In a slight anatomical shift, opinions on last month’s riots and looting seem more like coccyx vertebrae – everybody has several. Rather than add any more, this is an attempt to impose some order on the existing collection.
While much of the world was enjoying the schadenfreude, it’s interesting to note that many British commentators exhibited if not pleasure then a sense of vindication. There was a collective holler of “I told you so!” For some, the disturbances were the obvious and inevitable consequence of liberal politics, cultural relativism and the perceived excesses of the welfare state. For others it was equally obvious that they were due to the bankruptcy of capitalism, and the bankrupt morality that accompanies it. As we shall see, finding firm evidence to support either of these strands of argument is intrinsically difficult. But if we accept that the disturbances were born of other causes rather than spontaneous then we have no choice but to try.
Most analysis of the disturbances contains the following three elements: First, almost everyone agrees that they were a very bad thing. Second, everyone has some idea of who or what is to blame. Third, there is the necessary implication that there was a time when our society was healthier, a golden age when such things didn’t occur.
Obviously the third component is very much a product of the second. It can also serve as something of a test. If you to want attribute the disintegration of civil society to Snoop Dogg or Sir Fred Goodwin or the end of National Service, a good measure of your theory would be the state of things before your candidate had any influence. If things turn out to have been every bit as bad then your theory would have been dealt a severe blow.
Proof positive is far more slippery. Even if there was a palpable nose-dive just as your candidate came on the scene it wouldn’t necessarily mean it was their fault, it could just be coincidence. Or it could be that your candidate had some slight contributory effect or colouration of events, rather than any effect worthy of the term ‘cause’. Or it could be that your ‘cause’ and its ‘consequence’ were both in fact born of an independent third or more factor, and in fact had very little influence on each other.
Or you could have things completely horse-before-cart. It could be that your ‘cause’ was in fact a direct consequence of thing you labelled as its effect – you just muddled them because they were happening at the same time. Alternatively, each factor could be the mutual cause of the other - are sneezes the cause of colds or colds the cause of sneezes? Clearly both.
Add to this the fact that many of the rival candidates were working their alleged evil at the same time – so which one caused it? Add to that, these events were only superficially unique. Riots and looting are nothing new, even on these shores. If you want to blame this particular riot on a particular change you will need to identify what was special about this riot, and how that unique feature links to your suggested cause.
So, with all that in mind here’s a far from exhaustive list of suggested culprits to hold up to history: Loss of respect for authority; the global financial crash; thieving bankers; endemic evil; MP’s expenses; gangsta rap; monetarism; 24 hour multichannel television; the internet; video games; the nanny state; the phone hacking scandal; social networking; the media’s idolisation of brutes, thieves and fools; police corruption; poverty of pocket; poverty of mind; the export of meaningful forms of employment; sexual permissiveness; the decline of the traditional family; youth unemployment; the demise of religious belief; criminality pure and simple; consumerism pure and simple.
Some we can immediately cross out as they are not explanatory theories at all, more like yelps. The PM’s early choice ‘criminality pure and simple’ explains nothing on its own. Without some attempt to explain why this unscented form of criminality happened to arise this particular weekend he might as well be blaming himself – after all it happened on his watch. For similar reasons we can strike off ‘loss of respect for authority’ and ‘endemic evil’. Until you add a ‘why’ and a ‘why now’ these are just descriptions rather than testable theories. Note the same does not apply to ‘consumerism pure and simple’ – we can actually put a rough date on that, and then look how things were beforehand.
As for the others, I’m inclined to split them into four types of criticism, with a good bit of repetition and overlapping.
Bad role models
(thieving bankers; MP’s expenses; the phone hacking scandal; police corruption; gangsta rap; 24 hour multichannel television; the internet; the media’s idolisation of brutes, thieves and fools; video games)
When it comes to picking role models, Children’s BBC certainly takes the biscuit. In the aftermath of the disturbances Newsround staff ran all the infamous videos and damned those involved. To back-up their critique, celebrity condemnations of the events were then read out. First up, as one might expect, Wayne Rooney. The lesson here, presumably, is that if you need a moral judgement on the behaviour of materialistic thugs who organise their activities via Twitter the best thing to do is ask one.
In all seriousness, presumably this was an attempt to get potentially errant children onside by quoting one of their ‘idols’. Even so, it does not speak well about the current quality of youth leadership models.
As tempting as it might be, it would be unfair to blame the disturbances on any particular public figure. The public profile of one Katie Price or Andy Coulson or Bernard Madoff does not on its own maketh a riot. Such influences are more likely incremental and additive. One could argue that the current saturation coverage and lionising of the most self-obsessed, violent, ignorant, materialistic people has some cumulative effect, if only because it squeezes out examples of anything better. If a child rarely encounters any other kind of role model it is valid to speculate about how it might affect their own outlook and behaviour.
More subtly, one might speculate how the relentless parade of pop stars and footballers and wannabe celebrities might chip away at the egos of young viewers. A media full of media-obsessed media people works to denigrate normality. Realistic expectations become sidelined, an embarrassment. The only things that matter are fame and stupid amounts of money. Who wants to be a nurse or an engine driver when Simon Cowell can turn you into a ‘star’? Of course only a vanishingly small amount of people actually will achieve fame and wealth. The rest can just grow bitter.
As for our bounty of openly degenerate pop-culture, it’s understandable that some might see it at as a source of degenerate behaviour. When you see the same lupine stare in the faces of the children hanging around outside your home as you see on CD cases and music videos, when you hear the same depressing worldview bubbling from the mouths of the fans and the ‘artists’ it is only reasonable to wonder if one is causing the other. And it is only salt in the wounds to picture of the champagne lifestyles of record executives, safely insulated in their gated communities in California, all furnished by the profits of this glitzy nihilism.
But still, you have to tread carefully when it comes to cause and effect. For all their popularity The Sex Pistols never did bring anarchy to the UK, anymore than Thin Lizzy ever incited a jailbreak. It is just about conceivable that a track called Let’s break into Currys by The iPod Thieves might incite some of its listeners to do just that. But it could just be that people who like stealing electrical goods find it the most fitting accompanying score. More likely still, it could just be a purchasable means for teenagers to annoy and bewilder adults, not least their parents and David Starkey.
Material impoverishment/Subsidised Indolence
(the global financial crash; thieving bankers; monetarism; the nanny state; poverty of pocket; the export of meaningful forms of employment; youth unemployment)
These were not bread riots. No one involved appeared to be hungry, and most of the looting was of luxury goods. For many commentators this fact alone is enough to banish the subject of ‘impoverishment’.
On the other hand their timing, in the wake of near economic meltdown, can hardly be coincidental. Regardless of the morality of the looters, the fact that so many citizens were prepared to stoop so low cannot be divorced from the economy. The ranks of the young unemployed definitely are swelling. The few jobs going are mostly low-paid and tedious. Benefit rates are stagnating, and certainly not enough to cover more than a bare existence. Not a valid excuse for breaking and entry, but certainly an incentive.
Even allowing for such factors does not of course produce agreement, it just shifts the terms of the debate: Why are so many people materially impoverished? Many on the right blame the benefits system itself. Welfare is seen as the real poverty trap, tempting people away from gainful employment, and out-pricing genuine businesses in the labour market. On a fixed state income there is no chance of promotion, pay rise or even a bit of overtime. No surprise that the devil should find other work for these idle hands.
The left will reply by asking who it was that destroyed gainful employment, and left generations of people stranded on benefits. The right will doubtless reply ‘greedy unions’. We are back to familiar left/right arguments about economics.
Moral impoverishment
This one is really the combined consequences of all the others. For many reasons these disturbances were widely judged to be immoral in intent: There was no indication that they were a struggle for justice or liberty. Political motivation was next to zero, the only hunger was for luxury goods. There was a callous indifference to human life and to the social circumstances of the victims. Many of those victims were completely blameless for the perceived social ills of the perpetrators. Many were small businesses that will never recover and never be able to trade again.
As with material impoverishment, blame here tends to split along familiar political lines. Some target the collective evils of social liberalism: Authority has lost its authority. Police and parents have rendered themselves impotent. Multiculturalism and cultural relativism have eroded our values. We have lost the ability to condemn. Nothing can be declared bad any more, only different. The law is tilted in the favour of the perpetrators of crime. Welfare has robbed people of dignity and has destroyed the connection between effort and due reward. Moral decency is impossible without religious belief, and religion has been buried. Atheism is condemning us to hell in the here and now.
Others blame neo-liberalism: It was Thatcher and friends that destroyed our culture and our dignity. Most of the social structures that provided solidarity, pride and purpose to the working classes have been smashed-up, sold-off or usurped by the new ruling elite – the Labour party included. It was the right that transformed citizens into consumers, and every human deed into a cash transaction. It was corporate capitalism that blew away our value system.
Certainly, anyone who wants to defend our consumer society and also condemn the looters does have some explaining to do. Consumerism is all about making people discontented with their lot. People in the advertising industry fully acknowledge this fact. Their aim is to compel people to want things that they don’t need, and feel like crap if they don’t get them.
Aside from the inherent immorality, this seems a sure recipe for social unrest. Human will and desire are awesome forces. If you actively set out to taunt humans with desirable objects when you know full well they cannot afford them, you shouldn’t be too surprised when they grab-out nonetheless. Corporate capitalism wants us as mindless zombies, trampling on each other as we clamber for its products. Tough luck that some of us continue to clamber even when we haven’t got the wherewithal.
Technology
(social networking; 24 hour multichannel television; the internet; video games)
“What would you do with free texts and internet for life?” asked T-Mobile. “Josh [naturally] is starting a Superband”. In reality we can now happily add “Ibrahim is organising a pro-democracy rally”, but also, sadly, “Steve is organising a mass break-in”. After all the inconclusiveness, finally something we can firmly blame. Looting and rioting are nothing new, but the coordinated effort and speed of contagation certainly are. This definitely depended on social networking.
Along with the moral issues, this has to be one of the most anxiety inducing facts. It chimes with broader fears of technology, and its endless unknowns: The barbarians have discovered fire and nothing will ever be the same again. Now the secret is out, can we expect a repeat performance every weekend? It’s like Eve with that apple again. Love it or hate it, we can’t unlearn the internet. One consequence is that miscreants now have an instant means of co-ordinating their misdeeds. How that weighs up against the democratic and moral advantages of social networking is one question that will rumble on.
Likewise, it’s easy enough to find reasons to blame technology for much of our recent material impoverishment. Just in terms of retail jobs and businesses, Ebay and Amazon have decimated our High streets. Most of the money supposedly ‘made’ by e-billionaires wasn’t conjured from thin air. It was the usual process of new and cheaper alternatives bankrupting their competitors. In the main, the reason the e-firms can do it cheaper is because they don’t need to employ many people, and can make use of low-wage workers in other countries. The ‘dot-com revolution’ was possibly the biggest downsizing event in economic history. Nice for the occasional CEO, not so nice for the wage worker.
As for moral impoverishment, well where do we start? If you have any suspicions that 24-hour pornography, gambling and ultra-violent video games might have a negative effect on the outlook of the population, well here are the technologies that made it possible. All now available 24/7 in almost every home in the country.
The pattern continues with role models. Before the advent of day-long multichannel television who would have heard of Jade Goody? It was only the huge amounts of vacant air-time, and the tiny amounts of advertising revenue, that sucked her and her kind into the vacuum. If you want high viewing figures but you can’t actually afford to employ anyone worthwhile, what is the natural choice? Voyeurism – preferably of the loudest crassest most shameless people. It’s just like pornography, which is probably why it so resembles pornography. All made possible by the wonders of 21st Century technology.
So, in summary, a handful of definite culprits, a few more we might grudgingly agree on, and a great swathe of irreconcilable politically-charged competing theories. Certainly no sign of agreement on dating the golden age. In fact the golden age looks like a bit of a golden herring. When you choose an era to cherish it’s all too easy to factor out all the other horrible things that were happening at that time. You can call for the return of National Service, but do you also want the return of Teddy Boys slashing cinema seats, and Mosley’s mobs back on the streets? Or what about the golden age that gave rise to National Service, the one that left most of London flattened? I think most Londoners would prefer to keep the Hoodies than have the Luftwaffe back. Be careful what you wish for.
