Social Workers and Child Protection

[Johnny Foreigner]

Is this play you're writing one of those Ben Elton style ones, where a barely credible dystopia is disrupted by the music of Queen the works of a dashing playwright with access to spark notes?

It's my third failed entry for the Bruntwood Prize longlist. I have various loose scenes, but as yet no coherent way to connect them.

New page. There is always a new page, waiting to scribbled full of inanities...

[QDRPHNC]

I think if a parent is inclined to violence and their kid isn't making enough money for the parent from doing well in school, we can guess the outcome there.

[Bernice]

Why not expand the remit of schools and have them raise the kids for the most part? More funding to Ofsted, obviously, so that we can make sure the highest standards are being met. You'd still have contact with the parents, over Christmas, for example, but there simply wouldn't be the scope for sustained abuse/neglect. This is essentially the same as the system that has produced the ruling classes for centuries, so there must be something to be said for it.

Parents could get 2 kids free, but any over that number and you start paying more taxes/getting benefits deductions to disincentivise people creampieing the schools into overcapacity.

[Gurke and Hare]

What I mean is: an individual living alone would just get a UBI. Families with children would get more money, until the child(ren) is/are old enough to receive its/their own UBI. A cut-off date would have to be established for that; I'd say fifteen would be a reasonable age. This would also encourage independence; youngsters wanting to go to uni might save it up towards their fees, others could save for property, et cetera.
The UBI for any household with children would be subject to prioritising expenditure for children. Just keep the receipts for anything you buy.

So like child benefit that already exists, but with UBI added into the equation and some bonus government snoopers?

[chveik]

what a lack of class analysis does to a mf

[Johnny Foreigner]

Of course, anti-intellectualism is a disease particulary rampant amongst the working class: a fierce hatred of knowledge and education as the embodiment of elitism. It's an uphill struggle for working-class children, but this can be overcome. There is no reason why 'high culture' should be the domain of the elite. Opera tickets for everyone, that's what I say. A universal basic income makes it attainable.
Just don't turn into Roger Scruton.

[bgmnts]

Yeah we should all be better and like what and behave how our intellectual superiors do.

[Johnny Foreigner]

I do not at all believe a life dominated by pop culture and lowbrow entertainment is not worth living; it is just that people are missing out on things. Life is richer when you are familiar with both high and low culture.  Middle-class people go to football matches; so why do you never see working class people in art galleries, even if the entry is free?

Giving children opportunities entails acquainting them with all sorts of knowledge and culture. That is what a universal income is meant to facilitate.

I worked in a factory for a while; the conversations were banalities and nothing but commercial crap emanated from the radio, but they were kind and pleasant people and I don't regret making their acquaintance. In the evenings, I unwound with some baroque opera, perusing art books, because the shite that had accumulated in my head during the day had got too much for me. None of the factory labourers came to see the play I was in at the time (a lavishly-produced, professionally-directed expressionist play from the thirties), despite my having sent them invitations. If they ever went to the theatre at all, it was to see moronic farces, performed in dialect. And I think that's a pity.

[bgmnts]

I'd probably say it's because most high culture stuff boring as fuck to be fair.

I say that as a working class man who has been to a football match and an art gallery.

But yes, in a perfect world we'd all have the opportunities to experience everything.

[imitationleather]

If they ever went to the theatre at all, it was to see moronic farces, performed in dialect.

I think whoever is controlling this account went a bit overboard and laid it on too thick at this point.

[chveik]

fucking hell this dunning kruger shit is too rich for my blood

[Retinend]

I laughed at "despite my having sent them invitations"/"performed in dialect" - I presume that these were deliberately funny lines, and that @Johnny Foreigner is now simply pulling our legs.

But still, by moving into self-parody in this way, he's tacitly admitting that endorsing any sort of "parenting license" is the peak of snobbery. I presume that @Johnny Foreigner has no kids himself, or else it would be a whole new level of fucked up.

[Bernice]

this play will be shit I reckon

[jobotic]

Fairly tedious bit innit?

[Goldentony]

AIDS tier dogshit

[Goldentony]

this has to be a test to see what level of wank we'll take at face value and waste hours on

[Retinend]

[SteveDave]

I was oblivious to Arthur's case until last night when I couldn't sleep and clicked on something on Twitter dot com. I haven't watched the video but the thought of a weakened six-year old crying "No-one loves me" over and over kept me awake until 3am. I can't get how you could do that to a little boy.

[Goldentony]

catch up, we settled on a brazilian style death squad to police all potential parents cock and minges

[SteveDave]

OK

[Johnny Foreigner]

I laughed at "despite my having sent them invitations"/"performed in dialect" - I presume that these were deliberately funny lines, and that @Johnny Foreigner is now simply pulling our legs.

But still, by moving into self-parody in this way, he's tacitly admitting that endorsing any sort of "parenting license" is the peak of snobbery. I presume that @Johnny Foreigner has no kids himself, or else it would be a whole new level of fucked up.

In Germany, if you ever venture out of the metropolitan areas, you must know what Volksbühne is. Populist comedies, drawing-room farces with easy laughs, preferably performed in Bavarian or Saxon or whatever. It was like that where I grew up as well. In Flanders, local dialects are still a living thing, and they are markers of both regional identity and class. Speaking the standard, official language is inevitably perceived as formal and posh. The most popular amateur theatricals are a breed of Volksbühne: what Dr Johnson called 'low comedy'. It has very broad appeal, but it's shit nonetheless.

If you believe in social mobility, opening up high culture to everyone, but especially working-class children, is a prerequisite. Former Belgian Prime Minister, Di Rupo, once explained that his parents had had not a single book in the house and they had believed 'art is nothing for people like us'. He was the son of dirt-poor Italian immigrants, but he worked out quite well in the end. Also, I once saw him deliver a well-informed speech at the opening of an art exhibition.

Herd mentality does not lead to progress. If you are from a modest background, you have a lot of catching up to do, but catch up you must, one way or another.

Hell, teach all working-class children Latin and Greek by default. Why not? In the end, I should like to see a Danish system, whereby the government distributes 'vouchers' for a higher-education course of your choosing. If you don't want one, fair enough; the offer is there. That is the way forward. Break free from the shackles of class mentality.

[Kelvin]

You're a slave. Why are you a slave? Stop being a slave.
Zarathustra's ape does not fool me; I can see right through him.
'Good' used to mean 'strong'. Weakness is bad. Why are you weak? Stop being weak.

This was the point where they overplayed their hand. Surely this is just some daft sod's sock puppet.

[jobotic]

I was oblivious to Arthur's case until last night when I couldn't sleep and clicked on something on Twitter dot com. I haven't watched the video but the thought of a weakened six-year old crying "No-one loves me" over and over kept me awake until 3am. I can't get how you could do that to a little boy.

My partner clicked on something on Facebook something last night and promptly burst into tears. She didn't want to tell me what it was apart from that it was about Arthur. Pretty sure it must have been that. I never want to see it.

[Kankurette]

I don't get the whole 'you MUST watch the video of Arthur or you don't care' mentality. I'm well aware child abuse is evil, thanks. I don't need to watch a terrified little boy to know that. It just feels ghoulish.

[jobotic]

Definitely. I should add that my partner was caught a bit unawares. I have no idea why a video like that would be available to anyone other than people involved in the case.

[the science eel]

I do not at all believe a life dominated by pop culture and lowbrow entertainment is not worth living; it is just that people are missing out on things. Life is richer when you are familiar with both high and low culture.  Middle-class people go to football matches; so why do you never see working class people in art galleries, even if the entry is free?

cos they're boring

[canadagoose]

I definitely don't want to see the video, it'd be too upsetting. How those sociopathic pieces of shit got away with it for that long, I don't know. People are cunts.

[Retinend]

Definitely. I should add that my partner was caught a bit unawares. I have no idea why a video like that would be available to anyone other than people involved in the case.

I don't know. I think the small audio clip of Arthur that's been made public humanizes him -I mean, makes his tragic life more real than any amount of ink on paper could convey. It's about awareness raising, isn't it?


edit: i've only seen "videos" that combine an audio recording of Arthur crying with other so-called "CCTV" footage of Arthur NOT obviously in distress. are we talking about a more distressing video with synchronic audio and video? one I haven't seen? I would not want to watch that, either

[jobotic]

I saw a video on the news of him talking about football and that's very sad because he seems like a happy little boy. That's enough isn't it? People know what happened. To watch what SteveDave described sounds ghoulish, or at least to actively seek it out.

Who knows?

[Zetetic]

I don't know. I think the small audio clip of Arthur that's been made public humanizes him -I mean, makes his tragic life more real than any amount of ink on paper could convey. It's about awareness raising, isn't it?

Awareness of what? To what end?

(And, not unrelated, did you read the DoL judgement that I linked? Did the details in that seem insufficiently real? I'm really interested.)