Threat Potential

I read a rather good piece from DP earlier on, which raised a good question about modern society. Why do we assess each other as a potential threat rather than another member of society with whom we need to coexist?

Please go and read DPs post before continuing.

Dick has obviously raised his kids to be polite, as have some of the commenter's on his post. However, politeness seems to be a diminishing quality. Standoffishness (is that a word, it is now) and sometimes downright rudeness seems to be more the norm. Rather than wanting to be friendly with other people, we seem to want to push them away. Rather than co-exist we want to alienate; to live in our own little worlds.

If someone makes a mistake, if they pull out on you at a junction, jump a queue or bump into you down the pub, nine times out of ten you you will get a raft of fucks for your troubles if you pull them up on it.

If you make the mistake yourself, you may do the right thing and apologise, but you will still get a raft of fucks for showing weakness.

"Sorry, my fault", "No problem". has been replaced with,
"Fuck off wanker", "No you fuck off".

People no longer see others as people, they see them as possible threats. They weigh up the threat potential of another before responding to them. If they see no threat then they respond with abuse.

You don't really have to dig too deep to see where this stems from, though. Older folk still tend to be polite. Those that have been influenced by thirteen years of Labour government, do not.

Labour have very carefully created a society based on fear and suspicion. A society where interaction is now frowned upon where it used to be the norm. A society where people helping each other has been replaced by state intervention.

And it begins in childhood. All adults who work with children are potential peados and have to be vetted by the state. In fact ALL adults are potential peados. Contact between adults and children (other than the child's parents) is actively discouraged in any form. Children are slowly conditioned to fear adults. Not to be wary of potential danger but just to fear ALL adults.

The fear continues as children become teenagers. The media portrays all teenagers as knife carrying gang members. Those kids that do not carry knives become scared of those that do so they start to carry a knife themselves. Kids join gangs to protect themselves against other gangs.
The media says that all adults dislike teenagers. So the kids dislike adults.

Then you grow into adulthood where you are even further segregated from other members of society. You start to make life choices, to find things you enjoy doing, only to find you have been placed in a minority (or even majority) section of society that has been denormalised by another section.

Do you like to smoke, drink, drive a 4x4, eat at McDonalds, hunt, barbecue, teach children, use cash, watch porn, travel, accumulate wealth, smoke pot ect, ect ad infinitum? If so, you will be placed in a group that is despised by other groups.

Whatever your life style, you will be viewed as anything from a filthy smoker to a peado to a potential terrorist. You will never just be viewed as another person.

We no longer tolerate people. We have been taught to disapprove, to be suspicious and to denounce. The fabric of society is now a patchwork quilt. Each patch, a section of society that has been pushed away from the rest. Each patch, a group that disapproves of the other groups around it.

The only way to live a life without interference is to keep your head down, stay under the radar and avoid contact with society. And when society contacts you, bark, bite, push it away. Who needs other people?

We need to re-learn tolerance. We need to re-integrate society and learn again to live with, not against each other. The New Labour overseers are gone now - maybe we can.