Can the UK regain its sense of community?

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Comments

  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Eigon wrote: »
    Why is it a negative for me if half my neighbours speak in a different language amongst themselves? I spent a lot of childhood holidays in a North Welsh village where Welsh was widely spoken...

    Lots of people go on holidays to Foreign Parts where they speak different languages.

    It is good that the Welsh made you feel welcome as visitors, and you would no doubt be similarly hospitable to visitors to your own area.

    If in fact you have an "own area".
    If you feel attachment to some particular corner of the world. If you belong somewhere. If you're rooted in a place and culture.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Russ wrote: »
    If in fact you have an "own area".
    If you feel attachment to some particular corner of the world. If you belong somewhere. If you're rooted in a place and culture.

    You an be all that without feeling either that you must exclude/expel others, or have them mimic your culture. I am irretrievably Irish; it is the climate of my soul (which is not to say I actually want to live there).
  • GarethMoonGarethMoon Shipmate
    It's OK to be sad that the sounds you remember from your youth have been replaced by other sounds. But the truth is that those sounds were going anyway. If they weren't replaced by people chatting in Polish or Urdu, they'd have been replaced by something else.

    I wonder if the subconscious reasoning isn't something along the lines of the following. When things from my youth are replaced by things from the next generation(s) of "my" culture (local, regional, etc etc); "The youth of today, sigh. What can you do".
    When this things from my youth are replaced by things from people chatting in Polish or Urdu: "If they hadn't come, things would have stayed the same."

    It's not true of course as is the case frequently when I talk to UK expats who've been away for more than 10 years try and go back. Sure, some talk about immigration, but most realise that the whole country isn't the same as they remembered it, even in places where 90-99% of the population is made up of the people, children and grandchildren of "locals". But it can seem true, especially if it's not really thought about, but just at the back of your mind.
  • EigonEigon Shipmate
    All right, Russ, let's turn it round. I grew up in one of the most Jewish areas of Manchester. Why was it a negative to me that some of my neighbours spoke Yiddish and Hebrew, and went to shul?
  • I dunno - I feel odd driving down Leicester Rd (Higher Broughton), and it felt odd when I lived there. Then, the Jewish neighbours treated me with suspicion. But the Salford neighbours (or some of their kids) were trying to nick things out of my van. So all-in-all, I had the sense I didn't belong, and that was probably true :smile:
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    GarethMoon wrote: »
    I wonder if the subconscious reasoning isn't something along the lines of the following. When things from my youth are replaced by things from the next generation(s) of "my" culture (local, regional, etc etc); "The youth of today, sigh. What can you do".
    When this things from my youth are replaced by things from people chatting in Polish or Urdu: "If they hadn't come, things would have stayed the same."

    I think it's also to do with the amount (and pace) of change. "The youth of today" may have weird music, funny haircuts and baggier trousers, but most elements of local society stay the same - they're still having nights out down the pub and buying their bacon from the corner shop just like we old-uns do. It's a completely different magnitude of change to suddenly finding your local pub has become a shisha bar and the corner shop has gone halal.
  • "The youth of today" may have weird music, funny haircuts and baggier trousers, but most elements of local society stay the same - they're still having nights out down the pub and buying their bacon from the corner shop just like we old-uns do. It's a completely different magnitude of change to suddenly finding your local pub has become a shisha bar and the corner shop has gone halal.

    That's a point of view, though, isn't it? Your pub going away is a big deal if you used to go to the pub, but if you're not a person who goes to the pub, you probably care much less. And perhaps you'd prefer politely-spoken, well-behaved young people of whatever background to unpleasant young louts who look like you.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    GarethMoon wrote: »
    I wonder if the subconscious reasoning isn't something along the lines of the following. When things from my youth are replaced by things from the next generation(s) of "my" culture (local, regional, etc etc); "The youth of today, sigh. What can you do".
    When this things from my youth are replaced by things from people chatting in Polish or Urdu: "If they hadn't come, things would have stayed the same."

    I think it's also to do with the amount (and pace) of change. "The youth of today" may have weird music, funny haircuts and baggier trousers, but most elements of local society stay the same - they're still having nights out down the pub and buying their bacon from the corner shop just like we old-uns do. It's a completely different magnitude of change to suddenly finding your local pub has become a shisha bar and the corner shop has gone halal.

    I can see that, but I think it underestimates the magnitude of change in communities unaffected by immigration.

    The corner shop has gone because it couldn’t compete with the local petrol station’s similar offering. Now it’s a tattoo bar and sells e-liquids. The local pub’s still there, but no longer ‘The Crown’. It’s called ‘Sparkles’ instead. Its main sales are alcohols, prosecco and lager. It’s fitted out with fake marble tops and high stools, and four nights a week it hosts a karaoke night.

    The older generation for whom everything has changed complain that they can’t understand what the younger people are saying, and when they do understand, they don’t understand what they’re talking about.

    Uncomfortable change has still happened but there isn’t a convenient immigrant scapegoat to blame it on.
  • Marvin the MartianMarvin the Martian Admin Emeritus
    "The youth of today" may have weird music, funny haircuts and baggier trousers, but most elements of local society stay the same - they're still having nights out down the pub and buying their bacon from the corner shop just like we old-uns do. It's a completely different magnitude of change to suddenly finding your local pub has become a shisha bar and the corner shop has gone halal.

    That's a point of view, though, isn't it?

    Of course it is. The whole issue is about points of view!
    BroJames wrote: »
    The corner shop has gone because it couldn’t compete with the local petrol station’s similar offering.

    The key words there being "similar offering".
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Yes. The petrol station has a similar offering, but Jim Johnson who used to walk his dog down to the corner shop for his paper, and the odd pint of milk, or to replenish supplies of this and that is just as much deprived by the arrival of a tattoo bar as he would have been by the corner shop going halal.

    The changes may be different because immigration might create a different customer base, but even absent immigration they may be just as big.

    All I’m saying is that immigration may shape the change which people find alienating, but alienating change happens anyway despite immigration. Its absence wouldn’t prevent alienating change from happening.
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Shipmate
    edited April 22
    BroJames wrote: »
    All I’m saying is that immigration may shape the change which people find alienating, but alienating change happens anyway despite immigration. Its absence wouldn’t prevent alienating change from happening.

    Yes, and I think this is underlined by the finding that the areas that are most strongly against immigration are also frequently those areas with the lowest levels of immigration. Almost as if when people don't see actual immigrants it's easier for them act as a synecdoche of all the change that has happened.

    So in reality the changes you list remain quite mysterious in cause to many people, because the local shop survived for a few years after the petrol station, and they weren't necessarily privy to the slow strangulation it encountered, but they hear there are lots of Polish people in the town next door, so ..

    .. on a wider level the greatest level of social change in most of the country was that wrought by de-industrialisation, but it's easier to blame the lack of jobs on the 'economic migrants' people read about in the paper.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited April 23
    At least our Senegalese neighbours burn sandalwood to offset the smell of catfish. They put up with me talking to Mr. Black and Mrs. Brown and Robin. And you can buy ANYTHING off the Narborough Road. Where Roman troops marched 1900 years ago.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    I think this is underlined by the finding that the areas that are most strongly against immigration are also frequently those areas with the lowest levels of immigration.

    What's the source for this, and what do you think follows from it ?

    It may be true - we can envisage a number of possible mechanisms at work.

    One is that a proportion of those survey respondents in high-immigration areas are themselves immigrants. But you'd hope that any serious research would allow for that.

    One is selection bias - some of those who live in high-immigration areas are those (possibly younger ?) people who chose to live there because they place a positive value on a more cosmopolitan atmosphere. And vice versa.

    And one is boiled frog syndrome. The sort of change we're talking about happens slowly. Those who live in a particular high-immigration city see and accustom themselves to the day-by-day changes. Those who only have reason to visit the city every few years are more likely to be shocked, forcibly struck by the accumulated change.
  • Russ wrote: »
    I think this is underlined by the finding that the areas that are most strongly against immigration are also frequently those areas with the lowest levels of immigration.

    What's the source for this, and what do you think follows from it ?

    As an example - which deals with the first and second of your arguments.

    An alternate view is that areas with a predominance of anti-immigrant sentiment suffer from long-term structural factors, such as de-industrialisation, lack of investment and high unemployment, where immigrants are less likely to move to anyway because of the lack of pull factors, and that in the absence of direct personal experience attitudes to migrants are largely shaped by press coverage of the subject.
  • jay_emmjay_emm Shipmate
    I'm intrigued by figure 2, it looks a bit anologous to regression to the mean.
    There are a lot more mostly white areas than mostly non white areas in Britain (the average area is iiuc 13% on that graph).

    So a totally random move is more likely to take you to a mostly white area (and hence if you lived in the whitest of white estates to be a change of about +13% in diversity, and if you lived in the rare extremely minority majority place then you'd expect on average to go down by 87%)

    Interested to see what it's like for minority groups.

  • RussRuss Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    I think this is underlined by the finding that the areas that are most strongly against immigration are also frequently those areas with the lowest levels of immigration.

    What's the source for this, and what do you think follows from it ?

    As an example - which deals with the first and second of your arguments.

    An alternate view is that.. ..in the absence of direct personal experience attitudes to migrants are largely shaped by press coverage of the subject.

    Thanks for the link, chris.

    I was a little surprised that the differences that the analysis sought to explain are only the difference between 70% and 90% support for reducing immigration.

    To read what some people write you'd think that there was much less agreement than that.

    No wonder UK politicians are posturing about being tough on immigration.

    I think you're misquoting the conclusion. Isn't it saying that the areas where anti-immigration feeling is greatest are those places that are next-door to areas of high immigration ? In the same district but not the same ward ?

    And I don't think any of it is evidence for your suggestion that anti-immigration feeling is entirely media-driven.
  • jay_emm wrote: »
    I'm intrigued by figure 2, it looks a bit anologous to regression to the mean.

    Figure 2 is "obvious bollocks". It shows two parallel straight lines, that are the same line to within the errors that it draws on the graph, together with a set of completely spurious points that are drawn for no reason. It gives the impression of being data, without actually being data.

    Speaking as a white British man, nowhere I've moved, either in the US or in the UK, has been determined by the racial makeup of my destination. It's been determined by the location of my job, followed by drawing contours of equal commute time on a map, and looking for areas that match my budget. I think the only point that race would enter is that I would probably try not to move to an area where most people came from the same culture, and it was different from mine, if there was a more mixed area as an alternative. So I'd actively choose an area where my kids weren't going to be the only non-Muslims on the playground, or the only non-Spanish speakers, or whatever. No such area has ever appeared on one of my short-lists, so it hasn't been an issue.

    But I agree with you that the figure looks sort of how I'd expect for a random move that ignored race completely, and agree that it would be interesting to see the same picture for racial minorities.

    It's also interesting to consider the nearby alternatives. If you have a job in the city of London, you've got a fair amount of choice in terms of racial makeup of the area you choose to live. If you have a job in rural Cheshire, you don't have so much choice.
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Shipmate
    edited April 28
    Russ wrote: »
    I think you're misquoting the conclusion. Isn't it saying that the areas where anti-immigration feeling is greatest are those places that are next-door to areas of high immigration ? In the same district but not the same ward ?

    Yes, but in the case of London (the subject of that study) one is unlikely to live too far away from areas that are more diverse. If you look at national studies, the pattern is more visible:

    Page 13:

    "that White Britons living in the “Superdiverse” and “Cosmopolitan London/periphery” clusters are least likely to want to reduce immigration a lot, whilst “Northern manufacturing and industrial towns” and areas of “low migration” are amongst the keenest to see immigration reduced a lot"
    And I don't think any of it is evidence for your suggestion that anti-immigration feeling is entirely media-driven.

    I did not suggest that it was 'entirely media-driven'. I would suggest to you that for people without direct experience of immigration, it wouldn't be a particular stretch to suggest that their perceptions will be largely shaped by the press they consume (which will represent the largest source of information available to them), on which see pages 14,15 and 16.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    @chrisstiles, the report you quoted shows that the areas in which anti-immigrant feeling is highest are "asylum dispersal areas". Which doesn't sound like those with least experience.

    It also shows relatively small differences between area types, other than what seems like an InnerLondon-nonInnerLondon effect.

    You didn't answer the question "what follows from it ?" I don't mind; I'm grateful for an interesting link, and your regard for evidence does you credit.

    But your argument seems to be that anti-immigration feeling can be dismissed as inauthentic, because it's based on media coverage and lack of real local experience.

    When you wouldn't dream of dismissing people's views on lots of other issues (? the US president ?) on such grounds.

    I'm suspecting that 70 to 90% support on some social issue is something you'd take as justification for action if you agreed with the policy...
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited May 3
    If I agree with a policy then by definition I think it's the right thing to do, regardless of how popular or unpopular it is. If i disagree with it, similarly I still think it's the wrong thing to do.

    Democracy means that the things with popular support (or more accurately, the things intended by the elected representatives, elected based on their stated intentions) happen. It doesn't make those things right or wrong.
  • RussRuss Shipmate
    You're right, Karl. But are there not choices or preferences that are morally neutral ? To want this sort of society rather than that sort of society, out of a set of possibilities that have no particular rightness or wrongness ?

    Does it not seem to you that something's wrong with the democratic system if it doesn't provide a mechanism for implementing such preferences ?
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    @chrisstiles, the report you quoted shows that the areas in which anti-immigrant feeling is highest are "asylum dispersal areas". Which doesn't sound like those with least experience.

    That's a very specific experience. i.e one of experiencing marginalised people who are both unable (by state sanction - asylum seekers are not allowed to work) to support themselves, and who are forced to rely on the state (again by design) in areas which are already impoverished.

    Except in that fairly unique situation - which are almost calculated to fill the 'scrounger' stereotype, anti-immigrant feeling is inversely proportional level of immigration.
    It also shows relatively small differences between area types, other than what seems like an InnerLondon-nonInnerLondon effect.

    Firstly these areas are further apart, so there's no proximity effect of the sort you might adduce in the case of London. Secondly, the 'relatively small differences' are of the same order of magnitude as the difference in feelings in 'asylum dispersal areas' which you seem to think is significant. So which is it?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Russ wrote: »
    You're right, Karl. But are there not choices or preferences that are morally neutral ? To want this sort of society rather than that sort of society, out of a set of possibilities that have no particular rightness or wrongness ?

    Does it not seem to you that something's wrong with the democratic system if it doesn't provide a mechanism for implementing such preferences ?

    Of course there are morally neutral preferences - do we plant oaks or beeches in the new park? Paint the town hall corridors blue or green?

    You seem to be assuming that immigration policy is one such issue, whereas I'd say it's full of moral questions.

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