Alex In Wonderland

The Culture Of Respect

"Respect". Not me doing a Tupac impression but a word that has been banded about in this country for a while. Tony Blair proposed introducing a culture of respect to try to reinforce a drive back to values from a different age. We now live in the age of the ASBO, the hoodie, the feckless youths hanging around on street corners near to shops and of high crime.

These kids demand respect. Their arguments are that if you don't respect them then how can they respect you? They don't listen to their teachers and parents because they don't show them respect. Pardon me? I thought that respect was earned, not just given. I always figured that achieving something in life meant that there would be a small degree of respect for that person more or less straight away. Apparently not.

First off these kids should go and look up "respect" in a dictionary. Then after they have read it they should realise that the way they see respect is as an adult concept and not something that is just handed out like pocket money or sweets. Repect extends beyond the individual and touches on all aspects of life - you respect possessions, privacy, a person's rights - all of these have to be incorporated into it.

What Tony Blair and the other politicians don't realise is that these kids are the product of the Playstation era. Disposable technology, fast food, mobile phones and TV on demand have created this myth that everything can be had right now (this extends to teenage pregnancy I believe - wanting the perceived pleasures of sex but without any of the responsibility it brings) and that nothing should be any effort. Comedy shows pick up on this with the teenager with the "yeah, whatever" attitude but the frightening fact is that this is, in certain strata's of society, this is becoming the norm and not the exception.

I admit that as a child I had a different perspective on the world to the one that I now have. I remember thinking that the world of adults was something I wanted to stay away from for as long as possible because, as a child, I was free of the responsibilities that I heard my parents and their friends complaining about. Now it seems that kids want the "perks" that adults have but without the negative things. Something that I learned from being an adult is that perks become worth that much more if I do have to suffer the negative aspects of it. The people I have respect for have earned it in some way - it is not something I would give away on demand.