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How dare they?
I can't believe we got into an argument about this, my folks and I.
I just pointed out that a scientific study has discovered that psychopathic behaviour can be inherited among the young, meaning that kids can be born bad - thus blowing any legal argument that children are incapable of doing harm out of the water once and for all - and my folks asked why it was that their generation, growing up as they did during the middle of the last century, never had the sort of vicious behaviour we are plagued with today.
So they blamed me and mine - children of the 1960s/ 70s - for inventing murder, rape and suchlike.
So I told them simply, "Myra Hindley and Ian Brady the Moors Murderers - they were your generation. The kids they violated, then murdered? They were my generation."
Don't tell me we invented atrocities, when they were a generation whose Wise Leaders deliberately chose to suppress making news of the nazi death camps public: when their generation included the likes of Ed Gein, Ted Bundy and Dennis Nielsen.
God, how dare they? When my folks were growing up, slavery had been abolished ten minutes before, and they were still bloody banging the rocks together to make fire!
I just pointed out that a scientific study has discovered that psychopathic behaviour can be inherited among the young, meaning that kids can be born bad - thus blowing any legal argument that children are incapable of doing harm out of the water once and for all - and my folks asked why it was that their generation, growing up as they did during the middle of the last century, never had the sort of vicious behaviour we are plagued with today.
So they blamed me and mine - children of the 1960s/ 70s - for inventing murder, rape and suchlike.
So I told them simply, "Myra Hindley and Ian Brady the Moors Murderers - they were your generation. The kids they violated, then murdered? They were my generation."
Don't tell me we invented atrocities, when they were a generation whose Wise Leaders deliberately chose to suppress making news of the nazi death camps public: when their generation included the likes of Ed Gein, Ted Bundy and Dennis Nielsen.
God, how dare they? When my folks were growing up, slavery had been abolished ten minutes before, and they were still bloody banging the rocks together to make fire!
no subject
It does sometimes cross my mind (and as somebody who has never had or wanted children I don't feel able to be holier-than-thou about parenting) that my generation are, for the most part, the parents of these obnoxious little shits who go around 'happy slapping' people, assaulting teachers and roaming the streets in gangs, and it is tempting to conclude that parenting skills have something to do with it - although of course there are all sorts of other social factors that come into play.
I think most of what is broadly classed as 'anti-social behaviour' is a mixture of nature and nurture, and any genetic predisposition will come out even more strongly in kids who grow up in an environment where crime and violence are prevalent and seen as normal. But it doesn't surprise me that there is a genetic marker for such things as lack of empathy, which is the main characteristic of psychopathic behaviour. I have seen it argued that many successful businessmen show these traits - they will trample all over other people in their quest for money and power, but of course in our society this is considered quite acceptable behaviour and is admired, so it doesn't get labelled as 'anti-social' and problematised.
Another flaw in the argument your parents are making is that we are exposed to much more in the media now. In the 'good old days' before mass media, someone in London probably wouldn't get to hear about a murder in Manchester, for example - they would only know what happened in their own immediate area. And as for rape and sexual abuse, that has always happened but it just wasn't talked about because of the social stigma attached to it. I'm sure you know all this anyway, but it might help as ammunition in case the argument gets rekindled...