Grumble Thread

[french frank]

... wretched for them, and so wrong : dare I say a relief for peace-and-quiet-loving adults sharing the bus?

Just back from lunch at the caff. I live in a multicultural area (hardly a white face in the caff today ) and the real cultural divide is between generations. Elderly white people are much more similar to elderly Black or Asian people than elderly white people are like young white people. Whereas young whites, Blacks, and Asians speak the same 'language' and all have the same vacant expression most of the time as if there's no brain present.

[smittims]

I noticed this 'two nations' thing for the first time a couple of years ago . I went to an out-of-town retail park M&S, went right round the store , had lunch , about an hour all told, everyone I saw looked middle-aged, middle -class caucasian . Two days later on a tram in Manchester I passed a bus queue . Not one caucasian face there. Just an observation; no comment.

[french frank]

I noticed this 'two nations' thing for the first time a couple of years ago . I went to an out-of-town retail park M&S, went right round the store , had lunch , about an hour all told, everyone I saw looked middle-aged, middle -class caucasian . Two days later on a tram in Manchester I passed a bus queue . Not one caucasian face there. Just an observation; no comment.

That's the Jenrick comment. Any comment on my unsupported assertion that there's greater cultural difference between generations than between races?

[oddoneout]

Yes, people are bonding with their chatbots and AI social media friends. I was on the bus yesterday at the time the schools were coming out and 95% of the children sat silently scrolling through their phones, not communicating with anyone or even talking to each other on the bus.

They may have been communicating with their friends and others on the bus - but doing it through a third party(phone) rather than directly.
The bonding with chatbots and AI entities is now a relationship/option alternative - with virtual girl/boyfriends. In some respects it's age-old human behaviour that's moved into the digital age - the unattainable ideal, the no-commitment option, soap stars as real,Thai wives, etc and as such possibly inevitable, but an aspect that does disturb me is that it seems to be risking going backwards when it comes to behaving well - or at least acceptably - to humans. In the same way that anonymous online activity encourages 'no boundaries' in terms of aggression and beyond the pale attitudes that then spills over into real life, once such virtual relationships become more widespread how will people then cope with real people in a relationship setting if it should arise.
The ability to construct an ideal girlfriend I find worrying - it's not as if attitudes and behaviour to girls and women are as good as one might wish at the moment but this would seem to see things going backwards*.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/06/rise-of-ai-girlfriends-adult-dating-websites

- or in the case of the police force even further backwards

[vinteuil]

. Any comment on my unsupported assertion that there's greater cultural difference between generations than between races?

... I feel it to be true

To which I would add, after a career taking in many countries and cultures : there's more in common between a professional 'bourgeois' English person and their equivalent Polish/French/Indian/Arab/Malay/Fijian etc professional bourgeois - than there is between that English person and another English person of a different class

discuss...

But against my idealized 'citizen of the world' view is that of Theresa May, following David Goodhart, that if you are a citizen of everywhere you are a citizen of nowhere -

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/22/the-road-to-somewhere-david-goodhart-populist-revolt-future-politics

.

[antongould]

Fans of 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads' have known for a long time that 'The only thing to look forward to is the past'.

indeed and it is often said, rightly in my VVHO, that all wisdom comes from Monkseaton ………

[LMcD]

Any comment on my unsupported assertion that there's greater cultural difference between generations than between races?

Just to say that I agree with you. The world is changing so rapidly in so many ways that the young are fully occupied dealing with - and in many cases learning from - developments that older generations are wise - or do I mean arrogant? - enough to assume don't concern them or won't benefit them, believing that what they've learned so far will be enough to see them through until they pop their clogs. The young seem terrified of not being constantly in touch with one another ('FOMO'), while the old(er) amongst us have family, friends and acquaintances with whom we can keep in touch without constant texting and staring at screens for umpteen hours a day. The online world which so many young people seem to inhabit can make it very difficult for them to recognize and cope with reality in the way in which previous generations have learned to do, often via a process of continual trial and error.
Our local population is 89.9% White British, but I get on pretty well with our Japanese daughter-in-law, who's in her early 50s.

[french frank]

They may have been communicating with their friends and others on the bus - but doing it through a third party(phone) rather than directly.

All things are possible but I made the point that they appeared simply to be scrolling up and down. Not speaking, not listening, not watching anything very attentively, not texting rapidly with their thumbs. They occasionally pressed a button which might have indicated Yes or No but that would hardly suggest meaningful communication. The most probable explanation, apparently, is that they were 'consuming' short TikTok videos.

[smittims]

I had to google-search 'Jenrick comment', ff, as I don't listen to the news. I didn't know what 'doxing' was until yesterday!

It's difficult fo me to answer your wider point as I myself have less and less to do with other people, but it seems to me that the significant divisions are not between age groups, races or classes but between a growing number of ever-smaller groups of people who talk only to a few people who agree with them. This has come about from the long gradual process of ceasing to meet in pubs and clubs and moving to one's own entertainment in the privacy of one's room. I think this is why some people are surprised that others outside their group are offended by their language or behaviour. 'AI-girlfriends' has been mentioned so I'll take this as an example . I think they are largely harmless fun , though of course their main purpose is to make money for the companies who are providing them, as is all entertainment . But woke feminists who believe everythng Laura Bates tells them will call anything they don't like 'racist' or 'misogynist' .

There are far worse divisions , over,say, so-called 'honour-killings' amd 'grooming gangs'. Already I hear voices criticising what they call 'first-world problems' or ' a preoccupation of middle-cless white women'. There's no longer one man on the Clapham omnibus and difficult to sum up exactly what he thinks.

[french frank]

I had to google-search 'Jenrick comment', ff, as I don't listen to the news.

Nor do I. But I read about it quite extensively.
I've deleted the rest of what I was going to say as I don't think this is the place to say it . Maybe the old-fashioned pub, or a wine bar would be better ...

[LMcD]

I had to google-search 'Jenrick comment',

Is it worth my while google-searching Laura Bates, of whom I have not hitherto heard?

[french frank]

Is it worth my while google-searching Laura Bates, of whom I have not hitherto heard?

I did so as I had similarly missed any mention in the news. My only thought was that if one thinks about 'so-called' grooming gangs and honour killings, do we first think of the ethnic origin of the so-called perpetrators or the sex of the so-called victims? How far is one's reaction dependent on one's own sex or ethnic origin, I wonder. (And btw even the sons of CofE bishops are innocent until proved guilty.)

[smittims]

I called them 'so-called' grooming gangs and honour killings because these are the terms by which they are identified, rather than how I would describe them. For instance, it has been pointed out (with some credibility , I think ) that 'honour killings' however they may try to justify them, are simply murder. I was just mentioning them as examples of the groups we are divided into these days, where those inside think it's OK and those outside think it's horrific.

Taking up the last point in message 2875, maybe we need a new sub-forum ('The Wine Bar' perhaps) where we can speak more freely and say things that might be unaccepable elsewhere...) .

[LMcD]

I called them 'so-called' grooming gangs and honour killings because these are the terms by which they are identified, rather than how I would describe them. For instance, it has been pointed out (with some credibility , I think ) that 'honour killings' however they may try to justify them, are simply murder. I was just mentioning them as examples of the groups we are divided into these days, where those inside think it's OK and those outside think it's horrific.

Does a desire, or perceived need, to join one or more such groups possibly indicate difficulty in establishing self-belief? As far as I'm aware, I'm not a member of any groups, but happy to meet friends and acquaintances in different circumstances in different places for different purposes. We don't have agendas, none of us feels threatened by other individuals or groups, and I'm pretty sure we don't pause a threat to anybody.

[smittims]

Quite so. When I say 'groups' I wasn't suggesting formal organisations with a membership list or an agenda, simpy 'the people we know and who tend to agree with us'. If we see and hear only (or largely) their views it can lead to narrowing horizons and distrust of outsiders . We can become disturbed by the language and opinions of others, which seem normal to them or to their 'group'.

To take a mild example , groups of teenage girls who often say 'OmyGod' frequently. Some poeple who don't use this term might be uncomfortable, even if they are not theists. There's a lady who walks her dog near my house , quite well-dressed, smiles ; you might expect her to be quiet and polite but when she opens her mouth it's raucous, and there's a 'bloody' in every sentence. Some might think that normal.