I was taking an intercity coach to Glasgow recently and a teenage kid was on his phone browsing social media without headphones. I made a comment that he should use headphones or turn the volume off. He got defensive and angry. I did not to escalate, and put my earplugs on.

I do believe certain parcels of the society need to be restrained.

I have a far bigger problem with adults having calls in public places with their phones on speaker... should they be "restrained" as well?

Depends on public space. Busy street, who cares. Silent intercity bus, maybe. Library, for sure.

Exactly. I would expect it not to bother anyone on a busy street, but I would expect to told to stop it in a library, and to be kicked out in a theatre.

Phones on silent in a theatre yet with a sea of bright silent phone screens surrounding you as people watch TikTok, text, etc., the movie won't be very entertaining. Why I stopped going to movie theatres about 10 years ago.

I meant a theatre as in stage, not cinema. Rare for phones to be used even on silent in my experience.

Now is your time. Everyone else stopped going to the movies 10 years ago too!

Also the work breakroom should be a headphone only zone.

No Sharron I don't want to hear the gosip about your extended family as you talk on speaker with your sister about your trailer trash cousins. And Jack I don't want to hear your shitty political podcast with their hosts room temperture IQ...

I see this more of an invasion of the privacy of the other party and feel bad for them.

Also it's very rude (in British terms, so it's off-the-charts for me).

IMO it shouldn't even get that far, to questions of how much we should be allowed to ask of others in the name of basic decency; there's been a massive shift from people being self-regulating and trying to be considerate to others, to the conversation changing to something like, "how dare you even speak to me while I'm blasting tiktok loudly, I'm going to look up the letter of the law and see what the maximum disruption I can legally get away with is, fuck you!"

Basically sometime around the 00s-10s, seemingly everyone decided to become a massive dickface with zero concept of social cohesion, and it's just me me me me me me, and fuck everyone else.

Society needs a reset, pretty much everyone has just become vile, angry and inconsiderate / extreme main-character syndrome.

Ive identified several aspects. Moral injury, new status baseline due to social media, and lack of awareness of effects our digital powers. Not enough time to type on this phone keybd but if ppl upvote i'll elaborate.

It's only a small minority who do things like that. Perhaps the proportion has increased slightly, but the biggest change is people are more afraid to challenge antisocial behaviour than before. So they are more bold.

The counter-culture movement was quite explicit in their mission to replace traditional social norms and values that led to social order with their opposites.

We shouldn’t be surprised society has fallen.

"society has fallen"

In the real world things seem to be pretty much the same as they have been for most of my life (and I am 60 in a few months).

Online, yes some people behave like monsters and occasionally some of that bleeds across into the real world - but overall I think we are pretty far from saying that "society has fallen".

this

Yes, if you want to live in a decent society that respects the personal space and rights of others, and not a zoo

Yes

Yes.

Interesting leap you made there.

How can you do effective conflict resolution in a society where someone reads an anecdote about a rude teenager and immediately assumes the problem is multiculturalism?

I don't know if that's what they meant, but a generation gap in a rapidly changing society can absolutely be considered a cultural gap.

Culture and race are not the same thing.

Rephrased for you: If there is no dominant culture, how do you resolve conflicts like that?

> Culture and race are not the same thing.

I don't remember bringing up race. Another interesting leap.

But please do elaborate on what sort of 'dominant culture' you're longing for and what sort of policies you'd love to see to (re-)establish that 'dominant culture' to resolve the incredibly new phenomenon of teenagers being rude and rebelling against social norms.

Come on, don't be a coward and just drop the dogwhistling. You're bad at it.

Sorry, I thought you were dogwhistling.

A dominant culture means a step back from individualist values. The most effective 'policies' are created through communities not through law. We cannot rely only on the law for a healthy society; it is necessary but not sufficient.

Rebelling against cultural norms is not the problem. The problem is when people escalate quickly because of it and threaten others. That means the gaps between cultures/subcultures have gotten too big.

You randomly bring up multiculturalism as a problem to be solved in response to a story about a rude teenager of unknown cultural background, and assume I'm dogwhistling? Please elaborate because all I'm seeing here is projection.

But I see we've pivoted from "multiculturalism bad" to pseudo-intellectual theorizing about collective cultural conformity. Very smooth. Different packaging, still trying to sell the same product, though.

> The problem is when people escalate quickly because of it and threaten others.

Guy asked teenager to use headphones, teenager got defensive, guy put in earplugs. That's... literally de-escalation and conflict avoidance. Are we reading the same anecdote?

You've managed to escalate "rude teenager won't use headphones" into a lament about the decline of Western civilization and the need for cultural homogeneity. It's almost impressive how much ideological weight you're hanging on one kid's refusal to wear headphones.

> pseudo-intellectual

More name-calling. You still haven't addressed my initial question yet. I'll rephrase it again for you: How do you enforce norms without a dominant culture? Do we even need norms at all?

You're asking about norm enforcement failure, but the story shows norms working fine: expectation communicated, pushback received, de-escalation chosen, situation resolved peacefully, albeit not to the satisfaction of the commenter. The system worked.

The fact that the teenager got defensive is indicative of his understanding of societal expectations and norms. Bending and pushing against norms is what teenagers do, and have done since the dawn of time, regardless of their cultural background and regardless of whether they're navigating the norms of a dominant monoculture or those of a multicultural society.

Your question assumes there was some breakdown that needs fixing, but the only 'problem' was mild inconvenience. When did that become evidence of cultural collapse requiring homogeneity to solve?

You still haven't explained why 'teenager won't use headphones' made you think 'multiculturalism is a problem.' For all you know, this story involved two white Christian Scots from the same cultural background. I'll gladly discuss theories about norm enforcement with you once you've explained why you deemed it necessary to inject race and culture into a story that mentioned neither.

I'm not going to entertain your 'just asking questions' routine until you do.

All that and no answer? Thanks for trying, I guess.

That's a firm 'no' on explaining your original non sequitur then? I told you I'm happy to dive into theories, philosophy, and other theoretical scenarios once you've answered that simple question.

But you're welcome, I guess. At least one of us did.

Happy to hear an answer if you've got one.

I doubt you would be happy to hear it, actually. And I doubt it would change your opinion one bit.

You've kicked this entire thread off with an incredibly telling non sequitur: teenager won't use headphones -> multiculturalism bad. When called out on that leap, you pivoted to abstract questions about norm enforcement while ignoring that the norms actually worked fine in this situation.

You're not interested in debate. You're interested in getting someone to validate your predetermined conclusion about the necessity of a cultural hegemony. Having to acknowledge that norm enforcement wasn't actually broken here is pretty inconvenient for that narrative, isn't it?

Still waiting for you to explain that original leap, but we both know you won't. Because you can't without exposing yourself further. Good day. Thanks for playing.

You still haven't answered the question.

I've encountered this exact behaviour with teenagers both white and of colour. I am also an immigrant in the UK (racially white).

He said multiculturalism why are you bringing up race. I'm really happy that I don't have to work with solving complicated problems with people like you.

Okay. So how do you determine who is wrong?

Sure everything is simpler on Mars, move there then

No need. I live in a place which enforces the dominant culture.

The same way you do in monoculturalism, so that's a meaningless distinction.

If the families did not impart these values to children from a young age, the "owner" of a space advertises and enforces the rules.

In this particular case the coach company should have had clear rules displayed in the coach (at least the basic and generic ones) and the driver should have enforced them at least on demand. Follow the rules or get off the coach.

Monocultures don't need explicit laws to regulate things, so it's not the same.

Your libertarian argument works in theory, but the reality is much harder when you can't rely on a shared culture.

The parent said teenager - race was not mentioned.

I didn't mention race either. Why do you think culture and race are the same thing?

Go to any hospital waiting room, and 80% of the time there will be a 60+ year old woman playing some inane phone game with the sound on max.

Callous anti-social phone behavior isn't just the prerogative of teens.

However, you won't notice the noise from her phone because it will be inaudible compared to the wall-mounted TV playing at high volume 24/7.

There will also be the occasional large family cousins and all who tend to be very aggressive.

Older persons are more often guilty of making noise with their phones, like talking loudly, having an obnoxious ringtone or watching a movie in full volume.

You're shifting the blame from politicians to society because in your field teachers have lost power over students. It is a huge mistake to make such a parallel. In fact, teachers have lost power because the power has become much more centralized - thanks to the politicians. You're not allowed to punish a disruptive student singlehandedly - the government took that from you and gave it to people who don't really care. The government itself can't care less. The mass hypersurveillance is not designed to solve your problems, sorry, it solves problems of people with control buttons.

I think politicians are right to be afraid. Surveillance of this magnitude isn't a ballot-box-level grievance. It's a Guy Fawkes/V-level injustice. They're stepping into territory where the very people they're supposed to stop might instead turn justified.

It is fascinating, isn't it. It is like a downwards spiral with a line most people would not even think of considering crossing. That said, current version of the surveillance appears a little more pervasive ( and to an extent a little self-imposed ) so I wonder if that 'feeling justified' will even matter. Examples do exist of enduring dictatorships with extremely efficient intelligence apparatus turned on its populace.

I come from Poland, where the streets are generally quite peaceful. Some of my friends from France and Germany say things feel less peaceful there. They believe immigration has played a role in that. I’m not here to agree or disagree — I can only share my own experiences.

The more disruption there is in society, the more people seem willing to accept increased control by authorities. I'm not necessarily saying this is part of some grand plan, but it does seem convenient for politicians when circumstances justify stronger control measures.

Yeah, I always wonder: is the tail wagging the dog or vice versa? Like maaaybe society is going through some organic disruption at the moment, but it’s so easy to foment a sense of crisis through mass media that it seems more likely it’s just being done to serve an agenda (start a war, consolidate power, disrupt opposition, extract wealth upwards, etc…).

My measuring stick is how “on message” the people reporting it tend to be. A real disaster or crisis is chaotic, and authentic reporting about it tends to be too (think about mixed messaging during the early days of COVID). If something happens and there’s a very clear narrative from the start about who the good guys and bad guys are, especially if it is trying to make me scared or mad, I just assume I’m being manipulated.

Poland is an ethnically homogeneous and rather racist country, even more so than Germany, which is saying something. People from such an environment come to the big city and are afraid of being attacked every time they encounter a small group of brown migrants on the street. Migration flows will only increase in the future. Get used to it and make sure you integrate these people. Just because they eat flatbread instead of dumplings doesn't mean they can't contribute to GDP or pay taxes.

I’m not here to agree or disagree — I can only share my own experiences.

men and women**

I kind of wonder how much of the apparent paranoia from politicians is that they always hear the worst. I doubt its coincidence that Home Secretaries almost invariably turn into huge supporters of surveillance and cracking down on things, and I think that probably comes from the fact they get a briefing everyday from various organisations who's entire reason for existence is to find and keep track of the very worst people. If I were in that position I imagine I'd find it difficult to keep perspective as well.