tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8565737623121795004.post1432513616021056518..comments2023-11-29T13:13:23.022+00:00Comments on newgate news: 'Underclass arithmetic'Macheathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04451439759398780345noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8565737623121795004.post-57989525927717518592012-09-26T09:42:33.021+01:002012-09-26T09:42:33.021+01:00Another obvious marker of these kinds of setups is...Another obvious marker of these kinds of setups is that when a "family" incident occurs (fire in crowded small house, fight at wedding, outbreak of serious violence over TV remote, etc etc), all the people involved will have different surnames.Weekend Yachtsmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04262853091154005651noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8565737623121795004.post-77796792438300335432012-08-11T20:42:17.463+01:002012-08-11T20:42:17.463+01:00Good point, Demetrius; there's also the questi...Good point, Demetrius; there's also the question of childbirth in an era before anaesthetics and modern medical techniques.<br /><br />There's also the financial angle; when a pregnant teenager meant that the family would suffer social stigma and the burden of another mouth to feed, there was a powerful incentive to parents to keep a close eye on their daughters.<br /><br />AKH, the question is one that vexes feminist journalists - in our age of unprecedented opportunity for women, why do some girls completely ignore what's on offer?<br /><br />One columnist, deploring the number of young girls who say they would like to be strippers or 'glamour' models, memorably said "If their horizons were any lower they'd be, technically speaking, ants".<br /><br />As for media, it depends, I suppose, on which you choose. A diet of tabloids might well convince a child that women exist only as sex objects or celebrity mums.Macheathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04451439759398780345noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8565737623121795004.post-73836983735106215122012-08-11T20:31:10.462+01:002012-08-11T20:31:10.462+01:00"However, with the changing role of women in ..."However, with the changing role of women in society, freely available birth control and the higher expectations of compatibility and equality within a relationship, it seems odd that they persist."<br /><br />Presumably some girls and young women don't have those expectations because they don't see them within their social groups.<br /><br />Why this should be, I don't know, because they are common enough in the media.A K Haarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05897490979828603179noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8565737623121795004.post-61846787986867347902012-08-11T17:54:31.140+01:002012-08-11T17:54:31.140+01:00We forget that "Victorian Values" had a ...We forget that "Victorian Values" had a lot to do with avoiding getting one or other of very nasty diseases that were perhaps incurable and thought to be congenital. The medical advances in treatments by the 1960's led many to believe that it all could be cured and helped trigger the change in ideaology.Demetriushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17198549581667363991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8565737623121795004.post-70637032412260579062012-08-11T16:30:10.672+01:002012-08-11T16:30:10.672+01:00Julia, I can't help wondering if some of the a...Julia, I can't help wondering if some of the apologists for criminal behaviour who appear in your posts really think of their subjects in a similar way.<br /><br />In the 1960s, the progressives set about demolishing the educational structures that provided a way for children from a chaotic background to acquire what have come to be seen (and condemned) as 'Victorian values' - in other words, the strict work ethic and moral standpoint that once characterised the 'respectable working class' and are still upheld by countless thousands of normal citizens.<br /><br />Effectively left to sink or swim, many of those children seem to have adopted a lowest common denominator lifestyle so far removed from the world of the Guardian reader that they might as well be on a separate planet.Macheathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04451439759398780345noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8565737623121795004.post-16935663829851632652012-08-11T11:25:56.164+01:002012-08-11T11:25:56.164+01:00"...until they, in their turn, can become dom...<i>"...until they, in their turn, can become dominant males - it's pure Desmond Morris."</i><br /><br />Indeed! If only they were more attractive, David Attenborough would be narrating whispered documentaries about them:<br /><br /><i>"Here we are, in the wilds of New Addington, observing a family group. I'm careful not to make eye contact with the dominant male, as we observe his approaches to the female. Is she is season..?<br /><br />Oh, yes. I forgot. She's always in season..."</i>JuliaMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07844126589712842477noreply@blogger.com