Incivility

Two things from the Herald Sun today.

Jill Singer (who I believe is a closet conservative in lefty clothing) writes about an incident she experienced on the 112 Tram.

"While it stops in Middle Park, a loud and boisterous cluster of teenage girls shove me aside as they make to leap aboard.

"Get out of our way, you effing slut," says one of these charmers. "

And then Damon Young, (author of Distraction: A philosopher's guide to being free) writes:

"EVERY time I board a train, I see him. And he annoys the hell of me. He's in his 20s, he has his sunglasses on, cap pulled down, and iPod in.

And he's sitting on the seat reserved for elderly or special needs passengers.

My pregnant wife and toddler son need to sit down, but he's not moving. "

Whilst I would argue that having an iPod for public transport is pretty much a necessity, both authors have experienced the same thing. a lack of respect. Now the reasons for both incidents I'm sure are many and varied (root causes, the disintegration of the family unit, the invention of the best MP3 player evah, blah blah blah), however it points to the same thing that apparently even the ancient Greeks used to complain about; the "incivility of youth". Having been a youth once, I remember how pissed off I was when 'grown ups' used to order me out of my seat on the tram because I was only paying concession.

In Jill's case, I have no idea what the right thing to do is when dealing with a gang of violent teenage slags. In the olden days, if young 'uns had tried the same thing with adults, they would have got a smack around the ears and roundly told off. These days with the sense of entitlement that kids have and the fact smacking your own kids is frowned upon, there's no reason why these little !@# shouldn't do what they want. Why not? There's no consequences for their anti-social behaviour. Had either of the authors responded with any sort of physical contact, the State would have come down hard on both of them, leaving these "charmers" to continue on their merry little way. Ask Jeremy Clarkson, the presenter of Top Gear, who had a run in with some teenage 'hoodies'. After provoking him, the little scamps recorded his outburst on a mobile phone, and then the cops brought him in for questioning, eventually clearing him.

What's to be done? Without wading into the morality morass of what constitutes a family unit these days, I would suggest that maybe a 'recalibrating' of the legislative focus on juvenile anti-social behaviour. I'm confident that even if these 'young pups' had completely absent parents, if they knew that the consequences of being violent to other other members of society, regardless of age, would be punished the same way, then that would force a rethink before acting out violently. And should an adult citizen act out in self defence against gangs of marauding teenagers, then maybe the Law should consider the case on it's merits and not automatically vilify the adult for being in a position of 'power' or whatever.

Given the state of policing in Victoria these days I'm not exactly confident.