(This is an extrapolated comment for
a post by my mate Raj. I will attempt to get back onto posting regularly, but have been trying to work out a way of making my blog more User-Friendly.)
The sad thing is, I've got a worrying feeling that my generation might be partially responsible for the trend (chavs and chavviness).
I mean, there have always been scummy people. People that make those of us who like to communicate properly with other people, and socially interact in a non-hostile way with our human brethren (all to stave off the almost inevitable point at which the monkeys will in fact rule the earth), want to vomit up internal organs whenever we hear their evil, nasty voices describing their vile and monstrously mundane and ignorant exploits.
But those people have been multiplying at an incredible rate in the last fifteen years.
And I think it's because of people from my age group. Anyone who got pregnant at sixteen years old in the mid to late eighties was basically ill-equipped to deal with it. I suspect it was the eighties that created the now endless stream of bottom-feeding SPAG BoLs, (an acronym that I just made up and admittedly needs some work, which stands for Single Parent Auto-Generating Benefit Leeches), or Scum Farms, as they are much more directly known in some areas. You know, the eighties... everyone was out for whatever they could get, using whatever means were at their disposal. And if your only working part was a fully functioning breeding capacity, of course you'd use it to your fullest advantage. Likewise, if your only ability as a male partner was to produce viable, weak-tailed and watery but working sperm, than you'd make the most of it.
What none of those people realised was that having kids is supposed to change your life completely, and mostly for the worst. No more having sub-lingual slanging matches, getting pissed up and vomiting in front of the kids, or introducing a constant stream of "uncles" to your household while trying single-handedly to complete your "Worthless-Bastard-Of-The-Estate-A-Mon" collection ("Got to shag them all!!!"). No more swearing parties, passing round a joint while watching porn and horror movies in front of the baby.
There's a reason why kids are supposed to have a fairly early bedtime, and that's so that their decently repressed parents can get round to all that shit after Tommy and Maisy junior have gone to bed. But if you haven't had the chance to grow up enough before you have your own kids to realise that just because you didn't SEE your parents doing it, doesn't mean they weren't, how are you going to realise that polite society isn't about not doing morally reprehensible things, it's just about not doing them where everyone else can see?
I love to swear... Fucking love it. But I cringe and groan when I see people swearing in front of their kids, for punctuation rather than exclamation, because... well, to swear is not in and of itself cool... it's swearing WELL that's cool. And if you just stick a fuck or shit in after every other word, where is the skill...? Where is the motherfucking love, I ask you?
Having said that, if it wasn't for the swearing, you'd never understand a word the little shits say, mumbling and intellectually backward as so many of them seem to be.
TV doesn't help, to be fair. Don't get me wrong... it's not TV's fault. I love TV. I don't think there's a thing wrong with the amount of violence or swearing or anything else on the beautiful, glorious box, although I doubt the general moronic mundanity of most of it is doing anything to sharpen the wits of the populace, and it probably isn't adding all that much cultural depth or insight to our world.
But... TV is a wonderful best friend, but it's a lousy parent. As a rule, most television (not including reality shows, or other such dreck where "You, the public, are the star") is quite conservatively morally polarised. Regardless of violence, nudity, or swearing, more often than not, people who do bad things end up badly, and people who do good things, well... they at least normally catch the bad people, and do bad things to them. So it all levels out.
But without an active, involved human being creating context for the wonderful stuff on this beautiful, rectangular miracle, nobody knows what the fuck is going on. The chav almost can't be held responsible for their appalling behaviour, because they haven't got a single clue what is or isn't appropriate, what will or won't end up in a broken nose or a spell inside for them.
I mean, don't get me wrong... eight years ago, the crusty kids were chucking stones at cars and people just as much as all the other kids, but then, their parents are too "right on" to really enforce any sort of boundaries that might "restrict their child's right to self-expression". What one social group does out of some misguided idea of self-importance, another does out of pure neglect, and to be fair, both groups are just as clueless. And just as much a part of my age group.
Basically, the chav is just an example of a social class that has gone feral. If the twits proposing terrorist activity and treason to try and bring back fox-hunting are REALLY stuck for something to do, I doubt anyone will mind them getting back on their horses and chasing down the odd chav.
Get them down to decent, manageable numbers, wot?
