Am I bovvered?

[Watchman]

Irate youths (or for that matter other groups) who want to stand out and look all cool and notorious and rebel have since God knows when never failed to adopt the dresses and behavior pattterns of other groups regarded as "dangerous", "notorious", "exotic", "exciting", "outsider" and whatever. Should they find themselves without such models, or should the example of the models available be passé for some reason, they have always displayed considerable ingenuity in employing extant symbology, details of dress and whatever, usually in greatly exaggerated forms, to the same ends.

This is one of those little behavioral patterns that tends to repeat itself the world over wholly irrespective of the exact details of the group doing the "standing out" gig, or their sources of inspiration for their particular brand of "tribal colours." In the Fifties restless youths around here imitated their American equivalents, with some inevitable local quirks thrown in; their peers nowadays have swapped the greased hair and jeans for faux hip-hop image, but it is rather difficult to see anything else than cosmetical differences in the phenomenom.

The equivalents in early 1800s Norrbotten, being for obvious reasons without such urbane and international sources of inspiration, had to make do by adapting aspects the traditional local manner of dress and emphasizing certain points as means of group identification and cultivating the "notorious" image.

Medieval university students were infamous for forming armed gangs that roamed the nighttime streets and often engaged in drunken brawls, usually with weapons. The distinctive look they had already from the traditional academic wear...

Same old shit. It's trying to pin the present-day incarnation of this perennial phenomenom on immigrants and/or black ghettoes that singles out the racist thinking, or at best severely insufficient analysis.

Ditto for excessively simple and tendentious takes of the supposed causal link "immigration = crime." Do some real thinking on the topic instead of spouting such populist BS, please. Crime, poverty, the tendency of immigrants to fall into both more often than is proportionally the case with the natives, and other such topics are way more complicated than that.

[yesdachi]

Same old shit. It's trying to pin the present-day incarnation of this perennial phenomenom on immigrants and/or black ghettoes that singles out the racist thinking, or at best severely insufficient analysis.

Ditto for excessively simple and tendentious takes of the supposed causal link "immigration = crime." Do some real thinking on the topic instead of spouting such populist BS, please. Crime, poverty, the tendency of immigrants to fall into both more often than is proportionally the case with the natives, and other such topics are way more complicated than that.

I see says the blind man.

[Watchman]

My eyes work just fine. Don't even need glasses. Why ?

[Byzantine Mercenary]

the way i see it is that throughout history youve had groups of young people that perahaps haven't been raised ''right'', to much or to little dicipline perhaps, who act in this way, they would exist with or without immigration, its more an issue of haveing a stable family unit to give them a more balanced outlook on life.

[Watchman]

Stable family unit isn't required. Mine wasn't, and I grew up a very ethical and law-abiding citizen.

The important thing is, I think, shifts in the society itself and how the youths adapt to them. Especially if they're feeling disadvantaged or alienated, or that "things aren't right" for some reason, a confrontative attitude seems to be the usual result. A sort of group isolationism seems to be another, especially in modern Gesellchaft societies.

And you know, I understand there's ancient Babylonian clay tablets or something along those lines where a father laments "today's youth"...

[Byzantine Mercenary]

Stable family unit isn't required. Mine wasn't, and I grew up a very ethical and law-abiding citizen.

The important thing is, I think, shifts in the society itself and how the youths adapt to them. Especially if they're feeling disadvantaged or alienated, or that "things aren't right" for some reason, a confrontative attitude seems to be the usual result. A sort of group isolationism seems to be another, especially in modern Gesellchaft societies.

And you know, I understand there's ancient Babylonian clay tablets or something along those lines where a father laments "today's youth"...

no not required for all people, everyone is different, i think its probably all about the ability to empathise with others, most chavs don't empathise or understand their actions or just don't care enough they need to learn to care about other people, stick em in the woods for a while that will get rid of their hard as nails arrogance!

of course your right nostalga for the good old days and dislike of the upstart youth has always been common, but i think that there is a different aspect in the chav culture i see today, the violence is more without reason, its not a clash of ideologys its chavs attacking the modern world

[caravel]

But the chav culture are not solely youths. They are young and old of both genders. You're mistaking chavs with general "tearaways". There have always been these types since day one, but the chav underclass as described above are a different thing. They are a people without education discipline, respect for anyone or anything, including themselves and seriously lacking in social skills. These sort of people are very likely to deviate and become troublemakers, though many of them don't set out to act ilegally. Alot of their behaviour is not hooliganism or general crime, it is anti-social. That is, for example, behaviour such as keeping a banger of a car and a rubbish tip in the front garden and allowing their kids to run riot over all peoples property and on public transport, without being aware that there is something wrong with allowing them to do that, until late at night vandalising and causing a general nuisance. They don't view working as important, instead they prefer to sponge off the taxpayer. They allow their daughters to keep live in boyfriends, which leads to an unwanted pregnancy and an abortion or yet another uneducated badly brought up individual with a similar future ahead of it. The adults wear the same ridiculous clothes that have been described.

So this is not "todays youth" we're speaking of, it's a whole sub-culture thing. The kids are obviously a bigger problem than the adults and it is they that are often emulating the yardie speak, hanging about on street corners intimidating people, and causing the most trouble, moreso than the generic 'immigrants' group, being often involved in car theft, drugs and other petty crimes. But this is not because it has always been like this, it is a direct product of the chav culture.

Who sits on a bus/train with a mobile phone clapped up to their ear and talks about someone's sexual behaviour, often their own, for all to hear?

Who would also talk publically about exactly how much they drank and how sick they were last night and how they threw their guts up on the taxi window, then look around them thinking that everyone else must be so impressed by this. Chavs that's who. And more specifically women, in actual conversations that I have overheard.

Who roars and shouts in the middle of the high street at his girlfiend and his kid(s), bawling expletives and obscenities, and threatening to "smack your f***ing head in you f***ing bitch, when we get home". Chavs.

Who will brawl in the street with the women cheering them on like cackling vultures? ("German Screeching Women" anyone?) Chavs.

Who will start a massive row in the street with threats of violence and to fetch that famous 6' 8" uncle/cousin from prison to sort you out? Just because you happened to look in their direction at the wrong moment. And I'm not talking about youths.

Who has a split personality and is extremely paranoid and insecure, changing from moderately amicable to totally hostile within seconds, especially after a drink? Who else?

Who bawls and swears at their unfortunate baby "f***ing hell shut the f*** up!"... in the street or on public transport.

Do I need to go on?

They obviously don't have chavs where some of you hail from and maybe you don't have to live in proximity to them, which is why you're so tolerant and politically correct.

[Watchman]

I think this deserves a reiteration of the part of my little essay on the "Racism in Sweden" thread; although I wrote it mainly concerning immigrants, the principles and mechanisms are generally applicable and these "chav" guys sound like a real "social trap" case (aside from being a subculture of total jerks, but then what do you expect when the Western societies as a whole have been mainly encouraging raging egomania for the past few decades?). I'll edit it and put it under spoiler to save space.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Particularly as lack of trust in the willingness and ability of the institutions of the host society (regardless of the individual's background) to treat people fairly and equally, in particular in judicial matters, is thought to be among the most important factors that produce disregard of the community's nominal rules and norms and a willingness to abuse them to one's own benefit.

Or, put this way. If the individual perceives that the social institutions treat him basically fairly and equally to others, he is all other things being equal going to trust them more in part as he knows he can turn to them for justice if slighted. Figuratively speaking, this lets him "risk" trusting other people in general and not just his immediate reference group, and concretely speaking makes him more likely to "play by the rules" and respect the norms as he thinks those are actually upheld and enforced and apply to others too. However, if he perceives them treating himself or other basically unfairly -why and how and when isn't really important- this is no longer the case. The more unfairness and injustice he perceives, the less respect he will have to the nominal rules and norms as so far as he can tell those are not respected and upheld by others, in particular the social institutions that are supposed to protect him from possible wrongdoing by others, and instead unequally disadvantage and advantage particular groups. This incidentally also applies if the unfairness is to his personal advantage - this is after all essentially corruption. The less reason he has to trust the supposedly objective institutions and norms, the less he respects them, the more willing he is to "play foul", the more he suspects others of the same, the less he trusts others by default, the more he "turns inward" into a smaller reference group he thinks he can trust for some reason - family relations, shared ethnicity, membership in the same strongly normative group - and distrust those outside it...

The above is my nutshell explanation of the elementary theory of social trap, a concept of Social Sciences, so named because such a "malign circle" of distrust is difficult to break and prone to afflicting entire societies.
---
Second- and further-generation immigrants are particularly vulnerable, as unlike the first generation they lack immediate personal ties to another culture and country; so far as they are concerned they are born and bred full citizens of their countries, and if they feel this sense of belonging is spurned (because of ethnicity or whatever) they are going to be quite deeply offended and disappointed; moreover, they'll be left without any larger frame of reference to belong to (as they tend to not feel they have too much in common with their parents' culture), and such "castaway" youths and young men in particular have always and everywhere been a prime source of trouble.

The same incidentally often afflicts native youths as well, mainly on the grounds of social background and/or place of origin; the immigrants just have the added complication of ethnicity thrown in.

'Course, the alienation and resulting troublemaking of such groups is only going to make the society at large become even more hostile towards them, which near invariably tends to lead to mutual "taint by association" (à la "all immigrants/blacks/New Jersey folk are criminals/thieves/lazy social bums" sentiments and conversely "all whiteys/natives/Washingtonians are racist/in cahoots against us/exploitative rich gits"), which lead to further distrust and segregation if only through the mechanics of self-fulfilling prophecy...

There's good reasons why they call it the "social trap."

*shrug* Make what you will of it, but I've a feeling this "chav" phenomenom is one symptom of wider defraying of the social "knit" that keeps communities running smoothly and people (relatively) honest and considerate.

[Byzantine Mercenary]

But the chav culture are not solely youths. They are young and old of both genders. You're mistaking chavs with general "tearaways". There have always been these types since day one, but the chav underclass as described above are a different thing. They are a people without education discipline, respect for anyone or anything, including themselves and seriously lacking in social skills. These sort of people are very likely to deviate and become troublemakers, though many of them don't set out to act ilegally. Alot of their behaviour is not hooliganism or general crime, it is anti-social. That is, for example, behaviour such as keeping a banger of a car and a rubbish tip in the front garden and allowing their kids to run riot over all peoples property and on public transport, without being aware that there is something wrong with allowing them to do that, until late at night vandalising and causing a general nuisance. They don't view working as important, instead they prefer to sponge off the taxpayer. They allow their daughters to keep live in boyfriends, which leads to an unwanted pregnancy and an abortion or yet another uneducated badly brought up individual with a similar future ahead of it. The adults wear the same ridiculous clothes that have been described.

So this is not "todays youth" we're speaking of, it's a whole sub-culture thing. The kids are obviously a bigger problem than the adults and it is they that are often emulating the yardie speak, hanging about on street corners intimidating people, and causing the most trouble, moreso than the generic 'immigrants' group, being often involved in car theft, drugs and other petty crimes. But this is not because it has always been like this, it is a direct product of the chav culture.

Who sits on a bus/train with a mobile phone clapped up to their ear and talks about someone's sexual behaviour, often their own, for all to hear?

Who would also talk publically about exactly how much they drank and how sick they were last night and how they threw their guts up on the taxi window, then look around them thinking that everyone else must be so impressed by this. Chavs that's who. And more specifically women, in actual conversations that I have overheard.

Who roars and shouts in the middle of the high street at his girlfiend and his kid(s), bawling expletives and obscenities, and threatening to "smack your f***ing head in you f***ing bitch, when we get home". Chavs.

Who will brawl in the street with the women cheering them on like cackling vultures? ("German Screeching Women" anyone?) Chavs.

Who will start a massive row in the street with threats of violence and to fetch that famous 6' 8" uncle/cousin from prison to sort you out? Just because you happened to look in their direction at the wrong moment. And I'm not talking about youths.

Who has a split personality and is extremely paranoid and insecure, changing from moderately amicable to totally hostile within seconds, especially after a drink? Who else?

Who bawls and swears at their unfortunate baby "f***ing hell shut the f*** up!"... in the street or on public transport.

Do I need to go on?

They obviously don't have chavs where some of you hail from and maybe you don't have to live in proximity to them, which is why you're so tolerant and politically correct.

well i do come in contact with them (but generaly avoid it when possible), and a good deal of them are as you have described, but many more aren't, they come from normal familys and its more of a facade of being chavs, i know that that the word chav includes adult chavs im not just talking about the young generation.
By the way, i know some people, that look and act like chavs but are actually alright as people.