August 27, 2020 - 10:52am
Sometimes I wonder why I bother with conservatism. Tory ineptitude at home and Republican grotesquerie in America is pushing me to the edge. Perhaps I should embrace my inner radical and defect to the red corner — or, more likely for me, the green one.
“Beleaguered rangers complain that a new generation of holidaymakers are treating the countryside like a festival site, leaving behind tents, chairs and excrement, as well as endangering rare habitats and wildlife.”
But why don’t they understand it? Inevitably, there are those who think it’s the Government’s fault — for not spending enough money:
“An unprecedented rise in litter, damaging fires and ‘fly-camping’ across the English countryside is partly a result of the government spending less than £2,000 a year over the past decade on promoting the Countryside Code, campaigners say.”
Well “campaigners” would say that, wouldn’t they? The idea that a social problem might be wholly the fault of those perpetrating it is now alien to the Leftist mindset. I mean, why rely on people to exercise personal responsibility when we could blame the state instead?
Except that the Countryside Code isn’t written in code, but freely available for anyone to read. Moreover, most of it is common sense. You don’t need specialist knowledge to take home your rubbish, or close a gate behind you or control your dog, you just need to be a decent human being.
Deliberately dropping litter betrays a sickness of the soul, not a lack of public spending. Shifting responsibility to the state weakens the social pressure which, in this case, is our best defence against individual selfishness.
If people won’t do the right thing out of respect, then let fear, fines and community service do the job instead.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeAt work we have a “cosy” back door area that students like to use. When I catch them leaving rubbish (which was often) and ask them to tidy up they complain that there’s no bin nearby. My answer, which always catches them out, is “there are no shops around here but you managed to get your food here”!
Could not agree more. Town or Country – it makes no difference; many people discard litter without it ever entering their apparently pea-sized brains that it is wrong. Whenever I point out to them that they should bin it or take it home, I am generally met with blank amazement, disdain or aggression.
The general antagonism to “judging” and “shaming” is becoming problematic (to correctly use that troubled word…).
We use law and education to stop people smoking on planes, but the level of opprobrium from fellow-passengers is very high – a real factor.
I can’t see that there is anything to disagree with in this article. To my mind, the fact that some are raising quibbles hints at our failure of resolution and certainty on this straightforward issue. There is no excuse for littering. End of.
Agree completely ….
I never forget the old maxim ….
“Take only pictures, leave only footprints”
I’d probably go a bit further than the author and make the selfish ********s eat the rubbish they left.
Filming them eating it would also generate great material for Reality TV 😀
I would like to adopt the same punishment for offenders who refuse to pick up their dog’s excrement in public parks. And the subsequent TV show would make for even more compelling and amusing viewing I’m sure.
I used to pick it up from the lone lamppost on the far corner of my garden, behind my hedge and place it just inside the shadow created by the street light. Seldom did anyone but me, my guests and the same 3
dog walkers use the path because others better lit paralleled it.
I delighted in the cursing dog walkers for some months and then the droppings stopped for the most part.
Quite right about the default leftist position of blaming everything on anybody but the perpetrator, but CCTV cameras in the countryside can’t be the answer here. Quite apart from this being just another form of ‘litter’, is there nowhere we can escape the surveillance state?
Agreed. It’s interesting that CCTV has increased in parallel to people becoming nervous about challenging others. Clear social norms are a foundation for good behaviour. CCTV has a place but has become excessive.
But journalism can be excellent and Unherd is one of the better sites.
However, its all about money and clicks – look at The Speccie to see the gradual displacement of good journalism with screaming and posturing.
I remember yonks ago, when I was new in the country, walking through Christchurch meadow one fine summer’s evening as picnic-ers dusted off their rugs and headed home leaving circles of plastic bottles and general picnic rubbish around where their rugs had been. I wondered what had happened that so many privileged people could have done something so casually uncaring in such beautiful surroundings. I guess many of those privileged careless young people would have expanded at length on how they cared for the environment. They might even have been anti plastic. I also guess many are now parents too. I wonder what they teach their children about picking up after themselves?
I am not into Singapore style dictatorships but I reckon we are well overdue some committed education at school and at home, aided by CTV cameras plain clothes rubbish wardens and healthy fines for all litters regardless of income. That should bring about a sharp decline in rubbish around the countryside and plastic washing from the shores of the UK and into the sea. But of course there would be a huge outcry about such draconian measures. Funny given the current general global enthusiam for any and all draconian measures to combat the bug.
You could just write about yourself. That’s what almost all of the female journalists on the Daily Telegraph do for a living.
In Darlington – there are signs all over the town warning about dropping litter and the potential consequences and there are warden patrols too – it must be one of the most litter free town in the UK. I asked some of the locals about it and they were all very pro the measure.- not so easy in the countryside though.
Sorry Peter but, though and excellent article your solution is will not work. If you think people who discard rubbish anywhere (not just in our Parks) could give a hoot about been seen on CCTV I’m afraid I disagree. It would be a status symbol to them.
Or, they will do what anyone who wishes to avoid recognition via CCTV, wear a hoodie. We are the most surveilled country in the world and the number of convictions using this method to gain positive results in court is derisory.
One of the problems and this is not just in our Parks, but is the desire of people to set up groups to help everyone to ‘understand’ to what 90% of the population seems blindingly obvious. Here came the Park Rangers and they had what some craved. A genuine desire to help the environment and many still do. I add, at the time those of us who climbed and walked the fells circa 1950’s were frankly bemused. Of course as they grew in bureaucracy so the volunteers became paid officials and low and behold they had badges and more important a perception of power. Oh! how we laughed. Oh! how
naive we were!
Litter is a wholly unnecessary blot everywhere and the solution is not fines and giving thoughtless cretins the attention they crave but in education. Adults are an obvious target but to late. No it’s the very young. Please don’t image that parents with children should play a role because many of them are the offenders. No, start at the beginning and get the very young to shame the parents who do the littering. It’s too late to change litter louts and please it does not need a penny spending. So no need for bigger and more useless agencies to be formed with the inevitable bleating for more resources.
Message ‘Take Your Litter Home’.
And so it was in the late 60s and early 70s. Adverts and education with us kids taking parents etc. to task with the plaintiff cry of ‘Keep Britain Tidy ‘. Not perfect I know but it had some effect.
And it’s not a leftist point of view that stopped people taking responsibility. It is the liberal concept of non interference in society that Tories, back in the 80s, even denied the existence of. Tories who for months have expected a rational response in a concerted manner by the very society they chose to discount as existing.
Common purpose seldom exists without some instruction and some interference with people and their daily lives. Try driving on the wrong side of the road and you will quickly suffer the consequences of ignoring the apparently, in this silly example, acceptable interference in society.
My belief in this subject is to keep it simple. I don’t disagree with your comments only that if we keep the politics to one side, the message would not get lost. This avoids the screamers and fanatics taking up any space.
Over decades I have seen this problem develop and it’s why I suggest the solution is with teachers. Not grinding away at Climate Change or Global Warming but more of a word in passing for reachable youngsters. That has more lasting impact than any (I pinch a quote) Swedish Eco Goblin.
I made the political point in rebuttal of the lefty responsibility stated by the author.
I too consider that large P politics have no place in clearing and then preventing idiotic littering. Nor within many other activities either. I rebutted. It is not that I want to politicise matters.
By the way, I’m certain that we had a Swedish Eco Goblin vacuum cleaner back in the 70s. Streamlined design but it did the job.
Chris, I’ve just agreed with you on leftist/rightist in your earlier comment. But now you’ve spoilt it by suggesting only the Tories ever backed liberal concepts.
And if you are also saying that Tories don’t support the concept of society based on that interview that Thatcher did for Women’s Own (where btw she was mostly discussing children and families) then you ought to read the whole interview and put things fully into context.
Okay, ‘some types often Tories.’
Stereotypes not being permitted anymore.
As for the society part. There are many other interviews with party hi ups from that time, espousing the same themes. Community was another denied concept if memory serves. Remember being told to get on your bike to find work. That caused transience and eventual fracture of communities because people then moved house to save ‘ biking it ‘.
I’m in the middle by the way. Some of Mrs Ts reign was fine by me. Just as Uncle Tony did some things that I could never agree with.
Party politics are toxic in a democracy. They too often
serve to support the politicians and not the electorate.
Do away with party politics, and you do away with free assembly.
You don’t get a lot of free assembly in one party states that nonetheless seem to require their politicians to follow the party line, regardless.
Party politics. It’s a game played by those at the top, to remain there. Free assembly or not.
Unions do it.
Bosses do it.
Top media people do it.
Generals do it.
They all do it within their specialities.
You’re not addressing my point.
I did, in fact. You don’t get much free assembly in one party states. It is the party in power that plays party politics internally to retain control.
Multiple party states also do that with the advantage of accusing other parties of foolish plans or past activity to retain power.
If the politics coincide with voters needs then okay. But too often they don’t. If every decision was beneficial and wise then the voters might well re-elect one party over and again. Free assembly or not.
Thanks for taking the trouble to deal with this notorious and tiresome canard.
Tiresome canard is posted in its entirety above. I didn’t post the tiresome canards of others in agreement an in support of the concept.
“Tiresome canard is posted in its entirety above. I didn’t post the tiresome canards of others in agreement an in support of the concept.”
I don’t understand what this means.
Whole interview. ” I think we have been through a period when too many people have been given to understand that when they have a problem it is government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant. I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They are casting their problems on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no governments can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours. People have got their entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There is no such thing as an entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”
As I’ve posted elsewhere. She wasn’t as bad as she was painted.
I won’t waste time with multiple quotes in a similar vein from Sir Keith Joseph, her guru. Or those party faithful that verbally cut and pasted these and similar thoughts regarding the lack of society’s existence.
It might equally be noted just how many in business have expected, after years of profit taking, exactly the same concessions from government.
The old single use carrier bags were great for taking home greasy, mayonaise-y, tomato-y containers and leaking opened pop and beer bottles.
Did good intentions add to some of this mass littering?
I will use a bag for life to carry stuff away but it has to be cleaned afterwards.
Some might not want that bother.
Some are just stupid, I guess.
CCTV on ch5 ‘program[‘The Secret world of our rubbish” Only CCTV can take car numbers and council investigators find a bill or Company heading to trace perpetrator/s unfortunately times we live in.Two Generations with No pride in UK or their local area shows result,A generation obsessed with ‘Selfies” ”Unreality TV” and Social media.I dont want to condemn all….
Gerry, we have had education in schools about the environment and litter for years, so those that are littering have been through the system. It does not seem to work. Somehow a brain of a young person seems to change about the age of 13, from being a sensible citizen to a ‘don’t care about anyone except me’. That continues till about 40 when they change back again and it is those over 40’s who are now the litter pickers.
In Paris about a mile up river from Gustave Eiffel’s tower stood the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The height of its towers was 69 metres. In 1884 Eiffel raise his spire 324 metres. And contemporaneously, Nietzsche pronounced the death of god. For the herd that was convincing -the Science god was more powerful by far than the Christian. Their religion, the worship of power, is just that elementary (elemental). However, since Hiroshima and advancing ecocide it has become ever more apparent that much worse than a “god that failed”, Science has all along been a faustian bargain, leading not to salvation but Nihil.
Denying, rejecting one’s cultural heritage is equivalent to denying biological and familial heritage, -emasculation, impoverishment of the self. Throw out hellenic Jesus, and you lose all of Western art and philosophy, the identity/soul of Western Civilization. And that is very clearly what is happening. Homer and the Bible, along with Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, Bach, …, is no longer handed on generation to generation. In its place we have post-modernism, -the end of art, music and philosophy….?
Agreed
Sarah may regret going into journalism, but I am glad that she did. Her columns are always a stimulating read. If she had to do it all over again, would she have gone into PR, like her friend?
What she said about how poorly paid journalists are, even at the national level, made me think of a conversation with a friend at an Ottawa pub about five years back. I was furious when a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation news host had obviously confused actual monthly growth rates in real GDP with annualized rates, sniffing at the June 2015 monthly growth rate as pathetic, when converted to an annualized rate it was truly stellar. I wrote her what I thought was a lucid explanation on LinkedIn. I never received an acknowledgement. The next month there was a similar growth rate posted for July, and the same sniffy dismissal from the news host. My friend said that I had to face up to reality. Nobody at the CBC got paid like Peter Mansbridge anymore. Their journos had high name recognition all over the country but weren’t all that well-paid. If she had bothered to read what I had written she probably didn’t understand it, but on her pay why would I expect her to be a rocket scientist? Perhaps what is really remarkable is how many good journos there still are, lucid, competent and ethical.
It’s an interesting point that no one on very much above the high average, has to be able to do their jobs properly anymore. Or am I conflating?
However, it appears endemic in most endeavours these days. Populism started in the media and entertainment then the internet and soon extended it’s hand to news, documentaries and politics.
I fail to see that this is a party political issue. I live in an area where a poodle will get elected if it wears a blue rosette yet the level of litter is as bad as anywhere.
The idea of shaming is attractive but also some harder hitting adverts in various areas of the media.
Some years ago I was in the south of Chile and noticed that there seemed to be more people than I would have expected who suffered from cerebral palsy. Across all age levels. When I enquired as to why it was suggested that this was a direct result of mineral companies paying corrupt politicians to look the other way while they dumped their toxic rubbish where it could get into the water table. I have no way of checking this out but it does seem plausible. The attitude that of we don’t want it, we throw it away anywhere is to blame.
Can anyone tell me why some masks are designated as single use? Why can they not be either washed or dampened and microwaved or simply dried for some time and reused? There is probably a simple explanation.
Right at the beginning the government stated that single use could be washed three times. There again, I’ve been using the same charcoal lined dust mask for three or more years with infrequent washes but it’s to stop me breathing dust, I know, but I am certain it would also stop me breathing out droplets on others even at close range. And that is the point of the mask in public.
I live in a semi-rural area and by Bypass there motorists leave their rubbish,fastfood cartons etc and Flytipping. The Council seems oblivious to the pertinent fact, Building bypasses takes trade away from Villages,Small towns and makes ‘Flytipping’ easier.Only bankrupting these ‘Cowboys’ &more CCTV would help deter these idiots. The hypocrisy a fair proportion of these dumpers Are ”concerned with environments” but dump rubbish in Parks,after a Music festival or picnic!..
I think leaders know very well that the life death relationship underpins every decision they make. Consequently they perfectly well know that every decision is a trade off. This is why they age so quickly as leaders.
The real question is whether others can cope with freedom. Do others deeply appreciate that every decision is underpinned by the life death relationship, from eating meat, eating vegetables to the imports that contribute towards climate change and biodiversity loss.
The difference between leaders and others is that leaders can’t afford to be in denial, whereas others can. A leader needs to take into account all possibilities and all trade offs, whilst others are given the luxury to deny what makes them feel uncomfortable.
The hardest job for any leader is dealing with the expectations of others, expectations that are often rooted in denial. Thus, many criticisms of leaders are actually rooted in denial, which of course is impossible to manage.
Slightly off-topic, I know, but how did the police solve crime before CCTV and DNA? These seem to be the only tools they use now.
The one thing the new breed of campers demonstrate is that for them, leisure; wherever it takes place; is primarily about consuming booze and food, listening to (mostly crap) music, and pestering the opposite sex if available. It’ll be far better for all concerned next year when (hopefully) the festival season resumes, holidays to the Costas once again become practical, and they leave the Lake District, Peak District, Snowdonia and Scotland in peace. And yes, I am a snob.
‘ The idea that a social problem might be wholly the fault of those perpetrating it is now alien to the Leftist mindset. ‘
I seem to often have a leftist mindset and yet I pretty much agree with the other sentiments in the article.
Given that; when will ‘faction think’ among those with influence cease in favour of common purpose and action?
And given a preponderance of right leaning governance over the last 60 years, how is it possible that only left leaning people can be a cause?
And lastly. Perhaps to defeat part of my argument. Would the proposed monitoring, only shame those with left leaning tendencies?
Yes, we use the terms leftist and right-wing far too easily. I think the author was attempting to link this mind-set with his statement that people expect the government to spend to stop problems (eg on campaigns, education, litter bins) and so in his mind this is leftist.
Of course not all government spending is leftist or rightist. It’s just necessary in a decent society. After all he also suggests spending on some sort of policing … which is I suppose more rightist in his thinking.
What perhaps he should have said is that we have, as a society, taken individualism to such an extreme that we no longer think of others because the space taken up in our minds with “me” has grown so large that it almost excludes “us” and “them”. Without this space for us and them, shaming isn’t going to work. It’s probably why it stopped working in the first place.
But more Policing in general is contrary to right wing and liberal thinking or police numbers would not have been cut. Perhaps left wingers would want Police but under their closer control, I don’t have all the answers on that.
I also agree with the individual part of your post.
Without common ground, common basic education, common rules, how does anyone break out into individualism, safely and with comprehension of the increased responsibilities they take on?
To try to explain. I was permitted tacitly, to drive at 90 or more in 30 limits. Without the modern technology to assist. I took a common training course and exams to become qualified and permitted.
How I behaved on our roads after that required greater taking of responsibility than others, it being beyond the norm. The chasing of bad guys in cars became in comparison, individualistic but the responsibilities actually increased.
Considering the high number of two Range Rover households and similarly, other high value cars and homes, it is unlikely that the odd van driver is dumping the McD bags in the lanes entering the large village where I live. (And no, I don’t do badly so no axe to grind. Even my 81 year old dad drives a Jeep SRT with 500bhp).
Daddy, perhaps mummy too are virtue signalling their red wine and tofu diets while hitting the drive through on the fast race home and then disposing of the evidence.
After all, who wants fast food bags to stink up the Range Rover for the extra minutes it takes to get home and put it in the recycling?
Have you carried out a survey that indicates that Range Rover owners – and particularly families with two Rangies – are significantly more likely to be litterers? In fact, given the visual evidence following XR demonstrations in London and elsewhere, even those who prate loudest about environmental issues are more than happy to leave others to clean up their left-behind mess.
No but seldom traveling at late rush hour. In the last month, two RRs and a five series BMW have all done it in front of me or my daughter in just August. Usually along the 30 limit straight, next to a country park that is kept pristine by volunteers who report similarly.
By the way the nearest McDs is about 10 miles away.
And just for comparison, both of my van driving mates’ vans usually have several food wrappers and drink containers in the passenger footwell. And a recycling bin that displays better behaviour than I have seen in of course, some wealthier others.
Which is not scientific. But you know, if it barks like a duck … etc.
P.S. Which Rangy have you got?
I wouldn’t excuse any litterers, whatever their wheels. However, it is almost certainly the case that offenders come from a wide range of demographics.
My point exactly. Where I live, in a tiny town with an 1100+ years old market charter, the demographics swerve most certainly towards the millionaire type and those not far off. A fallen down bungalow near the obligatory village styled industrial units just sold for over 600k for example and we’re nowhere near a metropolis.
So if demographics lean greatly toward the twin Range Rover family and everyone is equal in littering, then without dammed statistics, simple maths displays that the wealthy are those, doing it here by far.
Now don’t get me wrong. They probably don’t litter. I don’t know. Never saw it happen. A guy tore down his large and already expensive house then rebuilt it then the office and garage. He keeps two E. Types, early 60s models, in the heated and air-conditioned garage. Guess the age, models and brand of the two cars he has on the drive?
These are my neighbours in general. So why are they less likely to be the local litterers than poorer non RR or other expensive car owners who don’t live or have a need to travel here on their ways home from work?
I become worried when shaming becomes the solution. Being of a certain age and being Irish, I spent my early years living with the shaming ethos of the Roman Catholic church. I spent my early adult years fighting against it. Behind all that shaming was an institution that actively hid it’s abusers. To shame seems to have become the go to response when other people simply don’t agree with you or to value the things you value. Behind it hides the darkness of intolerance.
I kind of agree and comiserate.
Perhaps society now needs a sort of database with Pro and Con, for every one.
Do good get a tick. Do bad get a cross and have the cost in monetary terms against the name.
Make it a public record.
See how well idiots fare in promotion at work, in applying for finance etc. if they owe money for unpaid stupidity.
Kind of an account without direct fines. After all if I decide to take out a mortgage I decide to abide by the rules and suffer consequences if I don’t.
Much of this misbehaving is by similar choice, they decide. Shouldn’t there be a similar cost?
The Chinese are already doing this with their social credit system, and the rest of the world finds it extremely sinister, which it is.
I can see the temptation though.
I didn’t know that. Thanks. But surely a similar and transparent system might make some people better behaved or eventually pay what, let’s say, their police car chases from 1998, actually cost or do good deeds instead of profiting from virtue signaling, alone?
We appear to dispise lottery winners who have histories as bad lads so let’s keep accounts and when ex villains in general, want to play fair, and live with those that they injured, caused expense etc. they can be presented with the bill and made to live at a level their actions have cost them.
Poor behaviour, recidivism, criminality are often choices. If I choose an item off the shelf then it costs me. Why not them?
Sorry, but the scale of intrusion into private life which you’re proposing is completely unconscionable.
But the criminal remains free of intrusion into their private life and needs not pay the financial cost of their choices even when they fall in line and then spend money that they cost others due to their choices.
Try refusing to pay your rent having chosen to contact to do so.
Is the landlord unfair to intrude into your private life?
Make a choice. Pay the cost if you ever have the cash. Why not? That’s how almost everything else works.
You’re not following the dialectic of this conversation.
And you won’t view parralel similarity in the good grace that it was offered.
Make a choice, pay the cost. It’s universal. They keep accounts to ensure that I pay, why not the same for the criminal when he can eventually afford it?
You appear to believe that a criminal needs face no financial consequences for his choices but everyone else must.
Surely the abusers here are the litterers and the ‘victims’ are the rest of us who find it objectionable that garbage is sprayed around the place.
Shaming litterers might or might not be effective, but first you would have to catch them. And, like vandals, fly tippers and graffitists, they almost never are caught, let alone prosecuted and punished. This is not an opinion it is demonstrable fact. However, there is evidence that if vandalism, litter, fly tipping and graffiti is removed quickly then the incidence of this form of anti-social activity can be reduced. Of course, this usually has to be done at public expense, at least in public areas, but that is part of the price to be paid for a civilised environment. None of which is to say that offenders who are caught should not be made an example of to discourage others.
Given my time again, I would not join the Seattle Police Department for a quarter a million starting pay. I would prefer cleaning bathrooms at Boeing . . . good union job. <g>
Barkham and Monbiot are the main culprits here who want the Right to Roam extended to private estates etc. Countryside despoilation obviously denigrates their argument so rather than blame the anti-ecological behaviour of city folk, blame the Tory government instead. This obviously serves the dual purpose of energising their ‘incompetence narrative’ that has become the latest Leftie attack line.
My feeling is that the Left are becoming so disconnected from reality that the only way they can bridge their cognitive dissonance is to always blame a fictious Oppressor. They certainly won’t be blaming the public, as they want their votes.
I honestly don’t think their is a way of breaching the cognitive dissonance and blame shifting of the Left and just hope that people will see that civic responsibility is what binds communities, not the constant nannying State.
This however hasn’t stop me embracing my inner radical, which is deep green to the core. For me, only ecocentrism provides the solutions to our many human problems.
If litter louts were ecocentric rather than anthropocentric, then they would know that despoiling Nature is a purely selfish anthropocentric act.
As a lifelong atheist I cannot see the point of belief in God but I recognise that the Church has played an important part in establishing the society we have today. It played a big role in our lives and perhaps reflected our values and beliefs rather than determining what they should be. However, in recent years the Church of England and now the latest Pope seem to have given up on traditions and are moving with the times. If there is a God he will be preparing a place in hell for quite a few church leaders.
I would agree that ‘religiosity is growing weirder and more vigorous’. I am astounded that a population which seems to think that worshipping God in church is irrelevant in this age becomes extremely emotional and sentimental at the drop of a hat, leaving acres of flowers wrapped in plastic on the street, or treating the remains of a dead person reverentially, when the spirit has left it and it is now dust and ashes.
And when you refer to sects or mobs, or whatever, ‘whose members are willing to risk death for their cause’, I think you’ll find that it is generally the deaths of their opponents rather than their own which they are willing to risk. At least that is wholly consistent with the past.
It’s a shame this common sense article doesn’t get more comments.
Very nice opinion piece and raises poignant questions about our latest brand of female empowerment. Why is it that we see liberation or empowerment of women when it comes to sexuality, yet there are hardly any women as heads of states, members of boards, I’d say because it suits a male agenda perfectly well
of course do not mean to condemn males as such, both genders are responsible for shaping the world we live in
This is a very good article, that does not concern itself with the used “victim” category in this context. It is a good good question if the sexual liberation movement was really a benefit to women. As far as I have been informed the social standards before said revolution had restraints on both sides which could also been seen as some level of protection for women. Feminism and the sexual liberation movement had a different focus and encouraged women to behave just like men and be or at lest feel totally liberated. The result is very well described in this opinion.
Should this be a concern? Would any Feminist propose a new and different standard which could be positive to both sexes in the form of some restraint? I don’t think so. First of all such a stance would need the acceptance of biological differences and this would not go well with current gender theory which denies any biological difference between humans. Gender is just a social construct. The logical objective of the supporters of sexual liberation would rather be the continuous demonizing of men as evil predators harming the poor female victims and thereby uniting women in “Us vs. Them”. No, I truly believe, that this part of Pandoras Box will never be closed again.
Every woman can and must decide for herself what she wants to do with her life, how she wants to live and which priorities she sets. That is what equality is about. Decide what you want, do it and live with the results of your choices just like any man has to.
Strange that you focus on litter, the pressing problem for the planet is not local litter but globalisation running away from tough environmental laws in order to work under simple laws which give them lots of scope for dumping their waste wherever, the US auto company in Mexico for example.
Plastic, created by big companies and allowed by governments, have poisoned our seas. Nano plastics cannot be filtered out of the water and so this is the much greater question that needs addressing a lot sooner than the few zombies that litter the countryside. If people were properly educated we would be focussed on this type of education and not just improving the bottom line till all our raw materials have been depleted.
Both can be a subject for concern at the same time…
“Strange that you focus on litter, the pressing problem for the planet is not local litter but globalisation”
We think it’s right to prosecute rape even though murder is more pressing.