Old ADUK...oh dear

[Playtent]

You say that as if only the young live in the modern world and the older generations live in another time, only to pop out now and again to buy a paper and mutter to themselves about how much better it was in "their day".

The one thing that really gets my goat about young people is that I'm not one of them!

As you sit in your own home drawing a fat pension - must really piss you off.

I wish I was that old!

On another note, wisdom doesn't come with age. Wisdom comes from life experience which also doesn't come with age! So the question is, how do you accumulate wisdom and life experience?

[Strangely Brown]

And here is just how crazy the whole thing has become...

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14236195.Brighton_school_children_asked_to_choose_from_list_of_23_terms_to_describe_their_gender/

Is it any wonder that older generations look at the modern world and despair?

[fungus]

One of the problems with the written word, is that its meaning can be interpreted in more ways than the spoken word as there is no voice tone, which I accept will be a big problem for a profoundly deaf person like Insanity who relies on sign language. I would imagine that he also has to rely on facial expression to help interpret signed conversation, which is something that we with normal hearing all do to gain a more accurate interpretation. This luxury is lost when posting on an internet forum.

There is a definite difference in what a person of my age would be offended by, and what a younger person would find offensive.

Verbal abuse would have been termed as teasing back in the fifties and sixties when I was at school, and we were basically told to ignore it and get on with life. Today it is termed as bullying, which back then would refer to physical abuse, or assult if you prefer to call it that.

Nigel.

[fungus]

And here is just how crazy the whole thing has become...

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14236195.Brighton_school_children_asked_to_choose_from_list_of_23_terms_to_describe_their_gender/

Is it any wonder that older generations look at the modern world and despair?

I'm confused. And, it's not any wonder that older generations look at the modern world and dispair.

Most of this nonsense has been brought about by "campaigners" who, like politicians, have to be seen to be doing something, whether on not there's something that needs doing. If it aint broke, don't fix it I say.

Nigel.

[trashbat]

I don't post much any more, so you can freely ignore me, but my £0.02 worth of rambling is thus.

I find there's rarely such an unedifying spectacle as a group of comfortably-off, middle aged straight white men trying to play the arbiters of what people outside of that description should or shouldn't find offensive or significant. Especially so when the judgement that they arrive at is a negative.

If you are not yourself a member of some less privileged or minority group, and nor do you spend enough time close to those who are to be a workable proxy for them, then sorry, you're probably not remotely well placed to try and define what acceptable labels for those people are, or to tell them that their taking of offence is a matter of choice, or to claim that some campaign that relates to them more than it does you is nonsense, or whatever else it is you want to assert.

This much should be plainly obvious, and you shouldn't need real life members of said group to turn up and take offence in person to make it so.

[akirk]

Some interesting thoughts about age and views etc...
- as you get older your perspective and view on life changes
- I think there is no doubt that you need life experience and time / age to get the perspective an older person has
- however, what no-one has been able to define is which perspective is correct (that of youth / that of the older generation)
- perhaps in reality we need both, and therefore both are right?
- I think that when you are younger you need that perspective, without the optimism and energy, the self-belief and enthusiasm who would go forwards into life and build their life, their community, their society?
- But when you are older and a little more world-weary, perhaps a little more cynical and cautious, then those views help balance the raw energy of youth

so it is in having different views that actually as a society we benefit - it is why as someone who is 44 (and therefore at their peak and always right ) I enjoy spending time with teenagers / young twenties and seeing new and different perspectives, a belief that the world can and should change - but equally I enjoy spending time with those 20 years older and understanding their wisdom and views on life...

where I think that we (society) are possibly getting it wrong is where one group (whether majority, or increasingly minority) insists that to respect them as people everyone else must agree with their views - that is so wrong it is scary - to have that approach is hypocritical, it means that they don't respect in the other direction - but sadly we seem to have governments without the understanding to prevent that and increasingly unless you agree with a minority's views you are considered to be out of order - not so, you can respect their right to have their own views, without agreeing with them...

and surely that is a part of what we understand on here, when we talk about driving, yes there is established wisdom, but equally there can be many ways of achieving the same end - we respect each other and hopefully learn from a difference of views... so when it comes to discussions like the one above, we shouldn't be looking for agreement of views - simply respect for each other - which on the one hand can mean hearing something you are not comfortable with, but acknowledging that it is not directed personallly, and on the other, perhaps leaving something unsaid at times... Sadly with the medium in which we communicate that former is easier, the latter much harder as we don't know fully the people reading... However I think that actually we have a great balance on here so personally I would hope that we all carry on posting, sometimes making mistakes, but moving forward as a community...

Alasdair

[Playtent]

Most prejudice is born out of ignorance. Age generally makes you more set in your ways as opposed to experienced. My mom has a strong dislike for Americans as their all loud! She also dislikes Spanish people, thinks there's more 'gays' than there ever were and thinks paedophiles didn't exist when she was young as it was safe to play outside.

The reality is that she has met but a handful of American and Spanish people. Historic sex abuse cases show that it was just as prevalent then and maybe more so than it is now and homosexuality is more socially acceptable than it was 40 years ago so people are more confident in letting others know their preferences.

If you look around at the people who force these issues, is it the old and wise who think we need to legislate for everything or the young who live and let live? My son's school is multi-cultural and everyone knows who's gay and who's disabled because it's there to see every day. These are my sons friends, their not in a 'special school' somewhere, all segregated and kept together, whilst the 'normal' children stick together where anyone outside the mould is too scared to say anything. I dare say a 16 year old child has met more ethnic minorities, disabled and homosexuals than most the 50 year old people out there.

Most modern children have far more life experience around these issues than my mother's era had at the same age and frankly, probably still do.

[TheInsanity1234]

+1 to all of the last 3 posts.

ETA: In fact, I have no issue with people describing themselves with various different gender identities.

Speaking as part of the LGBT group, I will agree that sometimes the names and labels just get excessive, but the majority of people who are confused by their feelings will appreciate having a label that they can use to describe who they are as a person at that point in time.

Personally, I'm of the view that it doesn't affect your lives one iota, therefore, [hippy]just live, love and let them be.[/hippy]

[Horse]

Examples? Well, let's look at popular culture 'then' . . .
Alf Garnet
'Love thy neighbour'

Fantastic examples of anti-racist satire - only a thick lefty would see them as anything else. Far better than what we have these days, which seems to consist primarily of a few banned words.

You should go on YouTube and watch a few episodes of the above and prepare for a good laugh - it's quite obvious you've never actually watched them or, at least, not recently.

True, I've not watched them since they were aired. If they were satire or political comment, I wonder how many people missed that depth and just laughed?

[Gareth]

My son's school is multi-cultural and everyone knows who's gay and who's disabled because it's there to see every day.

My experience, from a parental point of view, is that children at school often haven't been socialised out of being cruel, will pick on any 'difference' mercilessly. You only need to look at prevalence of cutting or incidents of suicide to know this happens.


When I worked in Basingstoke, one of my colleagues was from Sweden. As a result my impression was that people from that country spoke very loudly. When I subsequently worked in Sweden, I found that wasn't so!