Lockdown and Riots

"Staying home and not socialising your dogs, most notably puppies, risks them becoming afraid of unfamiliar people and other dogs."

The pressures of being cooped up indoors has also increased the risk of bad behaviour from all members of the family – and Lorna Winter, chairman of the Association of Applied Pet Behaviourists and Trainers, said her members had reported a rise in the number of incidents of otherwise well-behaved dogs giving a nip to children who won’t leave them alone

-- Vet Times

What has this to do with the recent UK riots, or the increased propensity for vandalising public monuments, and statues in particular?

Human beings are also social animals, and while changes in our behaviour are not necessarily as noticable as that with dogs, it is there nonetheless.

Being grounded except for a limited number of hours exercise and going to the shops singly, being unable to meet with work colleagues, friends and family, all lead to a pressure cooker society, which in  turn has led to an increase in domestic violence. The normal outlets - going out for a meal, for coffee, having a chat at the pub, going to the gym, have all been removed.  A solitary walk is not the same as a walk and talk.

It should be noted that places like gyms, even if people go singly, still induce a level of discipline; it was not just for good health that schools introduced team sports and gymnastics, it was part of an ethos which went by the phrase "a healthy mind in a healthy body". Of course the Victorians also had hang ups about sex, especially in all male public schools, but nonetheless the dictum does have a degree of truth in it. 

Even easing lockdown doesn't fully compensate. Shopping, for instance, has become a solitary pursuit with more than one person doing the shopping discouraged. Supermarkets in particular are quite sensible asking only one person to shop for the family (unless help is needed for the elderly etc). But that means part of the shopping experience, that sharing of the experience, and chatting, or for that matter chatting to old friends or acquiantances has gone. It has an isolating effect. It is not just physical distancing, it is very much social distancing.

And alongside that, we have the internet. If ever there was a means of creating antisocial behaviour, it is the internet, where people tend to behave in ways in which they would never behave in a face to face situation. This was of course the case before lockdown, but it was balanced by other factors: the other kinds of interpersonal socialisation, even with strangers, which has been removed.

The result is that the internet has, in cases, become something of an unchecked force for radicalisation. Groups bind together, and if talk of violent action is on the agenda, there is nothing but this virtual and narcissistic talking shop. All kinds of weird and wacky ideas get put out, and people lose those inhibitions which are an important part of both socialisation and civilisation.

In a local context, to say, as has been done, that Sir George Carteret (an adventurer who later in life invested in slave trading companies) would have been good friends with Jimmy Saville is about as sensible as saying that George Washington (a slave owner) would have been friendly with Jack the Ripper. It's a bizarre comparison, and in normal circumstances would never have been given any credence. But with the Topple the Statue bandwagon, these are not normal circumstances.

MP Christopher Pincher had some very good points to say about how things should be done.

"On a wider point, the illegal pulling down of statues is not something we like in Britain. We use quiet and measured approaches, and the tried and tested tools for change. Our buildings and monuments can be changed through petition, debating and voting, all at a local level. We have the right to peaceful protest in this county, a right that many citizens across the world do not have, but we do not have the right to attack our police forces or smash public property."

But the incident of throwing paint over the statue of Sir George Carteret, has led to an incident throwing paint over an abstract statue (with no slavery connection) and the assault on a police officer. Once you move to "direct action", it gives a legitimacy to the thuggish element in society who basically are just looking for some excuse for vandalism, and take that as a green light.

I think the absence of measured debate is reprehensible, and anyone castigating public monuments (who might after all have a legitimate case) should make it clear explicitly that they are totally opposed to violent methods which could lead to all sorts of mindless violence. Some people just like smashing or defacing things. Rather like computer virus writers, they get their kick out of seeing it reported in the news. 

G.K. Chesterton got it so right with his parable about the lamp post:

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. 

A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good--" 

At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. 

Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. 

And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

Postscript:

Apparently the comments after that comparison mentioned above by the writer were to the effect that Jimmy Saville befriended the rich and powerful and the courted the royals. And if he were friends with Prince Charles, Ester Ranzen, Maggie Thatcher, he would have also ingratiated himself with the absent Bailiff at the time. As the comments obviously came after critical remarks on the original post, I cannot but see this as anything other than special pleading. To my mind, the obvious deduction from the original remark was that they were both bad men, therefore they would have got on well. But I put this here in fairness so that the reader can make up their own mind!