subculture essay

 

Subcultures in the UK: generational dispute

 

Stories have been told for hundreds of thousands of years and they are still told nowadays in the art of newspapers, television, songs, poetry, families, in fact when you often bump into somebody that you haven’t seen in a while, the first thing they often say is ”What’s the story?” and so the story begins! It is from this experience of listening to stories from the past that led me to deliver this piece of work and now my story begins!

 

So on New Year’s Eve I ended up in a casino, out in the smoking area, and got chatting to the older guys for a while. During the discussion I suggested that they had ‘ruined’ it for us, because as every society evolves, the previous generation seems to ‘ruin’ it for the next generation.

 

The life that they had had in the 60s, 70s and 80s was much simpler it allowed them to have a certain amount of freedom and less stress, yes, times were tough but the closed in feeling of being trapped wasn’t there like it is today with the introduction of modern technologies being available to the masses; it was only in 1981 that home computers were being tested by Amstrad and Commodore, in 1982 just over half of UK homes had telephones and in 1989 that Tim Berners-Lee proposed the world wide web.

 

Freedoms that they enjoyed have long since gone. For example, the guys I talked to suggested everything just seemed better in the past, from what they remembered about their youth. People had more money, jobs for life, building your career and working your way to the top, people could afford mortgages, holidays abroad (maybe two) and bigger fuel guzzling cars. It was all about consumer power and spending, ‘flashing your cash on ‘bling’ big mobile phones, gold and shoulder pads like in Dynasty and Dallas, the popular programmes of the time, when people lived wealthy lives and the population of the UK sat glued to the TV wondering who shot JR Ewing? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_shot_J._R.%3F http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-14851225

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6741127.stm

 

The guys at the casino suggested that even from the basics like talking to someone or trying to date it was so much more interactive; in the old days you would have to learn how to behave around a girl, and you might get some knock backs and that was all part of the learning process or the courting ritual as it was known back then, but you kept trying till you found someone that listened and had the same interests as you someone that wanted to spend time with you just like you wanted to spend time with them and maybe get to put your arm around them in the dark of the picture house. To communicate with another human being has changed completely from those days, now you don’t even try to talk to someone, you don’t write letters by hand, you’ll send texts, emails, go on Face Book, Twitter, or messenger someone. You wouldn’t even bother going round their house for a visit or even bother going into the next room, no face to face contact at all, all of this rather than going out there and experiencing it for ourselves leaving us stuck behind a computer being mindless eye junkie’s constantly flicking from one thing to another, with a very short attention span, needing to get that instant ‘fix’. People living in ‘virtual worlds’ becoming more and more insular and isolated, whereas back in the past they would go and experience the day, go out and find or create something to do and learn by their mistakes, we are all so frightened to make mistakes now that we just don’t bother. But having said that we still need that adrenaline ‘high’ of the experience so we push ourselves in other ways such as theme parks with mega rollercoasters, drugs, alcohol or random things like bungee jumps and skydiving!

 

These old guys talked about their pasts with fond memories, about all the things that they got up to and it seemed to me that in the past they used to get away with a lot more, in my opinion, if they did something wrong they were more than likely just to be get a talking to by the police or they may have been taken round the back alley and get a beating from the local tough guys and warned off (vigilantes-right or wrong?) rather than today be at the mercy of police stats and accountability and put in front of the magistrates which costs the tax payer huge amounts and doesn’t do anyone any favours at the end of the day because it has been researched that offenders once in prison just end up offending again and again despite having rehabilitation support. http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110218135832/justice.gov.uk/publications/reoffendingofadults.htm

 

This story really got my attention because I was thinking about the local bouncers who are now not so threatening as they appeared in the past and are licensed now and have statutory responsibilities http://www.sia.homeoffice.gov.uk/Pages/home.aspx

 

In ancient history the significance of the doorman as the person allowing (or barring) entry is found in a number of myths, including the story of Nergal the god of fire, destruction and war who overcame the seven doormen guarding the gates to the Underworld. Gatekeepers as described in the Old Testament usually have a number of tasks relating to security and safety http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncer_(doorman)

 

Amongst their duties are “protecting the temple from theft”, from “illegal entry into sacred areas” and “maintaining order”, all functions they share with the modern concept of the bouncer (security guard) The Romans had a position known as the Ostiarius (doorkeeper), initially a slave or other such inferior personage, who guarded the door, and sometimes ejected unwanted people from the house whose gate he guarded.

 

Following on from the story of the old guys getting away with random acts of low level petty crime other things that they could get away with were such things as Raves, strikes, marches, protests etc., at that time the law had the flexibility to exercise their democrative right to protest we can’t anymore as policing and laws had been tightened up to prevent people from ‘experiencing’ life and rebelling. Taking part in a demonstration, rally or protest is a high-profile way to take a stand on issues important to the individual. Protests can make a real difference leading to changes in governmental policies and laws. Peaceful protests allow people to come together and stand up for what they believe in, and can be a very effective way of promoting change. However, this right is not absolute and there are a multitude of laws that can be used against protesters. In recent years, new legislation to deal with a range of threats, from terrorism to anti-social behaviour, has given the police very wide powers to control and restrict the actions of protesters. http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/the-right-of-peaceful-protest/index.html

 

I suggested that this was because the things that they had done in their youth, the control that they had over their lives and the consequences of their reckless choices had impacted on ours.  But as time has increase the rules have got to sort of get tighter as there is the revolution and evolution of society. So they can keep a tighter grip on us and try and control us as much as possible.

 

http://www.authenticartist.co.uk/#/tender-age/4540025958

 

There are still the people you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of, the sort of guys that like getting into the fights, the tough guys that will always be on the wrong side of the law but in the past there were more opportunities to protest legally to get your point across. During the 1970’s there was the general strike because of the miners striking there were power cuts Edward Heaths’ government had to reduce the working week to three days but the miners got the pay rise that they deserved. When Maggie Thatcher went up against the miners she changed all the strike laws so that the unions had less power this has meant that you can’t get mass strikes now and people in low paid jobs have less power to complain. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7230711.stm

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6729683.stm

 

http://www.llgc.org.uk/ymgyrchu/Llafur/1972/index-e.htm

 

This is now supported like in George Orwell’s book 1984 when ‘Big Brother’ is watching you: The new big brother world. There’s so much CCTV as well around England that it pretty much is big brother as the article from the London standard shows (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23928304-big-brother-is-watching-britons-caught-on-cctv-70-times-a-day.do). This article shows that we get caught on CCTV 70 times a day on average. I wonder why there is so much unsolved crime in the UK? In the London Evening Standard again, it suggests that it is 80% of crime that is unsolved why have all these CCTV cameras if they are not being effective. Or is it like the panopticon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon) the panopticon is a prison designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. It was basically a prison that was designed in a circular building with a central tower hub that looked like this

It was built like this so that all the cells would face the inner watchtower. So that the inmates/prisoners basically feel like they are being constantly watched and because the guard tower windows where higher and smaller the prisoners couldn’t see in it so they wouldn’t know whether there were guards in the tower or not. Therefore the prisoners would have to be on their best behaviour most of the time. But I believe that the point of having the tower in the centre of the hub, and having it so they couldn’t see the guards, was so it would give the illusion of control and manipulate the population of the prison.

It’s just like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, there are always monsters or evil characters that meant to frighten the listener, the message in the story is to keep you on your best behaviour. The monster is meant to scare us and stop us from doing bad things, if you go out on your own such as in Red riding Hood the big bad wolf gets you, or in Goldilocks and the Three Bears they come home and find her sleeping after stealing the porridge and breaking the furniture so they chase her, the message is crime doesn’t pay, in my version when I was a kid she had to write and apologise to the Three Bears. The stories are meant to put us in our place and teach us not to do certain things like not to go out in the dark for one. http://www.candlelightstories.com/storybooks/grimms-fairy-tales/

But one thing is for certain if you make the right choices for example if you work hard like Cinderella, and never complain, like Snow White and you fight all the evil witches like Prince Charming, make sure you don’t talk to strangers like Red riding Hood and don’t steal from other people you will live a happy life and get to live in a castle, all your dreams will come true!

Trying to show us how to live, is this true? Cameron said: “In the banking crisis, with MPs’ expenses, in the phone-hacking scandal, we have seen some of the worst cases of greed, irresponsibility and entitlement.’

Irresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences: Children without fathers; Schools without discipline; Reward without effort.

Crime without punishment: Rights without responsibilities; Communities without control. Some of the worst aspects of human nature tolerated, indulged – sometimes even incentivised – by a state and its agencies that in parts have become literally de-moralised” As said by David Cameron after the riots in London 2011. (www.theguardian.co.uk.2011)

The restoration of responsibility has to cut right across our society The government has assessed there are 120,000 families across the UK that cause much of the disturbance in communities across the country – and David Cameron is now to use the government’s success in turning around their lives as a benchmark against which he should be judged in 2015: The next general election? http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/15/david-cameron-riots-broken-society

It seems that what happens most of the time is that what we’re just doing is making the rich richer and the poor poorer. As in the Independent ‘While median households are marginally worse off this year than they were in 2005, the top 45 per cent* are still worth more than they were six years ago. And the top 10 per   cent are quite significantly better off, enjoying a net worth almost £100,000 higher than in 2005. By contrast the bottom half of the income distributions have all seen their net worth slide, often   by tens of thousands of pounds.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/12/21/the-rich-get-richer-and-the-poor-get-poorer/

Broken Britain, Do they wonder why?????

 

In my opinion, the world today is better than it was fifty years ago primarily due to technology, civil reform and medical breakthroughs. The technology of today is far more advanced than what it was in the past. In 1960, computers were not household items, nor were cell phones, the Internet, digital cameras/camcorders, DVD players, plasma television sets and GPS systems and so on.

It is clear that because of the increase in affordable household appliances, home life is easier now than it was fifty years ago. With the added efficiency, more time can be focused on continuing to progress towards a better future.
Innovations in technology have made life easier for many people. Almost every school and college in the nation has the use of computers. With computers, students can access large databases of information at the touch of a button. Get in contact with people all around the world and learn from them as well as their teachers to push information even further. Prior to computers, you would have had to use a card catalogue, which listed every book in a large, hard to use cabinet.  Now, thanks to technology and the Internet, access to information is easy. Technology has also helped the world to communicate faster and more effectively. Mobile phones, email, and television have allowed news and information to travel at light speeds. No longer waiting around for the mail to come to your house, you can instead obtain information from your television, computer, or even mobile phone at a slit of a second of should I say more like a push of a button because that’s how far away information is away.

The development of technology has not only made life easier for everyone, but the cost of technology continues to decrease as it progress’s over time. Earlier home computers cost anywhere from two thousand to five thousand pounds and they would be these huge machines. Now they cost as little as three hundred pounds and you can get them whatever size you like from massive gaming and production computers. To little personal computers that might only be the size of an A4 piece of paper and bit thinker that allow to do so much with something so little. In addition, almost every household has basic appliances such as a microwave, television, refrigerator and many others. Although some of these appliances existed fifty years ago, they are far more affordable and efficient today. There is clearly a large increase in technological advancements. Problems around the world still exist; however, technology is allowing developing nations to live more comfortable lives.

Problems around the world will always exist and there’s not a lot that we can do about it. We can bitch and moan and hope for the world problems to go away but they will still be there. Just through the help of technology and its advancement hopefully this will help world in ways that it needs rather than corporate greed.