To put a slightly different spin on the topic of where thugs come from, I venture to pose the question of the actual presence of thug-ism today as a rising force within our Westernized society. Or, more precisely, is our Westernized society an environment where thug-ism can thrive?
According to the posting "Droog-ism: 'Happy Slapping'", on the course blog ("Among the Thugs"), "violence is on a totally different level than it used to be..." and "[t]he danger is that in the next 30-40 years there will be a huge crowd of uneducated young men with nothing to do except become more and more violent and anti-social". I seriously question if violent acts committed by young men have increased these last few decades here within our society, or if violent acts are more visible due to the increase in communications and media.
According to the text, Society: the Basics (Macionis et al), thug-ism arises from the following conditions:
[C]riminality is most common among lower-class youths because they have the least opportunity to achieve conventional success. Neglected by society, they seek self-respect by creating a delinquent subculture that ‘defines as meritorious the characteristics [these youths] do possess, the kinds of conduct of which they are capable’. Being feared on the street may win few points with society as a whole, but it may satisfy a youth’s desire to ‘be somebody’ in a local neighbourhood.
Walter Miller (1970) adds that deviant subcultures are characterized by (1) trouble, arising from the frequent conflict with teachers and police; (2) toughness, the value placed on physical size, strength, and agility, especially among males; (3) smartness, the ability to succeed on the streets, to outsmart or ‘con’ others; (4) a need for excitement, the search for thrills, risk, or danger; (5) a belief in fate, a sense that people lack control over their own lives; and (6) a desire fro freedom, often expressed as hostility towards all authority figures. (133-134)
At least in Canada and Great Britain, according to statistics (2002), yob-ism is nowhere near that of Russia or even the United States (Macionis et al. 144, 145). In fact, crime rates in both Great Britain and Canada are much lower. It would be interesting to see studies done within Russia and the US regarding the motives and types of crimes compared to those committed within Great Britain and Canada. I’m not arguing that thug-ism does not exist here, but is it really on a rise as the article “Droog-ism…” says? I doubt it.
2 comments:
A very good point Queenie.
I'm not going to claim that there hasn't been a change in violence - its type, its targets or its treatments - but all I can say is that there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. It's hard to tell whether things are getting worse or just different.
However, the media certainly haven't helped. In the "info-tainment" era (which has existed far longer in Britian if you count their aggressive and shameless paparazzi)there is a no real line between "serious news" and sensationalism anymore. Thus we find it hard to tell what is media and what is "truth".
I've been reading Rotten and Lydon says the photographers and journalists started a lot of the violence they reported from the Sex Pistols tours. Is this happening with all violence on media? No, but it is all a question of context and framing. So, while defining thuggism is hard enough, connecting it to a social circumsance or era is even more difficult if we cannot identify clear relationships between the level of thuggism or violence or crime etc etc. and the point in time or space because we have few reliable sources or viewpoints.
1) Some elements of the media engage in thuggish acts.
2) Thugs are defined by the thuggish acts they engage in.
3) The media is a major purveyor of examples and definitions of what constitutes a thuggish act.
4) Therefore, thugs ARE the media!
Kidding, but the media can possibly be said to just be perpetuating an image of thuggism that they themselves created. People's actions and motivations are varied, the media's depiction of them however forces them into the single category, of terms and motivations they were at least partially responsible for artificially condensing into said category in the first place, of thuggism.
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