I’m staying in Gloucester in South-West England for a few weeks, before I go back to Russia for another year, where I will be working teaching English as a Foreign Language. In Gloucester, I’m working in a special school. I’ve written about the bus journey to and from this school in my last post. It isn’t just the bus; as I walk from the bus stop to the school and back again in the mornings and afternoons I walk past dozens of school-children, aged 11-15 or so. Some of them stand around talking; some of them, mostly boys, run around throwing each others school-bags on the ground and so on. Nothing especially wrong with that, though it doesn’t look very disciplined. But, the swearing is constant. “Fucking this and fucking that”, every other moment. Maybe I am old-fashioned but seeing an 11-year old child use the worst words in the English language so lightly, as part of, apparently normal discourse, causes me real pain. The presence of an adult, obviously within earshot, (let alone a relatively elderly one with grey hair), has no bearing whatsoever on their behaviour. (This was the main theme of my last post; there is simply no respect from children to adults).
Today, I dropped into a pub. The pub is located near a big supermarket. There is a Costas Coffee there, but I don’t want to go there, because every time I have walked past I just see several uncleared tables – a real mess of cups and tissues and dirty plates. I couldn’t get a coffee in the pub, because the machine was not working, so got a pint of orange juice and lemonade, (for about $5.00). It is a nice autumn day, and I went and sat at a table in the garden. There were three middle-aged ladies siting at a table, with a dog.
They were playing throw-and-fetch the ball with the dog. Maybe it is me; but I am not sure that is a considerate thing to do. I can’t imagine Russians, for example, playing fetch with their dog on the terrace of a bar or restaurant. But, so be it. But – I was surprised that not only was no effort made to keep the ball, and hence the dog, away from the other person sitting in the garden, it was clear that the ball was deliberately thrown in his direction. I was reading something on my phone and just ignored it. But I still had to listen to a tirade of sweary language. One of the women was saying, repeatedly, “for fuck’s sake”. I didn’t hear exactly, what she was moaning about, but, as with the children, it obviously wasn’t anything important. (One wonders, given how the worst words in the English language are now used for the most minor of annoyances how people express themselves when something does actually go wrong).
I have a friend who teaches English in Orenburg in Russia. We both had the same experience. When I approach a group of teenagers in the UK I always stiffen. I expect abuse. This is usually what happens – and I know from talking to other people that this is not just this writer’s experience. I first moved to Russia four years ago, and some time in my first few months, I found myself walking though an estate I didn’t know. (Google Maps had shown me a shortcut). I saw a group of teenagers up ahead who I was going to have to walk past. I stiffened, conditioned as I am to expect abuse. But nothing; they didn’t pay me any attention, and just carried on doing their thing. This is not an isolated example. In the UK a group of teenagers “hanging around on a street corner” are more than likely to abuse a lone passer-by. They seem to be probing for weakness. (I don’t know what might happen if they detected significant weakness). In Russia, this just doesn’t happen. A group of teenagers hanging around outside are simply being with each other, socialising and are just not interested in who is passing by. They have something to do, something to talk about with each other. They are able to talk! Their lives are, presumably, full and, for than matter, normal. In the UK, what is going on for these teenagers who abuse strangers and misbehave in public? They are clearly bored and at a loose end. They cannot be having fulfilling interactions between themselves. They must feel a lack. When they abuse and taunt passers-by they are trying to fill up that lack. Their lives must be empty. And, the lives of the middle-aged women in the pub, who were playing with their dog and swearing must also be empty.
It is beyond the scope of this post to consider why so many people in England have empty lives and in Russia this just isn’t the case. Referring back to the criteria for assessing a culture proposed by the social psychologist, Geert Hofstede, which I mentioned in my last post, (I should say I have not read Geert Hofstede). Geert Hofstede apparently used a model of six factors to assess a culture. (See my last post). Using this model, I would hypothesise that the relevant factors here are: indulgence (made possible by widespread wealth), extreme individualism, and widespread materialism in the UK and, in Russia at least amongst the general population, excluding the very wealthiest, less indulgence (if only because there is less spare disposable income), a somewhat greater sense of collectivity, which includes greater reliance on the extended family, and somewhat more widespread adherence to religious faith and wider than that, to traditional family life. Russia is just one example and I use it only because it is the only country other than the UK I have significant recent experience of. I expect (hope!) that there are other countries in the world where there has not been the collapse of individuals living meaningful lives, and social cohesion that there has been in the UK. I haven’t lived in the UK for any length of time for four years and, while it is entirely anecdotal, it seems to be getting much worse, though it could just be Gloucester, which I have never been to before! In essence when I walk around in Gloucester, in public, I feel I may as well be walking around in some kind of institution catering for people with functional deficits and very limited social skills. One final point; I am talking here about encounters in areas where the demographic is perhaps mostly C; people who work in clerical or technical professions, as self-employed builders, in service jobs and so on, as well as some D families. The B and A classes stay well away one imagines, not travelling on the bus and not going to pubs in these areas. [1]
Update
Since writing the above I have been reading Phoebe Caldwell’s short book, ‘Autism, Respecting Difference’. She suggests that people, autistic or otherwise, swear in order to reduce tension. If this is so, we can conclude that, in Gloucester at least!, people have remarkably low tolerance levels of discomfort or minor annoyance. This makes a lot of sense; we are so indulged and pampered that we can’t bear even minor annoyances without having to swear. In this sense, people are becoming more ‘autistic’. I put it in quotation marks because I think that this kind of sensitivity is not the same as ‘real’ autism.
[Images: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Twemoji12_1f92c.svg]
Postscript
I was on the bus again, going to work. Everyday in Stonehouse, (a small town near Gloucester) two large women get on each with multiple children, they are taking to school. Most of the children are about 5 or 6 years old. I was watching one small group of 3 children talking; I was trying, in fact, to listen in to their speech, as I am interested, (from a language development point of view), in what they were saying. I couldn’t quite make out most of the conversation as I was some seats away. But I distinctly heard a 5 year old say, “what the hell”. It really is sweary Gloucester. The child is in reception class. (Needless to say, Mum didn’t say anything).
Notes
- https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/aboutcensus/censusproducts/approximatedsocialgradedata