The Root Cause
Posted on August 16th, 2024
by Rab Bruce’s Spider
Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot
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I have written before how a society’s behaviour is influenced by its leaders. Obviously not everyone in a national society follows the example of their political and cultural leaders because human beings are a diverse lot, so there will always be those who dissent. However, those in positions of power and influence can determine trends in behaviour. So it was no great surprise to learn that incidents of assault and harassment against women travelling on trains has increased in recent years. In my view, this is yet another appalling symptom of the same cultural disease which resulted in the recent riots in England and Northern Ireland, and which may yet spring up again in all parts of the UK.
You see, just as the Fascist thugs have been emboldened by years of the media and certain politicians telling them that all their problems stem from immigration, so a growing culture of misogyny, spread by social media influencers and the behaviour of some politicians, has inevitably resulted in some men feeling that adopting an aggressive attitude towards women is acceptable.
Of course, these traits have always been in society because, as mentioned earlier, human beings are a diverse lot. British society has always been inherently racist, although not exclusively so because most nations have an undercurrent of racism. Yet Britons used to regard this behaviour as perfectly normal. In my younger days, it was socially acceptable to tell jokes about the Irish, about the Chinese and about people of colour, or to use terms to describe these people which are nowadays considered offensive. The problem is that, when you grow up in a culture which views these things as normal, it is very easy to adopt the same attitude.
Fortunately, things moved on and most people now understand the problems of such behaviour. Racism was never extinguished, but those who espoused it were generally shunned and had no loud voice in society. Then came social media, and those voices have become louder over the years.
There is no easy solution to this, but those who lead our society need to be prominent in their opposition to such behaviour. But we must also look at long term solutions. I doubt racism, misogyny or discrimination against minority groups such as the disabled will ever be eliminated, but the aim must be to force those views back into the margins of society. There are signs that the majority of people already consider such attitudes unfavourably, and great credit must be given to those who turned out to protest against the fascist rioters, but I believe there is another root cause of many social ills which can and should be addressed.
I speak of poverty. Whether it is rioting, anti-social behaviour, racism, deaths from drug misuse, lower life expectancy, petty crime or physical assault, poverty always seems to lurk in the background. If the number of people living in poverty could be reduced, we’d see a reduction in all sorts of shameful statistics.
The big problem is that global capitalism has made the UK one of the most unequal societies in the world. Whether our politicians have the will or the bravery to tackle this problem is, sadly, doubtful, but some redistribution of wealth is essential if we are to have any chance of tackling poverty. I’m not talking about radical communism here, just a re-balancing of incomes so that the ultra-wealthy lose a bit of their wealth, which they probably won’t notice much anyway, and that those at the poorer end of society are given a decent living wage. Time and again we see statistics which demonstrate that the poorest in society suffer the worst food price increases or energy price increases. The burden always falls on those least able to afford it. It is no wonder that this environment encourages crime, drug abuse, drinking, smoking and, in the worst cases, violence.
It is also demonstrably true that giving more money to the poor improves the economy because, unlike the rich who simply hoard wealth for its own sake, poorer people spend money when they have it. You’d think this would be obvious, but our politicians are so reliant on the mega-rich for support that they dare not make any sweeping changes to the way money is spent.
Tackling poverty is not easy, but it must be something worth trying. The Tories managed to increase it significantly, so it must be possible to reverse that trend. Unfortunately, whether the UK Labour Government has that will and desire seems very doubtful. And even if they do, history tells us that the English electorate will, sooner or later, elect another right wing Government.
There is, as ever, a way for Scotland to make its own way in the world, following a different path, but that, too, requires some genuine political leadership which I fear we are sadly lacking.