Last year's English riots weren't down to government cuts but to a vast culture of self-pity and entitlement among the young.by Neil Davenport
A new Church of England
report into last August’s riots in England ‘sounds a clear warning note’ about
the ‘social consequences’ of austerity measures, senior cleric Reverend Peter
Price said on Sunday. After the LSE/Guardian Reading the Riots reports, the Children’s Society’s Behind the Riots, and the
government’s own independent panel report, the Church of England is the latest,
and probably not the last, institution to blame the riots on cutbacks in social
services. Written by the church’s mission and public affairs (MPA) council, the Testing the Bridges report is made up of interviews with
clergy around the country who witnessed the riots breaking out.
A mixture of poverty and
welfare cutbacks has, according to the church, had a negative impact on ‘already
vulnerable people’. This has contributed to a ‘feeling of hopelessness which
may sometimes emerge in destructive and anti-social actions’. The idea of the
looters and arsonists being seen as ‘vulnerable people’ may surprise those who
were attacked or had their livelihoods destroyed. But in recent years, being
‘vulnerable’ essentially means anyone who is not under the direct control of
state agencies. These individuals, who clearly can’t cope when left to their
own devices, must be nurtured, flattered and mollycoddled by nice, caring
professionals.
If the response to the riots reveals anything, it is how the concept of the welfare state has dramatically changed in recent years. And it is this redefinition of state agencies which has helped pave the way, not just for the riots last August, but for a generalised culture of menace and anti-social behaviour, too. The original concept of the welfare state was to act as a safety net if an individual lost his job or when a person retired. At the heart of this conception of welfare was the idea that people made contributions which they would be entitled to in times of hardship. But in recent decades, welfarism has lost much of that ‘take out what you put in’ ethos. Instead, it now provides resources regardless of what a person has contributed to society beforehand.
Even worse, welfarism has
actively promoted an incapacity culture, whereby the state has encouraged
people to believe they can’t cope without help from an army of professionals.
This is something that young people learn at an early age. The medicalisation
of young people, whereby routine teenage behaviour becomes recast as a form of
illness, makes youth aware of how potent the language of therapeutic victimhood
can be. School pupils can be remarkably adroit at putting
teachers on the backfoot by trotting out phrases like ‘you haven’t catered for
my individual needs’. Consequently, schools in England have steadily replaced
the attempt to instil in young people the value of personal responsibility with
a belief that they are disadvantaged and in need of constant support. Far from
‘esteem boosting’ values providing a motivation to do well in life, instead
they have informed a culture of self-pitying grievance and an inflated sense of
entitlement.
Even before the riots, it was
noticeable how a grievance or an assertive victim culture was increasingly
palpable among young people. In an article I wrote for spiked in February last year, I pointed out
that in ‘today’s therapeutic age, the cultural script is… an unappealing mix of
gross emotional incontinence and aggressive assertions of victimisation. Even
without oceans of booze inside them, I’ve seen young people kick off in public
– to bus inspectors checking tickets or shopkeepers, for example – using the
therapeutic language of assertive victimhood.’ Many a pop sociologist has
reckoned that there were ‘warning signs’ of the riots in young people’s ‘sense
of hopelessness’ and ‘anger’. In truth, it was a decade of the state promoting pity-based
entitlement, not unemployment or poverty, that inflamed the short-fused
tendencies of some young people today. This is why the riots should not be seen
as an unfortunate one off, but as the rising to the surface of a more
generalised culture of menace and aggressive entitlement.
At a Stone Roses gig last
weekend at Heaton Park in Manchester, for example, one of the tent bars was
raided and looted by crowds impatient with queuing for a drink. It was reported
that one chap simply served pint after pint and distributed the stolen drinks
to punters. On YouTube and internet chat forums, such antics were generally
applauded for ‘sticking it the man’. In reality, as one individual pointed out,
it meant that young bar staff were being threatened and intimidated by a
riotous mob. It provided a rather sorry snapshot of the complete absence of
class solidarity in British society today. Historically, a general affability
towards service-industry staff, especially in domains of working-class life
such as pubs, cafes and shops, was an important norm that was rarely
transgressed. To do so would be to denigrate ‘one of your own’. The one-man
riot at a T-mobile shop in Manchester last week, cheered on approvingly by a
large crowd, was another dramatic example of how service workers are seen to be
worthy targets of individual grievances and contempt.
The political defeat of the
working class in the 1980s had the effect of weakening class solidarity. But it
is the rise of state intervention into working-class life which has completely
destroyed that important source of social solidarity. spiked has constantly attacked the
‘anti-chav’ prejudices of the political class because these have become ways to
legitimise the state colonisation of all aspects of working-class life. As
Brendan O’Neill said in a speech last year: ‘Today, people’s mental and
moral powers are being decommissioned, weakened, undermined, put out to pasture
by the relentless intervention of the welfare, nanny and psychological states
into their lives, constantly telling them how to parent, how to eat, even how
to think about themselves and their futures.’ For many people today,
identifying with the ‘all helpful’ state has replaced identifying with each
other or a local community as a source of moral support. The wider community,
in turn, and individuals in that community, can end up being a focal point for
all sorts of real and imaginary grievances.
Testing the Bridges also makes the point that the lack of
youth centres should share in the blame for the riots. Come off it. Such places
are hardly likely to be magnets for any self-respecting youngster. It would be
far better if a vibrant pub culture thrived that enabled teenagers to socialise
with, and be expected to behave like, grown adults. But here again, under the
auspices of combating chav-style binge drinking and smoking, the state’s war on
public drinking has effectively destroyed these once important areas of
communal solidarity. Pubs were once a vital way in which expectations of mature
adult behaviour were informally transmitted to the next generation. As places
where the emphasis was also on conversation and quick wit, they forced young
people out of their solipsistic state and into a relationship with others. The
social development of young people has been seriously stunted through the
state’s relentless attacks and interventions on pubs (see An initiation to the culture of
unfreedom by Neil Davenport).
Testing the Bridges continues with the wrongheaded idea that
further state intervention in ‘poorer communities’ is needed to prevent a
repeat of the riots. That is clearly the last thing such communities need. The
moral- and soul-destroying consequences of such hectoring intervention has not
only corroded old forms of solidarity, it has also fostered the rise of a
culture of victimhood and menace. You don’t only have to look at the riots to
see the grim evidence of that.
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