Preference Expressed

Mr. Gifford is hiding a lot of ugly reality, while defaming suburbanites, behind that “all kinds of different people”.

It did rather remind me of this:

Mr Matthews tells us that, “Neighbourhoods of concentrated deprivation only exist because we allow neighbourhoods of concentrated affluence to also exist.”

That word, allow. Damn the tendency of people to prefer neighbourhoods, and neighbours, that match their own self-image and standards of behaviour. Why won’t we just do as our betters tell us? […]

As so often, it’s interesting to contrast Mr Matthews’ assumptions with one’s own experience of growing up in the rougher parts of town. Our fretful Guardianista doesn’t seem to understand antisocial behaviour, why it tends to be concentrated in those areas, and why people spend so much time and effort trying to get away from it.

When I was a child, a nearby garden, one that was clearly looked after, was targeted for littering and abuse. Trash would be thrown at the flowers, decapitating them, and thrown across the lawn, over and over again. When empty pop cans failed to decapitate their targets, flower heads were simply kicked off by spiteful laughing morons.

The morons in question, the gleeful garden wreckers, didn’t appear to desire their own presentable gardens. I think it’s fair to say they had zero interest in horticulture, or the effort it entails. They just didn’t want anyone else to have one, and eagerly directed their efforts to that end. The fact that the garden was attractive and orderly, and a labour of love, was precisely the reason for it being targeted in this way.

For those who haven’t read the post linked above, there’s plenty to chew on.

I’m still processing the fact that Mr Matthews – sorry, Professor Matthews – is still employed to educate teenagers. Busily telling them how it is. 

Needless to say, pronouns in bio. 

[ Checks tomorrow’s Ephemera links one last time. ]

will I need to have a second bottle of booze ready, or will one be enough?

[ Looks at preview. ]

Hey, I’m bringing you the wonders of the world.

But fantasizing about making everyone walk everywhere while lugging things is stridently ableist.

YOU WILL CARRY THOSE FOUR BAGS OF SHOPPING ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT. OR DIE IN THE ATTEMPT. CITIZEN.

And where, needless to say, you will delight in being surrounded by “all kinds of different people.” 

But fantasizing about making everyone walk everywhere while lugging things is stridently ableist.

Mr Gifford’s imagined utopia is also quite ageist.

At one time, I was happy to live in or very near the city centre, among the thrum and hubbub. The endless nearness of other people. When you’re a twenty-something with no children, it’s possible to find amusing – or at least become resigned to – the proximity of noisy taxi ranks and trendy bars, and the 3am liveliness of intoxicated clubbers stumbling home, complete with shrill laughter and sounds of vomiting. To say nothing of the need to be fairly mindful of one’s, er, vibrant and diverse surroundings and any subsequent tribal rivalries.

But that passes. As they form families and have children, and as they age, people generally come to value quite different surroundings. Litter, crowds, noise, and unpredictable behaviour soon lose their charm.

That kind of describes my experience reading this blog every day.

I bring the world to your doorstep, pre-digested.

As it were.

A great many unusual ideas can be made to work if everyone involved is filthy stinking rich. 

And if everyone involved has shared expectations regarding behaviour, noise, the observation of normal boundaries, etc. The kind of cultural common ground – and moral common ground – that Mr Gifford would disdain as problematic, as mere “privilege.”  

[ Added: ]

A while ago, following this rather telling incident, I mentioned that for many years a neighbour has had an ‘honesty box’ on a small, home-made stand on the pavement outside their house. Passers-by can help themselves to surplus produce from the owner’s vegetable garden, or unwanted toys, or whatever. People leave the suggested, very nominal charge, or, for the toys, whatever they deem appropriate.

Almost every time I pass it, I’m faintly pleased that it exists. It does seem rather symbolic. And it serves as a reminder that I’ve lived in neighbourhoods where such a thing would very promptly be vandalised and thrown into the road, and where delight would be taken in its destruction – and in the misery of its owner.

And the difference between the two scenarios – or between the candy-grabbers in the linked video and other, better people – is not caused by poverty.

Stop letting them play the race card.

As for instance, here:

And so we have competitively activist legal professionals, such as Mr Clive Stafford Smith – a man who believes that the wellbeing of burglars is more important than the wellbeing of their numerous victims, especially if the burglar is a “young black person.” And who regards anger at being burgled and the subsequent sense of violation as plebeian and unsophisticated, while disdaining the victims’ expectations of justice as, and I quote, “idiotic attitudes.”

Mr Stafford Smith is by no means some weird outlier. Well, weird, yes – but hardly rare among his ideological peers.

if you truly want people to live in bright, shiny, Experimental Prototype Communities of Tomorrow, your first priority is to get crime under control.

And from the same quoted post:

However, contra Mr Stafford Smith and his peers, the fact that I manage to walk down the street without sucker-punching random people for being the wrong race – or stealing a car and deliberately running down elderly cyclists, killing them, while laughing – is not down to my no longer living in a rough part of town.

To claim that the kinds of creatures who do these things repeatedly, often gleefully, are just like the rest of us – only more oppressed – is farcical and perverse.

And it has to be said, a tad insulting.

[ Post updated again. ]

You’re not supposed to say that bit out loud, David. 🙂

To acknowledge the obvious does have an air of scandalousness. Such is the practised dishonesty of our times. But at risk of being thought “privileged,” or insufficiently egalitarian, I would prefer to walk down the street without someone doing this in order to do this. To me or anyone else.

Outrageous of me, I know.