Often these days, I’m asking this question while I sit with my morning coffee. I’m not sure what it is, the immediate access to news perhaps. The advent of social media certainly has brought a harshness I don’t remember from my thirties. I won’t go back further, because the accuracy of my memories is questionable.
Despite having been emotionally neglected by a parent for my whole life, I have memories of a great childhood. However, I know this isn’t true. So basing my feelings on the harshness in society now and comparing it to that vision of childhood idyll is unfair. I know what I feel now and it feels as though the far right extremists have perverted the actions of the man on the street.
Is it the anonymity of social media that has caused it? The ability to voice nastiness without being held responsible maybe the reason. I remember how keenly I felt revulsion at the style of Rush Limbaugh, the extreme right wing radio personality. Looking back, he was less objectionable then Katie Hopkins and others that we see now on TV.
I don’t know if this prejudice against whole swaths of the UK has always been present, as I didn’t grow up here. I have noticed the rise of crimes such as gangland stabbing becoming more common place since I first moved here. I think twice before I go to certain places after dark.
The Klockwork Raven 