On 26th August 2016 Stephen Bear won Celebrity Big Brother showing the world that the U.K. celebrates and rewards bad behaviour, selfishness and a lack of self-control. Yobos rule and now it’s official! So this is what it’s come to here in the U.K. This is the type of role model we want and reward is it? Lets crown him the King of the New Pointless Generation whose values are simply their own ego, self-promoting arrogance, ignorance, gang culture, lack of morality and stupidity. Are these the qualities that we wish to celebrate well it would seem so?
Channel 4 have always been a popularist TV channel but there seems to be no censorship at all going on here. This is totally irresponsible TV watching these people parade themselves on the TV. Seeing couples having sex used to be something you could only see in porn videos and accordingly censored. Now watching celebrities who are unable to explain or account for their actions, unable or unwilling to exert any self-control and where there is no other motivation for doing things other than their own self promotion and desire to win seems to be the TV norm. It seems that Stephen Bear more fully represents these values than any of the other contestants and that’s why he won. Or is it just that our society now rewards anti-social behaviour and if so why?
I come from a rebellious generation. I am not into censorship per se but a certain amount of censorship is required for reasons of common decency and to promote a culture that has certain values and standards. My generation seemingly had a point to make. It was cohesive in its intentions. Today’s generation is simply full of its own ego and importance. It believes itself to be a rebel but it has no direction or aims other than promote its individual egos of it’s protaganists.
Traditionally since the after the 2 World Wars and the particularly in the 1950’s each generation of youngsters has had an agenda for change whether it was musically or politically, ideologically or a combination of all of these things. Teenagers were rebelling against something and that something was usually worth rebelling against. This rebellion had seemingly had a purpose it was not just self promotional or supportive of anti-social behaviour per se. It did not promote violence or crime or gang culture. It did challenge the establishment and certain restrictions or moral standards. These rebellious generations had their roots in dis-satisfaction with the direction and policies of an establishment that resulted in World Wars, stiffleing freedom of expression, control of music and other forms of expression in the media. New trends developed to expose these limitations and challenge. My generation was for a while cohesive and dynamic it changed music and fashion forever in a brand new way. you’ve probably guessed that I grew up in the 70’s. I am not saying that the Punk Rock and New Age era was the be all and end all but for a while it was and it had a point to make. Yes it encouraged individuality and freedom of expression but it had an overall point to challenge the establishment. People were individuals but they were also cohesive, they were a part of the movement to change culture that had been imposed on us and to change political opinion. Politics and fairness and equality were at the top of it’s agenda. It was made up of very individualistic people but it was not about the individual, it was about something bigger than just the self and was not in itself self promotional. It was outrageous it was shocking but not obscene and it had principles.
Contrast that with today’s pointless generation. There has been a return to the blandness of control in terms of musicality and self-expression with a few people seemingly controlling what happens and no one appears to want to step out of line or be different. These are the things we fought for so this generation has become almost the same thing we fought against so hard. This has partly been as a result of conservatism getting stronger and fragmenting society with policies designed to fragment social cohesion and divide by promoting the self and the importance of the self without regard for others. Conservatism has again got a hold of the media, the radio and TV. This controls the message and what gets played and what gets promoted. I am thinking here of the likes of Simon Cowell imposing and exerting his will and control of the music industry through television. TV and radio have become a modern placebo for the masses and a resulting blandness across new generations has arisen.
All forms of media have succumbed to the popularist vote nowadays and has resulted in what is the biggest disappointment of all: a seemingly pointlessness youth culture nowadays. This generation is more concerned about how it looks, concerned only with itself and it’s own opinion of things. Just listen to the words of many rap songs and they are just about the artist themselves just ‘bigggin themselves up’ in their own fantasy worlds of money and gang culture. Their words are full of arrogance and self promotion style. In fact Style is the operative word. Style and being seen to have style is a major importance to this new pointless generation its all about style but without substance or integrity or proper values. These are the stars encouraging us to indulge ourselves in our own fantasy worlds. This is dangerous as it develops and encourages ignorance, egotism an makes us all dangerously envious of impossible and improbable situations. This self promotion fantasy world indulges itself in fast cars flash lifestyles even hurting others and gang violence. Couple this with all the fantasy films / movies going in the same direction again indulging in the fantasy worlds, money and ego and you have a dangerous combination of a lack of morals, acceptable arrogance and lack of self control leading to delinquency and immorality. Now add to this mix the lack of censorship that now exists in the media and you have the recipe for a very unhealthy generation. In contrast to my generation, this new generation is simply so concerned with money, style and a self promotional agenda so much so that it has no cohesive agenda at all to boast of so seemingly lacks any point at all.
Now with lack of police and poor and inadequately ailing and struggling public services you have the perfect breeding ground for crime and delinquency. This is not rebellion as my generation knew it this is just anti-social. I see it on the street in our communities. I am a taxi driver by occupation in Hull. Last night a group of youths, well cowardly thugs really, stoned my car and caused some damage to my vehicle. This is the second time in the space of a year that this has happened. This is the reality of youth culture on our city streets. This is the pointless and immoral generation that we are creating nowadays. Last nights incident happened in the Orchard Park area of this city. I heard a loud smash on the door of my car and stopped to get out. I could see that the door panel had been stoved-in with a brick or some other projectile. I glanced back to that same side of the road and saw a group of youths on a hill on Hall Road in Hull, opposite the new Medical Centre. They had lit a bonfire and there was about 10-12 of them on bikes. They did not even move when I got out of my vehicle and I am not a small bloke by any means. I was mad as hell but I kept a cool head. I knew if I went and approached these yobos that I would probably get stabbed with a knife because that’s what these cowards are carrying and that’s the most likely reason they did not take off. All this in a City that is supposed to be the City of Culture in 2017. The Police are unable to do anything and had already received several reports of this behaviour already that night but had done nothing about it. So this is what our streets are descending into these no go areas were gang culture rules.
Freedom of expression is a dangerous area and there is a fine line between simply expressing yourself and becoming a nuisance. Too much freedom of expression can result in lawlessness which is dangerous to others. Freedom of expression that concentrates simply on the will and desire of the individual can become dangerous or offensive to others. Take these missile throwers that I mentioned they were probably expressing themselves in some way or so they thought. They may have been expressing their anger at society in some misguided way that resulted in harm to another individual, namely me. What, if anything was going through their heads when they decided that they wanted to express themselves in this way. Was it anger at being socially outcast, maybe jobless or deprived of any real future? Was it lack of hope or thwarted ambition? Or was it simply self expression, lack of conscience, lack of understanding, lack of self control or just a celebration of their delinquency that drove them to wilfully commit an act of damage? Perhaps in their ignorance and stupidity they were not even considering the potential for serious harm such an act could cause. They may have given themselves excuses to justify their behaviours but all in all it was an act displaying a total disregard for others and the harm it could potentially cause and a total lack of self-control. Total freedom to express yourself can result in this kind of chaos. In this way freedom of expression can become; pointless, destructive, harmful to others, offensive, lawless and potentially dangerous.
Self control comes from education, morality and conscience. In many respects these are the key issues that should be being taught in our schools ranked with the same importance as Maths and English. We need an education system which teaches citizenship and social responsibility. Citizenship should be on school curriculums as a subject in its own right because we need to learn that we have a duty to be decent citizens and learn that we have a have shared responsibility to maintain our societies with respect and due consideration for others together with an understanding about how our behaviours impact on others. Having an attitude that you can do as you please simply is not good enough. Self discipline and morality is learnt behaviour which we learn from schooling and from parental guidance on such matters or at least it ought to be. It’s not such a hard subject to grasp after all but there is a great necessity for a subject like this to be taught in our schools. Only through education in these matters will ignorance, stupidity and delinquency be overcome and eradicated in our societies. The current Education System is failing pupils in a vast number of cases because schools are seen as a competitive environment where only the brightest pupils will succeed. This encourages the less academic pupils to drop and and regard themselves as failures. Once this happens falling into patterns of delinquency is a much easier option for some. Schools have a responsibility to bring out the best in all pupils across the spectrum but the Tories have made this virtually impossible by their lack of fore-sight in their education policies. Now we see Theresa May appears to want to make school’s even more competitive by offering to re-introduce the Grammar School System. We should be asking ourselves if we really wish to be perceived by the rest of the world as a nation that; lacks morality, is poorly educated, is intrinsically egotistic, and that lacks self discipline? Is that we want for the U.K. ?
So spawning a delinquent and pointless generation of cowards where gang culture is the norm seems to be what is happening nowadays and these ideas are coming from the media pressing the message home that if you cant get it at first, by legal or peaceful means then bad behaviour, disregard for others, intolerance and lack of self-control ensures that you will succeed in the end. The media now celebrates and promotes this kind behaviour and makes heroes and role models of those who exhibit this type of behaviour in some form or another. or is the public themselves through a popularist vote and the media simply wanting maximum ratings. Also Tory politics has always been about egotism and self promotion. This conservatism now pervades in our society from the young to the old. When are we going to understand we don’t live in bubbles simply indulging our own individual fantasies we all have a social responsibility to develop our generations. This does not mean suppress or limit their ambitions but it means nurturing, educating and giving the youth a sense of moral duty and responsibility. We have to encourage empathy for others and not simply encouraging them to lead a fantasy style life without self control or self explanation and accountability.
The triumph of someone like Stephen Bear in Celebrity Big Brother simply sends to wrong message to the youth of today and this is the fault of previous generations. Things must change otherwise subsequent generations will become even more fractured, pointless, ignorant and self indulgent. Well Done Bear one great role model you are and well done all those that voted for him ! Give people the popularist vote and this is the result: Brexit and Bear. All this simply goes to show that the U.K is simply becoming more isolated and insular.