I noticed this the last time I visited the UK. Children as young have 12 have real potty mouths and, apparently, no sense that there might be a reason to control themselves in public. I am not talking about a minority. Using really bad language in public regardless of who is around is the norm.
I’m back in the UK and again, the same problem, this time in Manchester. I was walking in the local park in a pretty nice part of South Manchester. Two school boys, aged about 10 to 12, were running around playing some form of tag. Sure enough, once they had drifted out of site, I heard, “fucking” something screamed out in a child’s voice. On the tram today, a small group of college students got on. They were in the 15-16 kind of age range. Nothing extreme, but a couple of “fuckings”.
It isn’t just the swearing. Also on the tram today, at about 3pm, as schools were finishing. About a dozen school-children pile in. No swearing, but the behaviour is terrible. Two are using the handrails as gym equipment, one leaps up onto a seat to look at his friend who is running alongside the tram, another, as soon as the tram stops is jabbing away at the button to make the door open. When it does, his pal pushes him out. (He didn’t need to open the door, he was just playing with it).
All these ones, seemed really pretty innocent. In fact the colleges ones looked young for their age. The one jumping on the seat was having fun waving to his friend who was running outside, trying to catch up with the tram, and so on. So, one can’t say they are malignant. It really seems they have no idea how to behave in public, no containment, and no self-discipline. In effect they are behaving like three year olds. The contrast with the Siberian city I have been working in is pretty strong. I once encountered a piece of nastiness from a delinquent on a bus, but that was the kind of serious hooliganism which can happen anywhere. What one doesn’t see in Siberia is this total lack of discipline, this epidemic of bad behaviour, these displays of immaturity. In my city in Siberia, children consider swearing a big deal. They are not ‘saints’, but, and this is the difference I want to emphasise, they have a sense that in public they need to comport themselves in a way which respects the community and the people around them.
For all the endless talk about community in the UK, it is clear that there is precious little sense of community amongst young people, which can only be because none is being imparted to the by the adults in their lives. Probably because there is none to impart. A fragmented society with no cohesion.
Not just school-children – a sequel
As a sequel to the above, I was on a train today, from Manchester to Cardiff. A group of young men got on, in shorts, aged around 20-23. One or two were drinking beer from a can or bottle, but they didn’t seem at all threatening. In fact; they looked like a pretty clean-cut, decent group of young men. But; again, the fucking problem. Virtually very sentence was salted with “fuck this” or “fucking that”. It went on interminably for 2 hours. It wasn’t just one of them who had a potty mouth; it was all, or most, of them. This had a real effect on me. By the time I got up to stand in the corridor with my luggage, ready to get off, I felt almost physically assaulted. I was upset in a concrete way, and I felt dirtied; like someone had been pouring their poison and negativity into me for 2 hours. I didn’t challenge them; not because I was scared of a confrontation; they really didn’t look like the types to physically attack me, or probably even produce any verbal abuse. They really did look clean-cut; the sort of young man who might offer to mow the lawn of his elderly neighbour. I’m not sure why I didn’t challenge them; embarrassment perhaps. Had there been an obvious reason to challenge them, like a family with small children in the carriage, I think I would have done.
This does not happen in other countries. Again; I am not saying hooliganism does not exist in other countries. For example, a friend of mine had a nasty experience travelling on a train in Russia when he found he has booked a bunk in a cabin with 5 football fans on their way to a match, who were drinking. But – this public swearing is something I have never encountered in other countries. What is going on for these young men? What, basically, is wrong with them? It was so extreme it was almost a performance. Do they really use quite so many “fuckings” when they are watching TV at one of their houses? Actually, possibly yes. What, though, is the precise psycho-social function of all the “fuckings”? It seems to be some kind of bonding experience. Something about group membership. But, and I think this is they key, a group which is not integrated into the wider community, but one which is cut off from and stands in opposition to wider society. This seems to be a uniquely British phenomenon.
One final point. I can’t believe that it is just this writer who encounters “the fucking problem”. It seems to me strange that this problem is not covered in the press. (Of course; maybe it has been and I just haven’t seen the articles). Or; is it the case that this significant and telling social problem is simply ignored by mainstream journalists? Why? What are they writing about then?