 10 and acting strong, and the chavs who walk alone will either start a fight with you if you look at them (Something I got myself into) or nod at you and hope you don't do anything while they walk on by.

[GreyWeather]

Right, so the below sentence from your earlier poem is perfectly acceptable though.

Aztec, slappers is an English term meaning promiscuous to a degree they'll do anything anywhere.

It isn't anti-female, being as women are not all slappers. The poem is also reffering to what the article is reffering to, albeit at a different angle.

Unless of course, women sleeping with anything that moves - and anywhere anyplace - is what you call a lady... The term holds its own.

Edit: The emoticon didn't work.

Edited March 30, 2008 by Chokmah

[Talon]

While it is wrong to claim all UK teens are like this, and all UK parents are bad parents, the article is justifed in many of its claims. UK society is crumbling apart, and our leaders are just smiling and waving and saying 'what a great sub-culture neds and chavs have' and being against it is 'intolerant' (our leaders' favour word at the moment). The reason for this is because our government doesn't like their violent culture, but it just wants to burry its head in the sand and refuse to deal with it because they haven't got the balls to take action.

Edited March 30, 2008 by Talon

[TheBloom]

While it is wrong to claim all UK teens are like this, and all UK parents are bad parents, the article is justifed in many of its claims. UK society is crumbling apart, and our leaders are just smiling and waving and saying 'what a great sub-culture neds and chavs have' and being against it is 'intolerant' (our leaders' favour word at the moment). The reason for this is because our government doesn't like their violent culture, but it just wants to burry its head in the sand and refuse to deal with it because they haven't got the balls to take action.

I agree with EVERYTHING you have said here.

[AztecInca]

Aztec, slappers is an English term meaning promiscuous to a degree they'll do anything anywhere.

It isn't anti-female, being as women are not all slappers. The poem is also reffering to what the article is reffering to, albeit at a different angle.

Unless of course, women sleeping with anything that moves - and anywhere anyplace - is what you call a lady... The term holds its own.

I am well aware of the meaning of this term as it is used down here in Australia. It however is a foul and disgusting term that is degrading to women, and as such no civilised person such use it, even if only in an attempt at humour. Also to claim it is anti-female is incorrect and niave considering the level to which it degrade's women. The use of such a term highlights's an obvious lack of respect for women and potentially anti-female views.

Anyway back on-topic. Just last year, the week before Christmas I was shopping with my girlfriend in a crowded electronic's store, when verbally attacked by two teenage males, who wanted to fight me outside. They resorted to insulting my girlfriend using the term "slappers' among other's in an attempt to provoke me into a physical altercation. Now I`m only 20 so I was used to such scumbag's from high-school and was able to walk away with my girlfriend, while security ejected them from the store and called the police who arrived promptly and scared off the cowards. Had this happened outside, with no one around I`m pretty sure that both myself and my girlfriend would have been physically assualted for simply being there. The rise in youth and gang violence is not just a UK problem, but most definately an issue for many wealthy, developed nations. It simply isn`t safe to go out at night in the city down here in Melbourne and it's simply unacceptable in the twenty first century.

Edited March 31, 2008 by AztecInca

[Syd Boggle]

I am well aware of the meaning of this term as it is used down here in Australia. It however is a foul and disgusting term that is degrading to women, and as such no civilised person such use it, even if only in an attempt at humour. Also to claim it is anti-female is incorrect and niave considering the level to which it degrade's women. The use of such a term highlights's an obvious lack of respect for women and potentially anti-female views.

Anyway back on-topic. Just last year, the week before Christmas I was shopping with my girlfriend in a crowded electronic's store, when verbally attacked by two teenage males, who wanted to fight me outside. They resorted to insulting my girlfriend using the term "slappers' among other's in an attempt to provoke me into a physical altercation. Now I`m only 20 so I was used to such scumbag's from high-school and was able to walk away with my girlfriend, while security ejected them from the store and called the police who arrived promptly and scared off the cowards. Had this happened outside, with no one around I`m pretty sure that both myself and my girlfriend would have been physically assualted for simply being there. The rise in youth and gang violence is not just a UK problem, but most definately an issue for many wealthy, developed nations. It simply isn`t safe to go out at night in the city down here in Melbourne and it's simply unacceptable in the twenty first century.

I believe the use of the word slapper is acceptable in the context of art, as it was used in my poem, besides, what else rhymes with Rapper?

With regards to your predicament at Christmas, well i had a similar experience, while out shopping in the supermarket with Mrs Boggle, we were approached by 3 youths wearing hoodies, they made some offhanded comment to Mrs Boggle, in a cockney/Jamaican hybrid accent, which i couldn't understand

Ofcourse i confronted them, and demanded an apology, of course they sneered at me, so in a controlled rage, i grabbed a leg of lamb from the butchers counter, and proceeded to beat these ferrell youths with my makeshift batten, i was finally restrained by three security guards, as i was about to feed the gang leaders head into the Butchers Bacon slicing machine!

The police were called, and i am now facing my day in court, The supermarket have no right to make me pay for that leg of lamb..

Needless to say these kids learned their lesson.......

Edited March 31, 2008 by Syd Boggle

[IronGhost]

I believe the use of the word slapper is acceptable in the context of art, as it was used in my poem, besides, what else rhymes with Rapper?

Life can be a crapper

[Bella-Angelique]

Further more, it is my own experience working within my local community (as a volunteer counselor), that i found a very large proportion of immigrants, who held views which were very racist, and dangerously anti women!

So it is for most of the world.

Toleration of the intolerant simply because they are of a different culture is the probably the stupidest policy ever created and implemented in the last two hundred years.

[GreyWeather]

Anyway back on-topic. Just last year, the week before Christmas I was shopping with my girlfriend in a crowded electronic's store, when verbally attacked by two teenage males, who wanted to fight me outside. They resorted to insulting my girlfriend using the term "slappers' among other's in an attempt to provoke me into a physical altercation. Now I`m only 20 so I was used to such scumbag's from high-school and was able to walk away with my girlfriend, while security ejected them from the store and called the police who arrived promptly and scared off the cowards. Had this happened outside, with no one around I`m pretty sure that both myself and my girlfriend would have been physically assualted for simply being there. The rise in youth and gang violence is not just a UK problem, but most definately an issue for many wealthy, developed nations. It simply isn`t safe to go out at night in the city down here in Melbourne and it's simply unacceptable in the twenty first century.

Creepy. I had almost the same experience in my city centre. Except, it was outside an eletronic store, and they hit me with a headphone which I pulled off them - making it snap. Then they wanted to fight me... To which I just slunk away.

But I agree with the bold .

[Michelle]

To be honest, not having read the article, that is the impression I had gotten from the people here on UM so I would assume the article was fairly accurate.

[louie]

we cam use all the pc terms we want for these kids, disillusioned, under educated, forgotten by thier government, but lets call a spade a spade, most of british youths are cheap scum an they seem to like the term, they seem happy to live it.

[Purplos]

(From WAY back there...)

I agree with IronGhost that a lot of behavioral issues come from food and from disconnectedness. And I do not think there once was a mythic race of super-parents who had perfect children. But... when it comes down to it, who provides food for their children and teaches them how to eat right? Who is responsible for their connection to fellow man and the world itself. Parents, says I.

And.... I just have to add that I HATE the argument that kids are messed up just because parents can't hit them anymore. If that is the only form of childhood guidance you can think of, you should not have children. :|

[questionmark]

(From WAY back there...)

I agree with IronGhost that a lot of behavioral issues come from food and from disconnectedness. And I do not think there once was a mythic race of super-parents who had perfect children. But... when it comes down to it, who provides food for their children and teaches them how to eat right? Who is responsible for their connection to fellow man and the world itself. Parents, says I.

And.... I just have to add that I HATE the argument that kids are messed up just because parents can't hit them anymore. If that is the only form of childhood guidance you can think of, you should not have children. :|

The point we are always forgetting in this context is that it was not alone the duty of parents, but the whole community was involved.

Now the whole community would rather that those kids go to bother someone else.

[IronGhost]

(From WAY back there...)

I agree with IronGhost that a lot of behavioral issues come from food and from disconnectedness. And I do not think there once was a mythic race of super-parents who had perfect children. But... when it comes down to it, who provides food for their children and teaches them how to eat right? Who is responsible for their connection to fellow man and the world itself. Parents, says I.

And.... I just have to add that I HATE the argument that kids are messed up just because parents can't hit them anymore. If that is the only form of childhood guidance you can think of, you should not have children. :|

Right, Purplos, butlet's look at this more deeply.

Let's say the parents are reposnisble for ensuring their children get excellent nutrition so that they get what they need to be physically and emotionally healthy. It's true that we can say, in a way, that millions of parents are dropping the ball on this -- but in another way, they have been caught up in a larger system not of their own making.

The fact is: The best way to make money in the food business is to highly process the food. If you sell a simple bag of raw carrots, you can't make people pay for pre-cooking them, for cutting them up, for freezing them, for adding preservatives -- so the food industry makes money by doing all these things for people -- and then sells them on the idea that this in convenient, and a good thing.

Why do people opt for these prepackaged, pre-prepared food products -- because they live in a post-industrial revolution world and economic system that urges both mother and father to spend long hours per day at their jobs, and not staying home to, God forbid, grow their own organic foods in their own gardens, much less select basic raw food at the supermarket, and prepare them at home in the least invasive way.

Everyd ay we are bombarded with the idea that we should buy highly processes, salt and preservative laden foods that are quick and easy to make -- sacrficing nurtition -- and then they turn around and tell us: "If you spend less time in the kitchen, you'll have more quality time to spend with your kids."

But the quality time we used to spend with our kids was not driving them to soccer practice or sending them to dance recitals -- it was having the kids help out in the kitchen, have the whole family sit down together at the table, and eat "real" food while the family enjoyed each other with discussions of all kinds of topics while they ate the real food they had all helped grow, prepare, cook and clean up after.

It's amazing how many people here (not necessarily you, Purplose) who only discuss this entire issue on a surface level.

Take corporal punishment. In my earlier post, I argued that a large part of the problem has been the replacement of our real, material reality with the symbolic reality of Tv, computes, music, mass media etc.

Well, this happens on many levels -- including punishment. Notice how corporal punishment has been replaced with "symbolic" punishment. Now, instead of a real physical feeling of pain applied to a child, we apply a kind of symbol for that pain -- a time out, no video games for a week, ect.

I am not in favor of hitting or spanking kids -- but it is telling to note how every aspect of our lives have been. piece-by-piece, replaced by "real" things with symbolic "things" even punishment.

Another thing I am amazed no one has mentioned is a real biggie:

The disintegration of traditional religion. Just 50 years ago, most of the ancient religious institutions were still largely intact, providing a kind of solid moral framework which most people were embedded in, and which had a certain effect in controling behavior.

Don't get me wrong -- I think it is a good thing that false moral institutions like religion are finally giving way to rational thought based on a more realistic search for the truth in nature using science --

--- however, it would be crazy to expect that their could be no consequences for this massive transition away from a system that has been used to modify social behavior for centuries, while it is being replaced with something else.

Eventually, it wil be a good thing when the old, ancient religions are thrown on the trash heap of history -- but we have to expect a period of alienation and drift while the total consciousness of humanity reshapes it's fundamental view of what it means to be a human being on the planet earth.

So to sum up:

The problems of the youth have to do with:

1. The replacements of real food with symbolic, false, proccessed foods (artifically flavored) that do not prmote the healthy functioning of the human brain.

2. The radical symbolization of all reality. Most kids are immersed daily psychologically in a world that is not real -- TV shows, movies, hour upon hours inside the cyberworld of video game or the internet, etc.

3. The historic breakdown of ancient institutions -- religion -- that once proscribed proper behaviors. Religion has been replaced by rational science. Again, that's a good thing, but we have to expect the pain of a rebirth as we exchage one system for another.

A final note:

It's interesting to note that the answer with food is to return to the old ways of eating "real" food.

However, the answer in terms of corporal punishment is NOT to return to the old ways -- that's because inflicting corporal punishment has lost it's value for a very obvious reason:

The reason coporal punishment has lost its value is that all punishment is designed to bring the offender back into the norms of society once they have strayed from those norms. Today, corporal punishment cannot bring children back to the norms they have strayed from, for the simple reasons that:

A. They dread the norms and don't want them, and

B. Fewer and fewer people have clarity about what the norms are anymore. They are adrift in a symbolic world which has no true anchor -- it's only symbols attached to other symbols which can shift and mutate according to the latest fads, trends, thoughts, etc.

Imagine this: You slap your kid around and tell them that this is so they will clean up their act, go to school, study -- and their reward for this will be to eventually get a job working as, say an accountant, working for some corporation, spending all of your days in a corporate cubical, laboring away at symbolic work that is difficult to attach any real meaning to.

The answer with religion is the same. The solution is not to return to the old religions to re-establish order in society. The solution is redefine what it means to live in a post-religious world dominated by science.

Edited March 31, 2008 by IronGhost

[Purplos]

I agree with you Ironghost, for the most part.

I suppose I think it is a parent's duty to recognize the danger of the state of modern life, for want of a better description, and steer away from it. (shrug) A parent must raise their children well - DESPITE the norm of processed food, two-income families, "symbolization" of everything, etc.

[Clocker]

Read the article too, but I see I'm very late from all the conversation here. I don't live in the UK or never have, but to say that the kind of phenomenon described in the article is happening in all post-industrialized nations is just wrong, as I really don't see it happening here, or in Sweden either. Can't say I felt like that in San Diego. I think the article was a good read, and if at all accurate (deciding from peoples' stories here on UM, it's probably somewhat accurate), things aren't all that great for the youth in the UK...nor to anyone else living in big cities, it seems.

I'm not for more corporal punishment, not at all, but I'm for more parent involvement. Lack thereof seems to be part of the problem as many have stated. It seems, based on the article, that in the UK kids and the youth in general are regarded in a different way than, say, in Finland. Can't comment much on that though since I don't live in the UK. At the end of the article there was talk of several initiatives to activate the youth in a different way and money put into child/youth well-being, which I think could work if pulled off well. It has worked in Finland in the past, and in the very near past with immigrant youth. After a few initiatives immigrant youth crime plunged so much that it's barely noticeable these days, while it was considered a (somewhat minor) problem a few years ago.

[questionmark]

I'm not for more corporal punishment, not at all, but I'm for more parent involvement.

Which is what it boils down to. In other times, when the parents had to work, grandparents gladly took it upon themselves to supervise the children. Now the grandparents are sitting miles away in the sun.

[Siara]

Drunk, violent, promiscuous... a U.S. view of British youth as seen on the cover of Time Magazine

British youth are violent, drunken and out of control, a leading American magazine concludes today.

The front cover of renowned publication Time Magazine depicts a young man in a "hoodie" with mugshots of others across a Union Jack.

WTF? Maybe the writer's girlfriend dumped him for a British guy? Maybe one of his kids got busted for being drunk and disorderly after a vacation to England? I don't think of any one country as having a monopoly on violent, drunken teenagers.

This story sounds so off the wall I might actually buy a Time magazine.

[Clocker]

WTF? Maybe the writer's girlfriend dumped him for a British guy? Maybe one of his kids got busted for being drunk and disorderly after a vacation to England? I don't think of any one country as having a monopoly on violent, drunken teenagers.

This story sounds so off the wall I might actually buy a Time magazine.

After reading it I wouldn't say it's totally off the wall...there's some statistics to back that claim up.

[Bill Hill]

I believe the use of the word slapper is acceptable in the context of art, as it was used in my poem, besides, what else rhymes with Rapper?

Kappa!

Look at our fine ladies, wearing Kappa!...

just check wiki... oh...

In the United Kingdom, Kappa-brand clothing, and their distinctive white trainer, are associated with the chav subculture, so called Kappa Slappers.

kappa

[IronGhost]

Kappa!

Look at our fine ladies, wearing Kappa!...

just check wiki... oh...

In the United Kingdom, Kappa-brand clothing, and their distinctive white trainer, are associated with the chav subculture, so called Kappa Slappers.

kappa

How come you Brits never pronounce your "Rs"?

You say Rappa -- I say rapp-ER

You say To-MAW-to ... I say to -MAY - to.

[Enigmatic Ghost]

This is going to be a bit of a very harsh sounding comment to this thread so the squeamish best close their eyes...

Sorry if I do offend any one here as that is not my intention here...

A Lot of Countries are in great social, and moral decline and falling fast, In the US it is Heavy Meth uses, while in Briton and Ireland the youths are chronic drunks and Lushes, hitting the bottles by breakfast time, and in Australia it is a Drink and Pot smoking youth culture, and I am not even speaking of the Sexual activities…

Let’s face it the recreational Drinking and drug users are now at pandemic proportions and there is no such thing as recreation use of, and the Parents will not stop it or control it because the parents of a lot of these youths are in their own drunken Lushed out drugged out stoopers and most are partying right in with their kids…

It brings to mind a seine in the Sci Fi cult flick, HARDWERE where there is a cameo appearance by Lemmy from The Hard Rock Group MOTERHEAD were as the movie is in the post Apocalyptic area or future Lemmy is a water Taxi driver in a river of sewage and polluted water and he turns to Moses Baxter played my Dylan McDermott and he says in disgust I don’t know what the world is coming to, back in the old days it used to be just brass knuckles and Bats, and now their using guns, killing each other….

My Point is this, yah the Magazine pinned down the British Youth as thugs and drunkards, but personally I see it all the whole world is drowning in their self made **** of Filth and mire of corruptions and heartless carelessness, a greed…I know the big public awareness alert is the depletion of the Rain forests and the Ozone zone, slaughtering of Whales and Clubbing Baby Seals in the head, in the name of food and cultural ritual right and all…but honestly speaking, I see the Human race upon a hole going down the Loo (toilet) and in a fast trip with a very bad ending, and unless we wake up as a global tribal community and pull together upon a global scale effort and do away with whatever drugs and Alcohol, and weapons we can, and I am speaking on a everyone in on it effort, this would community is going to be going to **** and ending, I mean come on now as people put up a hell of a worse stink, about Chinese made leaded toys and tainted Pet foods, yet their kids are stumbling around the neighborhoods and street dressed like hookers and thugs and half out of their zoned out minds on drink and drugs and having no regard for anyone outside of their little groups of Goth, Gang bangers, preps or whatever of the click or club or gang…

I keep singing this tune friends, and it is why I am Idealist and pacifistic in nature, a dreamer, because I give this globe twenty years or so, maybe less and this planet will be making Hell look like Palm Springs, California…

Where are your kids this very minute? And what was the topic of moral discussion at tonight’s family dinner table…Pavot

Oops Hay it is not always popular being truthful of as crazy, but I tell it like I see it, straight up and clean, no sugar and no white washing…

And as a global tribal community we better get use to the flavor of **** because that is all there is going to be available if we do not all start and I mean start now fixing this world…come on all you UK Historians here didn’t the Scottish after killing and losing so many Men a mass amount of Men in great Battles all come together as a whole and burry all the Claymore Swords of Destruction, oathing to never use them again? …well…well are your Kids and Grand Babies not even worth the efforts…Mine are…Oops I forgot to sign off with Agape Love…Pavot

Edited April 6, 2008 by Pavot

[InHuman]

A Lot of Countries are in great social decline and falling fast, In the US it is Heavy Meth uses, while in Briton and Ireland the youths are chronic drunks a Lushes, hitting the bottles by breakfast time, and in Australia it is a Drink and Pot smoking youth culture, and I am not even speaking of the Sexual activities…

My Point is this, yah the Magazine pinned down the British Youth as thugs and drunkards, but personally I see it all the whole world is drowning in their self made **** of Filth and mire of corruptions and heartless carelessness, a greed…I know the big public awareness alert is the depletion of the Rain forests and the Ozone zone, slaughtering of Whales and Clubbing Baby Seals in the head, in the name of food and cultural ritual right and all…but honestly speaking, I see the Human race upon a hole going down the toilet and fast trip with a very bad ending, and unless we wake up as a global tribal community and pull together upon a global scale effort and do away with whatever drugs and Alcohol, and weapons we can, and I am speaking on a everyone in on it effort, this would community is going to be going to **** and ending, I mean come on now as people put up a hell of a worse stink, about Chinese made leaded toys and tainted Pet foods, yet their kids are stumbling around the neighborhoods and street dressed like hookers and thugs and half out of their zoned out minds on drink and drugs and having no regard for anyone outside of their little groups of Goth, Gang bangers, preps or whatever of the click or club or gang…

Oops Hay it is not always popular being truthful of as crazy, but I tell it like I see it, straight up and clean, no sugar and no white washing…

And as a global tribal community we better get use to the flavor of **** because that is all there is going to be available if we do not all start and I mean start now fixing this world…come on all you UKI Historians here didn’t the Scottish after killing and losing so many Men a mass amount of Men in a great Battles come together as a whole and burry all the Claymore Words of Destruction oathing to never use them again? …well…well are your Kids and Grand Babies not even worth the efforts…Mine are…Oops I forgot to sing of with Agape Love…Pavot

I disagree with pretty much everything you say.

The world has always been close to sh**.

Remeber the uprawr when rock music came about, or those darn machines stealing human jobs, or whatever nonsense the older generation had to complain about.

Sure there's a problem, but don't blame booze and weed, if anything weed should be legalized (for those of an appropriate age of course)...

Its the world created by adults that is ******g over this generation, its YOUR world... youth are just having a hard time adapting when we know that every desicion you make is bring us closer to our doom, either through a broken enviroment, nuclear war, or pointless political unrest that is tearing nations apart...

I guess some people might not like the TRUTH tho... cya.