Harris is a complete piss taker. No college education. Minister for Health when it looks like a gust of wind would give him rickets and the consumption. Minister for Justice when you wouldnât have him oversee whether the sky is blue. And now to top it all off heâs over Further Education. Make it make sense.
You wont be saying that if the shinners get in.
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Norma Foley
Anti-social behaviour in Ireland today, particularly in areas such as Ballyfermot/Cherry Orchard, is much less to do with any genuine lack of opportunity in society today and much more to do with a drop out culture of wanton anti-intellectualism and rejection of opportunity, a culture which is spread widely through contemporary popular culture and the internet.
Itâs obviously a bit more complicated and layered than this on the whole, but there is a central truth there that opportunity is wantonly and widely rejected.
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Would you say that parents there are the vessel for that?
Some of them are, undoubtedly. Peer group pressure is another factor.
A lot of those parents would have come from a background where they genuinely were denied the opportunity of advancement compared to much of the rest of society. Third level would have been pretty much off limits to them.
That isnât really the case now. But my impression is that at second level, that imbalance does still persist, so maybe Iâm arguing against my own earlier point.
The entry of heroin into these communities was an utter disaster with permanent disastrous implications.
I think it was that historian chap Brian something or other (his surname escapes me at this moment) who noted that thereâs a great Irish book to written about the entry of heroin to Ireland in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
I also have a belief that what is now perceived as working class culture was to a large extent an astro-turf, top down imposition by the wealthy upper classes, particularly in England, and particularly by Rupert Murdoch. The thing the upper classes were always most afraid of was working class education, so they created an anti-intellectual tabloid culture which masqueraded as working class culture, which sought to destroy any sort of class solidarity and instead turn people into docile, individualistic drop outs.
Tabloid culture has morphed into modern day internet driven conspiracy culture. This now seems to be rife in areas like Ballyfermot or East Wall etc.
I donât think the rhetoric of the likes of People Before Profit which essentially says âthereâs always somebody else to blame for your troublesâ (PBP etc always focus on the government or banks etc.in this regard) has helped either, because it tells people they have no agency at all. This rhetoric inadvertantly leads people who are taught to believe they have no agency into being fodder for the far right and crank conspiracy culture in general.
Popular culture has long glamourised drop out culture. This goes back to the 60s. But I think you saw a departure somewhere in the late 80s. The popular music culture up until about the mid to late 80s was very political and sought to teach young people about the world in an intelligent way, but the acid house boom of the 80s largely removed politics from music.
1990s popular culture became explicitly anti-intellectual, the music, the television. Oasis embraced a sort of quasi-thuggishness. There was âlad cultureâ, shows like Men Behaving Badly promoted ignorance and stupidity. Hip hop seemed to largely transform from a very intelligent art form which sought to explain the world into a glorification of gangsta culture and guns and money and fucking hoes.
The slow ramp up of pervasive negativity in the western world from the early 2000s on reached a crescendo during the 2010s. Conor McGregor was perceived as the true representation of working class culture. But Conor McGregor was and is a thug who promotes the values of criminality and individualism and pure vulgarity.
The desire to acquire conspicuous wealth with the least effort and least legitimate effort has become a cancer in traditional working class communities. It leads to criminality. Criminality leads to a general culture of drop outism, rejection of society and rejecting anything to do with real knowledge.
This analysis largely applies to Ireland, not to Britain or the US, because the opportunities for people growing up in areas like Ballyfermot are definitely greater than opportunities for people growing up in total shitholes like Jaywick in Essex or much of the US, where opportunity really is pretty much completely cut off.
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Itâs worse now with crack and it doesnât seem to be getting any attention.
Maybe itâs because Iâm becoming a curmudgeon, but I do believe the preponderance of distractions available to impressionable humans is beginning to unravel the fabric of society.
Those distractions are drugs, porn, online gambling, and the whole gamut of crank conspiracy culture, the whole anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine, anti-gubmint, blame immigrants, blame everybody else culture.
There was an article posted recently about Tik Tok being a Chinese superweapon. Iâm not sure if I fully buy into that, but I get the argument. These new toys we have are incredibly addictive and destroy lives, and/or spread crazy beliefs throughout society.
I also think it is a negative for society that marriage is becoming less of a thing, or a more disposable thing. And thatâs absolutely not an argument to ban divorce or anything like that.
Itâs just to say that itâs harder for single parents and itâs also harder to raise children well when both parents have to work.
Its like that Unambomber lad said. âTechnology will destroy the world.â
If you grow up as a kid with 2 unemployed parents, one or both of which is heavily involved in drugs, you have a very small chance of growing up to be a productive member of society. Thereâs a sizeable number of people who fall into that category in the areas you mentioned there. Thatâs got fuck all to do with the internet or conspiracy theories.
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The INTERNET and conspiracy cranks are responsible for the current wave of anti-refugee and anti-immigrant bullshit, which is inherently tied in with anti-social behaviour and thuggery.
When you teach people they have no agency, right wing cranks will fill the vacuum and tell people who have been taught to believe they have no agency, that all of their problems are caused by immigrants.
And those who believe the idea they have no agency will believe them, because they do not have the critical tools to decipher reality from fiction.
The INTERNET and conspiracy cranks are responsible for Trumpism and QAnon and anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine and anti-15 minute cities and all the other bullshit.
All of that is inherently tied in with anti-social behaviour and the rejection of any agency other than kicking down on somebody weaker than you.
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Its taken a few years of educating but Sid is finally joinjng the ranks of common sense conservative 
welcome to the silent majority
Iâm not a conservative. People Before Profit are correct in pointing out the absolute fucknuttery that has gone on at government level over the years as regards policy and banks etc. They also donât target immigrants and they were largely correct about the need for lockdowns and they were pro-vaccines.
They have a problem as regards being utterly deluded as for the reasons for why Russiaâs barbaric war against Ukraine happened, but at least they donât target Ukrainian immigrants and seek to protect them.
People Before Profit are correct that working class communities deserve investment, any investment they can get.
The problem comes when you teach people they have no agency at all, which, ultimately they do teach, because they are a protest party.
This then morphs, or seriously risks morphing, into anti-government sentiment. Not legitimate policy driven criticism of government, but generalised, mindless, anti-gubmint, anti-âsystemâ conspiracist bullshit of the sort that pervades in online far right circles.
The far right also tells people they have no agency. The far right channels that promotion of a lack of agency into a retreat into fantasy, and desperately searches for anything they can kick down on and rejects everything other than a retreat into a batshit world of fantasy.
In terms of criminality, ie. drugs gangs, organised crime, the overriding ideology at the heart of that is a deeply individualistic right wing one.
The desire is conspicuous material wealth and mindless hedonism and the drive is to acquire it by any means necessary, with the least amount of effort possible, and no matter what damage to society and your own area you do in the process. Utter rejection of the âsystemâ.
A lot to unpack in that post but i agree with the above. As regards the rest, the hard left is just as guilty as the hard right i think. We are the guinea pigs for the internet age. It will be viewed as the smoking is healthy era in 50 years time, unfair comparisons to the jones, entrenched opinions and theories echoed and enhanced online. As a society we dont know how to interact civilly or rationally. It might take the horror of wars to correct that.
Is this your work Cheasty?
Great stuff
The thing is, Ireland doesnât have any concept of poverty on a UK scale. Of pure, food bank desperation and a lot worse. The Irish âworking classâ (whatever that means) are still globally a very privileged group, with huge opportunities compared to most. Ireland is nirvana compared to swathes of even England.
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I was writing a big 1000 word post about the psychological processes by which people think of themselves as deprived and disadvantaged, but, to be honest, I was rambling off in tangents everywhere, and youâd need a 10,000 word post to try and properly explain all this stuff and weave different themes together.
Iâll say this though. I think there is a deep and unhealthy psychological need for people as âgroupsâ to feel superior to other âgroupsâ.
Saying to people âon a world scale youâre actually quite privilegedâ, while it may be true, fails to understand the criteria by which people measure their worth or privilege. People do not think on a world scale. They think on a more local scale and if they perceive other people doing better than them, they get angry. Especially in an information environment where there is an active worldwide strategy by the global right wing to generate mindless and highly dangerous anger.
The less well off in Ireland today are still a privileged group in global terms, and as a whole they are better off than their counterparts in the UK and US. They have more opportunity as a whole, that is true.
But politics and generation of group opinion doesnât really work like that. We donât think in global terms.
Me personally, when I think of my health, I donât think, âIâm lucky, I could be in the slums of Bangladesh with no access to healthcare and I could be completely blindâ, I think, âI want my fucking eyesight back exactly the way it was!â And Iâm angry and bitter about my eyesight. I feel cheated.
Both People Before Profit and the far right deliberately generate anger. Anger makes you feel cheated.
People Before Profit say âyou are a victimised community, you have almost no agency, blame the government and the banks and the Gardai and the âsystemâ. And use what little agency you have to vote for us.â While People Before Profitâs generation of anger is sort of vague and theyâre willing to spin things to suit their narrative, they at least vaguely kick up. You donât have to like People Before Profit but the outcome of people voting for People Before Profit isnât going to be terrible. Youâll get some shouty TDs, a vague âkick upwardsâ ideology and some naĂŻve kumbayas.
The far right say âyou are a victimised community, you have no agency except to reject the entire system, reject reality, reject facts, to retreat into total fantasy, and most of all to blame the people who are REALLY responsible for all your problems â refugees! You are stronger than refugees as a group â the way to power and self respect is to mobilise as a group and assert your dominance over refugees!â
This leads to pogroms and terrible outcomes, and it wonât lead to self respect. And people can deny all they like that theyâre far right, but they are participating in something in which the far right are the ringleaders and where the far right holds the power and openly agitates for things where history tells us the outcome will be fucking terrible.
Sadly experience tells us the far rightâs âmessageâ tends to be more effective than People Before Profitâs message. Itâs an easier sell because the target is easier. Itâs way more difficult to kick up than to kick down.
Anger is a fertile breeding ground for kicking down on those weaker than you.
Our whole information system is now based on anger and the creation of a war of all against all. It is overwhelmingly the global right wing and far right wing who leading that charge, because it benefits them. Divide and conquer. Kick down on trans people, on refugees, on Travellers.
The far rightâs idea of âkicking upâ is to kick against reason and reality. They are in alliance with some of the most powerful and dangerous people in the world in this â actual elites who control disreputable media and disreputable politics and are in a loose alliance of trans national crime. Trump, Murdoch, Musk, Putin, Orban, Brexiteers, climate crisis deniers, anti-vaxxers.
Kicking up against, say, drugs gangs, is so much harder, and so much more dangerous to your health, because drugs gangs hate when ordinary people kick back against them. So itâs easier to psychologically throw yourself into an abusive relationship with gangs where you think theyâre the little people who represent your community, the Robin Hoods, when in reality theyâre vultures. And to instead blame the Gardai.
Giving up and saying you have no opportunity because the entire system is totally rigged against you when it isnât and thatâs just the way it is, thatâs easier than getting involved and pointing out the faults of the system and advocating for positive change. Itâs harder to get involved and ask âwhy isnât the school funding model changed so that schools in underachieving areas are targetted for more funding to bring the standard up.â
Our disastrous modern information eco-system prioritises the needs of those who shout, those who viciously target others. It is overwhelmingly the global populist right wing and far right who benefit from this. Their âmessageâ is about sensationalism and demagoguery and mindless dopamine hits, about whipping up mob rule.
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All a commentator needs to be is not annoying or useless. After that I couldnât give a fuck. Some of them are vastly overrated
Most charities are a complete and utter fraud
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