Guardian UK: How sad to live in a society that won't invest in its young

[marmar]

How sad to live in a society that won't invest in its young
The riots crystallised the fear and loathing felt by the older and wealthy. For our children's generation, the prospects are bleak

Polly Toynbee
guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 August 2011


This is no time to be young. In the shadow of depression, the future could hardly look bleaker for those leaving education now, or for those coming after them. Many who jump for joy at getting their grades may emerge from university fearful about their prospects – and much worse soon for those with triple the debts. Rites of passage may become dead ends of disappointment. Some will soar – but many more than previously will not find work to match their talents, qualifications or even quite modest ambitions for a job and a home.

Historians will, I hope, be shocked that we let austerity bear down hardest on the young. No more mouthing of political platitudes that "the children are our future" in a country that is inflicting extraordinary damage on their chances, while protecting the privileges of the older and better off. In good societies it is the natural instinct to invest most in the young. Only a profoundly sick society would be doing the opposite. But there are more votes in the old than in the young and an ageing population fears and despises young people with even greater intensity than usual.

How well the riots crystallised that generation-hate. To a Manchester judge sentencing two young girls caught stealing jeans from a shop window, they were not just "selfish" but "symptomatic of the Facebook generation". As chronicled in the classic study Hooligan by Geoffrey Pearson, every generation always thinks the next is going to perdition: apprentice rioters, peaky blinders in the 1880s, teddy boys with flick knives, mods and rockers, punks, ravers – or indeed Cameron's Bullers. But each generation grows up into respectable parents, ready to be terrified to death of the next one. This time the fear and loathing is worse now the old have power, money, votes and demographics on their side. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/19/sad-society-young-riots

[HipChick]

1. Multiple generations of the unemployed...

[malaise]

2. Good read

We have collectively failed the youth

[hifiguy]

3. Milton Friedman's wet dream come true

the creation of a permanent underclass to be discarded, or at best, virtually enslaved.

[izquierdista]

4. Those who would like to teach them....

are not having a picnic either.

[HipChick]

5. Teach them what? Even the highly educated cannot find jobs in the UK.

many of my friends with degrees ended up emigrating elsewhere if they could..otherwise it was and still is, a future of life on the dole..

[RevStPatrick]

6. "Well a young man... ain't got nothin' in the world these days...

I said a young man
Ain't got nothin' in the world these days

You know in the old days
When a young man was a strong man
All the people, they stepped back
When a young man walked by

But you know nowadays
It's the old man
He's got all the money
And a young man
Ain't got nothin' in the world these days..."



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJCXpFy0E5s