Its up to the mainstream to include the excluded..

I'm not going to write about the riots, but it’s pretty clear there's a lot to think about:

• we have reached a political consensus now on how to run a modern first world country, and nothing will deviate us from that. The new politics will be red or blue but it won’t make much difference.
• Hoodies don’t vote, but retired people have a loud voice.
• Membership is at an all-time low, of political parties, of churches, of anything. We dip in and out, no-one has a hold on us.
• It’s pointless blaming other people for binge drinking (no one like to be reminded the biggest binge drinkers are over 50s right?)
• Consumerism hasn’t got us very far – not happy, not proud, not satisfied.

(btw - I have realised recently how fragile my connections are with males. i think there is something in my bonding which is not quite right - i'll have to think about this one, but it comes from being a generation of men raised by women.)

So what to do?:

• If we want to live in a society where people feel included, then we must include them.
• We have been outsourcing our social problems to specialists, or housing estates, or doctors or charities, but in fact isolating them has only made it worse.
• We want people to care about things, we have to care about them ourselves.

Concrete steps?:

• we need to create new social interaction points outside our bubbles (why not have a regular match at the park, a volunteer to coordinate and let people get on with it – you only need to set these things up once.)
• we need to involve the mainstream who feel powerless in doing something. We’ve spent too long talking.
• we need to make it easier for people to ask for help by asking for help ourselves (self-sufficiency has gone too far) by making batches saying ‘could do with a hand’ or ‘tired legs’ or on the hedge saying ‘needs haircut’
• we need to develop a feedback mechanism so that positive behaviour is reinforce and people who do something don’t feel cheapened after it (volunteering has a danger of doing this initially)

Forget politics. It’s not that it isn’t important - but it’s irrelevant to this question.