It would never have happened to Smeaton...

Why the riots?

It's a difficult question, and the popular stance seems to be that there's no reason beyond greed; these kids are out to take advantage of the lawlessness, and loot some free stuff. I'm not so sure it's that simple. Nothing can excuse the behaviour we've seen in London and other cities these last few nights but it's highlighting a problem we've been facing for years now. The disenfranchised youth.

We can see it on programs like Jamie Oliver's Dream School, endless episodes of Police Interceptors or any number of documentaries. Britain has a serious problem with a disenchanted, disrespectful and over-entitled youth. How many times have we heard the mantra 'but you don't respect us' in defence of misbehaviour? The assumption from the perpetrators is that they have the right to what they want and their view of things has to be taken at least as seriously as anything opposing it.

I seriously suspect that the seeds of this recent situation go back decades. As a society we've been taught that you're not barred from anything - you can become a billionaire from nothing with just a good idea and the right way of getting it out there. This aspirational element to western, capitalist, economics is central. Yet we increasingly shy away from the truth behind this - not every idea can make it. The vast, vast, majority of attempts fail. Entrepreneurial spirit isn't about having a good idea and pursuing it - it's about having lots of good ideas and keeping to have and chase them until one or two of them make money. We're given this rosy image of everyone coming up with these great ideas and making millions, when, in reality someone's still got to empty the bins and serve the food that these great ideas rely on.

It's not always profitable to be honest about the things you're selling...

And it's not just economic systems we're being sold - it's aspiration. I refer you to Pop Idol, X-Factor, the Glee Project, So You Think You Can Dance, and yes, Dragon's Den. Popular culture is full of the message that we can all become pop-stars and successful business people. It's not surprising - people like to imagine themselves as successful, famous, important. It's nothing new, but the sheer exposure we have to the myth of everyone having everything they want is frightening.

Furthermore, as a nation we have pride in our many socialist ideals - medical care free at the point of delivery, the welfare state, free schooling etc. We're very good at the rhetoric that whilst we should push for innovation and progress, we shouldn't leave anyone behind. This is perfectly reasonable - it might get us into a few sticky spots when it comes to financing said ideals, but this re-investment into society is central to holding an otherwise greed-driven economy together. We've seen the advent of 'Political Correctness' come in as a much-needed, though often-derided measure to become a more inclusive society. In schools across the country the term 'failure' has been outlawed - guidelines now state that a pupil (sorry, colleague in learning) doesn't fail - they 'defer success'. The life lesson of working really, really hard and still not getting what you want is left to some other entity to teach. This mightn't be altogether a 'bad' thing - the ideas and sentiments behind it all are noble enough - but the implementation is such that we get taught from a very young age that we don't fail, that we don't get things wrong, that the school is to blame if we get bored in classrooms and misbehave. The burden is on the system to engage with us, and not us with the system.

So, appeased out of any perceived failings and fed aspirations by the spadeful. Can you see where this is going?

Next, we have the great sledgehammer of reality bearing down on our rose-tinted glasses. Believe it or not, the it's difficult to be successful, and those that are have to fail a lot along the way. It's difficult to get what you want, because others all want it too.We can't all be pop-singers, just as much as we can't all be bin-men or all work in McDonalds. We've fed these kids the ideal that they're special and unique and they deserve. We then put them in a world where it's not perfect - people loose their jobs, people don't earn enough, people fail.

Are we so surprised that they're angry?

Maybe they don't see it like this, maybe it's not this at all - but when one sees a girl on TV defending the looting with the words 'but you don't respect us, so why should we respect you?', one may just consider the possibility that these kids are over-entitled, yet under-privileged and eventually this tips over into simply taking what they want.


tl;dr: If we hadn't told these kids that they could have anything they wanted, they'd probably not have gone and just taken it...