Law & Disorder

The rioting & looting of the last few nights in our cities has been shocking. It shows how superficial the veneer of civilised behaviour is & how close to the surface anarchy lurks. But why are we surprised? History, here & the world over, is littered with examples of this phenomenon. Yet again I wonder why we don't learn from the lessons which are so clear for us to see.

We are all capable of good & bad behaviour given the right circumstances. Hopefully we are not all capable of the sort of violent, selfish and abhorrent acts we have seen on TV lately. But the gang mentality seems to be very strong, in males particularly. We are animals with strong drives. If those drives are not tempered by an upbringing which values a moral code & ideas of responsibility, respect & caring we end up with people who can behave in the ways we have just seen on TV & many have directly experienced to their cost.

If humans are not reared in a secure, loving environment which meets their basic needs then they become disfunctional & repeat the disfunctional patterns of behaviour they have learned from their parents - the very people who should love & nurture them. The first 5 years of a child's life are the most important time in their development. The behaviours they develop are copied from the "adults" who rear them. If those adults don't have the understanding or the skills to parent properly we need to tackle that problem. There is a great deal of talk about the "underclass". But in my experience there are seriously disfunctional families at all levels of society. If we only focus on the poor & disadvantaged we will fail.

We are so fixated on our rights as adults, we have forgotten about our responsibilities to those who are vulnerable in our families & the wider community. Life seems to be all about self gratification & selfishness. So both ends of the spectrum are now not being cared for properly - the very young & the very old. What about their rights? If we cease to be caring individuals we cannot have a caring society. If we pass on responsibility to an organisation or the state our society will fail. We are all responsible for this crisis in some way. We all have a duty & a responsibility to do something about it. It isn't going to be solved by a charity or a group of politicians. We, the people, have to change ourselves & the way we live together for the better.

I wonder if we can? This is a warning. The price we will all pay if it isn't heeded will be very high indeed. Quite literally we might be living through the endgame of life as we know it. The outcome is up to us.

Read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond if you don't believe me.