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Captives of fear?
My father used to say that the country is going to the dogs.
You knew, the instant there were stories in the media about young
people rioting, students protesting, graffiti on the rise or any un-
public-minded act, he would unfailingly repeat his mantra.
Sometimes I would argue with him: what kind of golden age was he
harking back to? Things were not so great when he was young. Not
only did he live through two world wars, but he was born into
poverty, grew up in an immigrant family in London’s East End, lost
his father at an early age. His pessimism, to me, was part of his
disappointment in life, and also his fear of society changing,
particularly as he grew older.
I would then go on to cite my own youth with its threat of the
hydrogen bomb, its hypocrisy about birth control, cohabiting and
abortion; its blatant sexism. I remembered that when I was a rather
junior staff member on women’s magazines, a photo of Marilyn Monroe
was retouched so as to reveal less of her cleavage. I recalled
subediting a feature on breast lumps and being told not to mention
the word ‘cancer’. Once, as a journalist, I observed a session at a
clinic for sexually transmitted diseases. The doctor, after
examining a young girl who came in complaining of abdominal cramps
and bleeding, said to me, ‘knitting needles’ – a do-it-yourself
attempt at abortion. No, that didn’t get into the magazine feature
when I wrote it up.
So much for those good old days.
But now I wonder sometimes if my father was right. Are we
going through some kind of moral decline? Binge drinking is up. Road
rage is a new phenomenon. Casual violence is reported daily. People
are more impatient, less polite than they used to be.
That, at any rate, is the public perception.
But then I begin to wonder, am I, too, a captive of fear? I
think of those accounts in Dickens of inner city depravity, of
Hogarth’s engravings of gin drinkers. Weren’t they binge drinkers of
the nineteenth century variety? I think of my own experiences of
censorship – as above - in women’s magazines in the fifties and
sixties. Media cover-up rather than coverage.
Today, there’s not much cover up (literally as well as
metaphorically). We are bombarded in the media with visions of a
scantily-dressed young female generation as well as crimes of
violence or public disorder. Less hypocrisy then, but more
sensationalism. You could argue that the high reporting of
anti-social behaviour is a reflection of our intolerance of such
crimes, not merely a way to satisfy a voyeuristic readership and to
sell papers.
Mervyn Kohler, Head of Public Affairs at Help the Aged recently
said, "No matter if crime is rising or falling, media and
politicians alike unwittingly heighten older people's fear of crime
by hyping its scale or playing the blame game. Fear of crime strips
away older people's confidence to live independent and active lives,
and it is the duty of all politicians and public commentators to
discuss the issue sensibly and responsibly.”
It’s worth remembering that older people are at much lower risk
from crime than younger people, though older victims are
disproportionately used in the media to illustrate the perceived
breakdown in law and order, presumably for the shock-horror effect.
But maybe the times are changing, or we have got it all wrong.
A recent survey for Channel 4 compared current 15-24 year olds to
those interviewed in a study ten years ago, in 1995, asking the same
questions to 1000 young adults. Today’s young people think that life
is more than clubbing and binge drinking. In 1995, 39% of young
people said they often went out intending to get drunk. The figure
today is 30%. In 1995, 40% said they never wanted to get tied down
with lots of responsibility. The figure in 2005 is 21%.
It’s not all rosy. There is still a minority that wants to make
trouble, and that’s the section we hear about. But there has
always been a younger generation prepared to shock an older one in
whatever way it can.
We need strong responses to counteract anti-social behaviour.
Fear, however, isn’t one of them.
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Talkback is a
regular feature in laterlife.com run by
journalist and author Helen Franks. 
