We as a society have been far too sensitive. In order to avoid injury to people's feelings, in order to avoid appearing judgemental, we have failed to say what needs to be said. We have seen a decades-long erosion of responsibility, of social virtue, of self-discipline, respect for others, deferring gratification instead of instant gratification.
Instead we prefer moral neutrality, a refusal to make judgments about what is good and bad behaviour, right and wrong behaviour. Bad. Good. Right. Wrong. These are words that our political system and our public sector scarcely dare use any more.
Our relationships crack up, our marriages break down, we fail as parents and as citizens just like everyone else. But if the result of this is a stultifying silence about things that really matter, we re-double the failure. Refusing to use these words - right and wrong - means a denial of personal responsibility and the concept of a moral choice.
We talk about people being 'at risk of obesity' instead of talking about people who eat too much and take too little exercise. We talk about people being at risk of poverty, or social exclusion: it's as if these things - obesity, alcohol abuse, drug addiction - are purely external events like a plague or bad weather.
Of course, circumstances - where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school, and the choices your parents make - have a huge impact. But social problems are often the consequence of the choices that people make
There is a danger of becoming quite literally a de-moralised society, where nobody will tell the truth anymore about what is good and bad, right and wrong. That is why children are growing up without boundaries, thinking they can do as they please, and why no adult will intervene to stop them - including, often, their parents. If we are going to get any where near solving some of these problems, that has to stop.
NOM NOM NOM.
BNP?
June Sarpong?
I Lurve David Cameron,
and yes, it does. Especially the bit about fat people.
I recently lost four stone, dropping from fifteen to eleven stone over five months. Being fat was my fault. Though at the time, I blamed my mum, my dad, my best mates, my cat, my cows, my neighbour, Calvin Harris, my gran, my computer, my CDs, Cadburys, my car, Tescos and everyone else.
Calvin Harris does make me eat loads though
just in comfort from seeing his stupid slab of a face
needs more incitements to beatings.
i felt a bit short changed by the lack of this
really disappointing speech, is it by dave c
..
http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=fluffy%20kittens&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://eloszezon.freeblog.hu/files/0_21_cyclops_kitten.jpg
HA!!
Sounds a bit "Big Government" to me
It sounds a bit like an authoritarian
dictator's speech after he's won an election in which he was the only candidate.
sounds a bit like a speech the pope might make
when those christian fundamentalists rise up in a few years, huh
big willy style
save the day!
talks a lot of sense tbh.
people avoiding the point in the comments kinda backs up the speech.
so yeah, let's not discuss it, let's just trot out a few far-right terms and tut at another clicheguevara thread and get on living our fat, dishonest lives.
:D:D:D::D:D:D:D:D:D:D
It does make sense
but it's a bit scary at what the speech may be alluding to and what the supporters want it to mean/lead to.
Labour have almost got a laissez-faire in their attitude and placatement (that's not a word, I know) of the general population.
A government should govern, yes, but there are ways and means.
And also
Although a reform of society based around morality would be lovely, I'm not sure that the idea of morality presented here is really as all-encompassing as it first may seem.
It seems like "what is right" would equate to "what is right for OUR society" which shouldn't just be the case.
it's a nice antidote
to the general acceptance of bad shit happening even when there's a really obvious cause to it though, right?
like yeah, if you're fat and unhappy, fucking eat less. if you're beaten up at home, how the fuck are teachers going to control you? and if your authoritarian figures from ages 4-16 can't do shit, where does that leave your moral boundaries in adulthood?
i think this is taking the worst british traits and tarring everyone with the same brush, but i also think it's talking sense.
I know what you mean and I agree with you
people feel be morally responsible for the consequences of their actions and this can only happen in a state that promotes this sort of reasoning.
It's WHY he's talking of being 'responsible' and 'doing what's best for the currently' that worries me a little.
Exactly, should we get
the "people who eat too much and take too little exercise" and send them on forced marches? Maybe they could build roads for us.
fuck yeah!
they'll feel proud of two achievements!
i wish i knew how to build stuff.
^^^
this
Morals are relative.
to what
to personal backgrounds,
prejudices and preferences.
so if you prefer to fiddle kids
that's ok?
Wish I'd been able to reply earlier.
If I go to a shop and steal some bread, bad.
If I'm starving and my family are too, less bad.
Some would even say I should be enititled to the bread, no issue of theft.
Laws and morals are a human construct and so are the subject of opinions. We are all entitled to opinions and so cannot say when one is perfectly right or perfectly wrong.
Your example: If she was the only girl in the owrld and repopulation depended on it, it might be more acceptable. Plus other nations have lower ages of consent, so are the spanish all paedos? Morals are relative to who, where and when.
of course it makes sense
i'm still not voting for the fucker though
You go girlfriend.
You swore, that must mean you REALLY mean it.
yes it fucking does
now fuck off
your 'comebacks' are just ridiculous
I take inspiration from your face.
BLAP BLAP BLAP!
i believe the correct English spelling is 'BRAP!'
...just to clarify that for you.
Jesus Christ.
Risk of obesity. Risk of cancer. Did you know that the majority of cancers are preventable in behavioural terms? Or how about that obesity has a very strong hereitable/gentic component? So make sure that every time you read about the 'choices people make' couched in these words, make sure you extend that to cancer, too, and think about what that means for the future of healthcare in this country.
Furthermore, 'risks' are a concern for health professionals. Risks tell us who is most likely to have a certain condition; who we need to work on.
The Western world - let's say the UK specifically - has become a breeding ground for obesity; this is where the change has occurred, not in the minds of the population. What psychological phenomenon can anyone identify in the last 20 years that has caused the obesity crisis? What this speech says is that it's the population's failure to adapt that is to blame, not the government's for allowing it to happen. "It's not our fault, it's yours." And I think that's abhorrent.
yeah,
it's kinda funny how the government are trying to get people to stop smoking because a) they can't ban it without causing a multi-billion pound shitstorm, and b) they can't tax tobacco enough to cover the nhs costs of treating someone with lung cancer.
that's the sort of moral catch-22 that the government are failing so hard with at the moment.
It works both ways though
the individual has a responsibility to do as much as they can and the government has the same.
There's responsibility to themselves and to each other from both parties.
I'm not going to smoke cigarettes because there's a strong chance it'll give me cancer. But I also want to see the government enacting legislation that helps people give up and tries to stop people taking it up.
That's true; there's always
two components: choice, and the opportunity/ability to make those choices. However - and this is possibly where it's my philosophy that gets me hot under the collar - I firmly believe that from a governmental perspective, opportunity/ability should be primary to 'choice.' It is not for a senior politician to be telling the population 'pull their socks up;' their job is to legislate, and fix the failings of previous leaders (labour and tory alike) that led to the environmental changes that caused these problems.
fatty
fat fat
yeah I'm like 30 stone
it's awful for me
genetics my arse
people don't just swell up without input > output which is down to individual choice rather than the government being utter shits for daring to give free access to food.
ratios of input > output
Also: the obesity issue is not a result of free access to food. your words confuse.
genetics is never, ever an excuse
for obesity. claiming that it is is bad science.
Where did I say it was an excuse?
You've made the very same mistake that I cited; it's a risk factor, not a determinant of behaviour. The evidence-based fact of the matter is that if you want to predict someone's size in twenty years time, you look at that their genes. Excuses does not come into it.
No its irrelevant in addressing what
needs to be done.
It is irrellevant because all it does is pander to nostalga about historical divides and political sides.
It does nothing to focus people upon what needs to be done to avoid falling on our heads due to the economic crash
But isn't
admitting you've got a problem the first step on the road to recovery?
Cameron's point is that politicians don't even acknowledge the issue.
the point might be that there's more to these problems
than the way politicians talk about them
do you think if these moral judgements became commonplace the issues would just vanish...
Yes
and the question at the top of the thread is, "Does this speech make some good points?"
It clearly does. The question wasn't, "Is this a good election manifesto?"
it makes some fairly facile points
the reason marriages break down is because people dont know right from wrong, huh?
surely your answer to my question is fundamental to whether you think the speech makes any good points in the long run...
it's very lynch-mobby
what is it?
no
So what he's actually saying is people are responsible for their own shit lives
and we should tell them that?
And then what? What are the solutions he has that are founded on this?
That isn't what it really says though, is it?
"Of course, circumstances - where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school, and the choices your parents make - have a huge impact. But social problems are often the consequence of the choices that people make."
Of course, this paragraph doesn't properly demonstrate quite the impact circumstances have.
Well I read that paragraph and that muddied the waters even more.
I mean if it's down to "where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school, and the choices your parents make" then can anyone seek to do much about that directly? Surely these are things that are indirectly affected by whatever you CAN change.
Moreover the implication of the speech is that these things are NOT what he's talking about. It would seem it's the last line, "But social problems are often the consequence of the choices that people make," which I take to mean: people are responsible for their own lives (a very Tory viewpoint to be sure) and must take responsibility for them.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, the problem I have is that the speech sounds very grand, finger pointing and 'this is the problem with our society' but doesn't seem to be explaining how we're going to do anything about it.
In short it seems to be all hot air...
I agree
I think what could be taken from this though (and loosely the belief I'd ascribe to) is the idea that because you can have shit stacked against you from the word go, you've really got to put effort into the aspects of your life you can change and over which you do have agency.
That isn't the same as actually blaming people for certain ills, but I can see how these speech could be interpreted that way.
Yes
Some of it is right balls though
I think people are afraid of saying "that makes sense"
or at least "some of that makes sense" because they don't want to be seen as being right wing.
Just because this was said by a Conservative leader, it doesn't mean that if you agree with it you're bound to vote Tory next election.
It means that David Cameron has a good speechwriter, not much else. it's relatively easy to pander to the masses without actually stating what your policies would be.
And that's what this speech (although pertinently) has done.
maybe people dont agree that
the shift away from prescriptive morality in britain isnt really the cause of the nation's social ills...
I would say that it's a large one
although I'd say it was more a shift away from rationality.
what does
shift away from rationality mean?
People seem to rarely use reason
they don't think of the consequences of their actions, how it will affect themselves or other people.
Of course, I use 'people' in the loosest possible sense, but you get what I mean.
yeah i was just wondering what you meant
so you think that a shift away from morality has meant that people are less aware of the consequences of what they do
seems like a kinda idyllic view of the past doesnt it?
There's more to it than that though.
I mean it's a shift from a society based in post-enlightenment ration-dominated philosophy based around a reasoned and rationalised view on wrong and right to a post-modern philosophy that suggests all notions of right and wrong are culturally relative and that no definite rights or wrongs can exist.
You can't have such a shift without it having wider social implications and it is these commandercool (correctly in my view) identifies.
well
okay, thats fair enough.
"post-modern philosophy that suggests all notions of right and wrong are culturally relative and that no definite rights or wrongs can exist"
do you really think thats true of the modern western world? seems to me like a lot of issues are still judged in terms of right and wrong.
idve thought the wider shift in focus that postmodern philosophy has brought about was more down to a tendency towards situation based problem solving rather than a need to outline what is right and wrong about everything. in general terms you really are only talking about britain and maybe a couple of other countries anyway where religious based morality died off relatively early. im not really convinced that somehow having these moral guidelines wouldve stopped people doing the things outlined in the speech except maybe made divorce less prevalent in christian societies, but there again im not sure what that has to do with rationalism or why it even matters.
fair enough this kind of shift does have wider social implications but im not really sure what the difference wouldve been if it hadnt happened, would people have still done the stuff and felt more guilty about it...?
Spot on
^^^ Yeah, this is what I was getting at
^this
i don;t think that's it
it;s just irrelevant.
that's all.
It only does if morality has changed drastically in the last 50 years.
In fact it hasn't that much. It's only that the rest of the population has caught up with privileged minority.
Before, the ruling elite disregarded all morality, while reminding the poor to to behave appropriately.
Since the sixties, wealth spread downwards, so did the associated amorality.
People seem more immoral now because of increased prosperity.
increased national prosperity necessitates collateral damage in terms of violent youth and ill health.
Thatcher would be proud.
It goes beyond wealth spreading downwards
What has also happened since the sixties is that there's been a much bigger emphasis on individual freedoms and a lot less emphasis on society restraints there had been before.
This has been mostly a good thing - gay rights, women's rights, civil rights etc. are all fantastic expressions of individual freedom over social restraints but the unfortunate flipside is that it does equally imply its morally acceptable (and even morally desirable) to assert your individual rights even when it goes against the greater social good.
what you describe is the consequence of affluence
capital->power->freedom
this is the choice British society has made.
And there is no need for all this morality talk.
surely morality does come to the consequences of choices you make?
The point isn't that
anyone's uncomfortable about agreeing with him on the most basic of points: on the issue that 'people have choice in their actions,' then sure. But he might as well be saying that the sun rises in the morning.
This is not new information. But it is repackaged to seem like some kind of sagely common sense that we have all somehow forgotten. Dukebox has already picked up on this: the 'between the lines' message is that for some vague, unspoken reason, morality and attitudes have significantly altered in this country, and that this is changing the way we live our lives today.
No dice. Attitudes adapt to the environment in which we live, not vice versa.
For the take-home message, see how he dismisses the actual, concrete reasons ("where you are born, your neighbourhood, your school, and the choices your parents make;" in other words, variations in social and financial deprivation). The ones that need to be addressed and -can- be addressed, but are costly and difficult to do so.
I see what you're saying
but also think he's right that there's too much emphasis on allowing people to let those concrete facts excuse their behaviour.
I mean ultimately society should address issues of social and financial deprivation but that doesn't mean someone born in social and financial deprivation should then use that as a reason not to make the right choices and acheive all they can in life.
The circumstances in which your born are something you can't do anything about but you ARE in control of your life and you can still decide how to act once you've been born into the environment.
In a strange way I think modern society creates this weird environment of compassionate social determinism where we're so busy sympthasising with the tough breaks people get that we aren't encouraging or empowering them to get over that and thus meaning that such people don't escape the environment of their birth.
But there's the rub;
how much of a problem do you really think it is that people use these things as reasons, excuses?
Even in explicit cases; a mugger stands up in court blaming society for his problems, but that's all report after the fact. Did he creep up behind the victim thinking "well, this is terrible, but it's alright, because I'm being forced into it by society?"
I just don't think this is how people's minds work. Of course people should try to acheive all they can through their choices; but 1) in terms of people's local environments, this might mean -very- different things to different people, and 2) encouraging the population to pull their socks up is not a reasonable tactic in modern politics..
That's not exactly what I'm saying.
I'll give you an alternate example that might highlight my point better. I work in a psychology department and come into contact with a lot of patients seeking long-term psychological help. Many of these chronic patients blame external factors for their situation. And many of them have been dealt with massively tough blows in life. And in the aftermath of this they're people who've had lives of not having jobs, not having stable relationships, often self-harm or substance dependence and will be pretty fucking miserable about their lives.
Meanwhile there will be other people who've had similar or in some cases worse experiences who are much more socially-adjusted and actually living "normal" lives despite their experiences.
And ultimately the reason is that the first group of people, whilst not exactly making excuses for themselves, are allowing them to let their life circumstances get in the way of what they want to do depsite the fact that, as the second group shows, this doesn't have to be the case.
And if you talk to long-term mentally-ill patients (including crimainals) a number will blame society and everyone but themselves for their predicament. But ultimately their lives are never going to improve until they take the responsibility to change what they can change about themselves and I just think sometimes accepting people as they are can actively discourage them from doing that.
I would say, though, that the
difference between those two groups isn't excuse-making (ie. that one group are excuse-makers and the other isn't). It sounds as if the complaints and excuses you hear are more likely to be a symptom of a deeper difference between the two groups, that I would wager is self-efficacy; the perception that they themselves will be able to acheive their goals. It's self-efficacy that is a massive predictor of outcomes, in both mental and physical health. If you can improve self-efficacy in a target group, you can pretty much get them to improve in every way.
(an old example study:
http://qsw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/6/1/49
)
But it's a very tough thing to do. The people you're describing have had their confidence knocked out of them; owuldn;t you say that given all those terrible life events, the ones who manage to maintain a positive outlook are going to be only the luckiest ones?
I'm sure the last thing you would do in your work environment would be to simply tell those people to act like the more positive ones: ie. "be more responsible, stupid!" You can't tell someone to be positive; you have to build it. And I feel that this is exactly what Cameron is doing here: trying to fix society's problems by shouting at them.
I don't disagree with anyting you've said
I just question whether we as a soeciety are doing an effective job of "building it".
sounds like something a worried Tory might say.
I like the way how Brown's playing it cool, seemingly not bothered about Labour being at such a low. A few weeks before any election he'll just make tax cuts and order a few troops back from abroad and almost everybody will vote for him.
David Cameroon
can suck my man boobs and gorge himself on my beer belly.
Also, what the fuck does he know about Aston Villa? Srsly?
I so wish David Davis had beaten him in the leadership contest.
Although
to address the question, Cameroon's ghost writer does make some good points, yes.
I like the way that he equates
"risk of poverty" with alcohol and drug abuse.
Damn you poor druggy drunk scum!
(Rich druggy scum can continue to lead useful lives as leader of the Tories).
I'm fairly sure
there would be no poverty under a Cameroon government. He's definitely said he would abolish poverty in the past.
what do you think about it sam?
The speech makes perfect sense and is utterly spot-on.
Do I agree with the speech? Yes.
Do I believe for a second David Cameron will solve those problems? No.
This exactly
But why not vote for him then?
If you agree with what he says, why not give him the chance to do something about it, as opposed to voting for two parties who don't share your position on the speech?
Three reasons
a) On the basic level, I'm obviously not voting for David Cameron but for my local Conservative candiate, whoever that might be. There's very few Conservatives I agree with enough to be prepared to vote for.
b) I fundamentally disagree with most Conservatives on most issues and, even though I actually like David Cameron, I don't like the people he'd be forming a government with.
c) Similarly whilst Cameron may well mean well, he's still only one man and, although he'd obviously have a big say in what happens, other people would have a say too and I'd worry about the government taking a far further lurch to the right that I'd be comfortable with.
It's a good question though and Christ knows Labour make themselves less appealing to vote for by the day. Unless by some miracle Gordon Brown gets deposed and Jon Cruddas or someone similar takes his place I've got no idea what I'm going to do at the next election.
I'm pretty sure it's a position that they all share
as that is how any forward-moving government wants to develop society.
It's the ways in which they acheive this end that makes them different.
Yes
Especially the part about victim mentality
Spot on.
too long, didn't read.
No
y'know I just might vote for him/them
not solely based on this but... yeah
I'd at least wait
until this speech is transferred to policies. Because I get the feeling there'll be some pretty fucking appalling ones on the way. :-(
yeah but
every party is lacking true policy right now so at least it's a balanced comparison
but the rationale behind future policy is important too, and the conservatives are beginning to seem a whole lot more encouraging than Gordon "Fiscal Prudence" McBroon
I don't agree
I have a feeling we're headed for very ugly times if the conservatives get in based on that speech. Very backward-thinking policies punishing the wrong people and ultimately creating bigger problems.
it makes some fairly good points
about how stupidly PC the UK is at the moment.
"Brain Storm" - offends epileptics
"One little piggy went to market" - offends religions that dont eat pig
"Bah Bah Black Sheep" - offends people with black skin
you can't call children "naughty" anymore, because i child doing something bad doesn't mean they are a naughty, bad person.
really stupid times.
*a child
obvz
Except those things
are all made into issues by the papers. Maybe one really stupid councillor raises, during an open discussion, the question of whether one of the above would be an issue and the Daily Mail runs with 'Oh look! Now we're not allowed to sing bah bah black sheep!' and people like you read between the lines that it's PC gone mad. Sorry to be rude, but it's not even a joke anymore. If any stricter legislation should be brought in, it should be about how newspapers are allowed to report facts in a completely misleading way.
people like me?
racist
Well it was based on things
you'd written, so totally fair.
racist
your name has pig in it
i don't eat pork
reported.
I hate you
:D
/
oops
that was meant to be
\m/
Pretty fucking bleak
i'm hugely inward so don't really know about anything.
I'd disagree if I was to go with my gut, sounds like scare-mogering.
Do we have moral choice or free-will?
why in fuck is david cameron talking about it?
Because he's going to put an end to all this
liberal free-thinking nonsense and start telling us all the difference between right and wrong. His way.
It also sounds like its trying to rally up troops against an invisible enemy
who are the perpetrators here?
kinda sinister
I
think that the crux of the speech is actually spot-on. The bit about there being a refusal to make judgements is absolutely correct as is the final paragraph, in fact particularly in the final paragraph if we're to take it that he's specifically aiming at the knife crime epidemic, for example (not that it even implies that he is, but it could so easily be taken that way).
What he's essentially saying is 'break down the PC barrier', he's not really suggesting any concrete action but I don't think that's the point of the speech.
What worries me is that, although he acknowledges the effect people's circumstances have, he's almost sweeping it under the carpet, which is a very snide and tory thing to do. Everyone's situation is quite clearly very different so you can't just put everything down to a 'choice' because sometimes you just don't have a 'choice'. Unless you're a middle class twerp with his head in the sand.
*upper
yeah
but what's going to be done about it?