Dec 02 Dennis Jones – Violence And The Youth Of Today

This interview was published in July 2006

Steve Rowe talks to doorman and Shi Kon martial artist Dennis Jones.

SR Hi Dennis, thought it would be good this month to change topic completely and talk about children. 

DJ  Probably quite appropriate after all the controversy I’ve caused over the last few months – Bob Sykes probably needs a respite from all the letters (laughs).

SR  Let me start this month with a bit of a rant… In a martial arts dojo a generation of children seems to be about every 3 years, in which case I’ve taught over ten generations – I’ve certainly seen many children and parents come and go over the years.

The biggest difference I’ve noticed over the last 30 years is that children used to be taught that they should be ‘seen and not heard’ they were taught that the world doesn’t revolve around them and that they had to learn to ‘fit in’, that nothing worth having in this world comes free, and had to be obtained with hard work, resolve and determination.

Nowadays some children are the centre of the universe in a family and all activities seem to revolve around them.  They get everything given to them without having to work, and are only ever looking for anything that’s free or easy.  School teachers can’t or won’t discipline them, so by the time they leave school, they think that the world revolves around their needs and everyone owes them a living, it then comes as a shock to suddenly find that the world doesn’t work like that.  I must stress that this is just a few children, the problem is that they are spoiling the lives of the many that want to be educated and grow up decently.

DJ  There is a considerable difference between my childhood and today.  Education is now ‘child centred learning’ and you’re right, although most children are well behaved, there is a significant number causing constant disruption and never equate hard work with achievement.  They have an instant gratification ethic and if they don’t get what they want instantly – they go ‘into one’ or just take what they want, not caring about anyone else.

SR  Some of the kids around here seem to wear their ASBO’s with pride…  the light penalties for crime just don’t seem to help and they’re growing up as hardened criminals.

DJ  Here’s something for you Steve.  There’s a local beggar, I think you might have seen him begging outside the local burger bar, anyway he’s a heroin addict, who hangs around the nightclub and talks to the doorman.  He likes hanging around us because we end up protecting him from being beaten up by youths in the area and from those he begs from.  I suppose, even though he can be a right pain, we don’t want to see him get badly beaten up.  Anyway he received an ASBO and is now locked up for 6 months for breaching the ASBO conditions, but I can’t see how just being locked up will help him or society in general – he needs a different kind of help.  Just recently we had a problem with a group of men who had beaten up a couple of youngsters in the club, we threw them out and they threatened us once they were outside.  They had bricks and bottles as weapons but because they weren’t getting anywhere with us, when a couple of youths, leaving the kebab shop, walked past they took it out on them.  We got involved, stopped them and held them for ‘a breach of the peace’ until the police arrived.  The police were fully informed of who did what and who hit who, names and address and witnesses, and these guys only got an £80 fine!  Something is seriously wrong there!

SR  It doesn’t make sense, that’s a drunk and disorderly fine… the court obviously didn’t take the violence into account.

DJ  It didn’t go to court!  The fine is given out, written out from a booklet that all policemen seem to carry nowadays, it’s a ‘fixed penalty ticket’ just like your parking fine!  The government seems to be all over the place, it can’t make its mind up, so the people who need dealing with seem to get away with it or receive a punishment that won’t make a difference.  The problem begins in the home and at school, the children are not punished properly for misbehaviour; you can’t even blame the teachers because as soon as they try to punish a child for misbehaviour, the parents are on their back!  There’s no support from anywhere and the people in power pretend it isn’t happening.

SR  Because of these few miscreants, some schools are certainly not a good environment to grow up in nowadays.  Some head teachers won’t admit to bullying in their school because it reflects badly on them and to deal with it means they have to deal with the difficult parents.

DJ The ‘system’ is worked to death and most of the people that fall foul of it, don’t give it a second thought.  The ‘system’ is weak and these children grow up into adults that contribute nothing and expect everything free of charge from society.  That’s fine for young children but that’s not right for anybody that’s a teenager or older.

If someone is ill or incapacitated, or can’t get a job, of course we have to help them, but the ‘wilful malingerers or just plain nasty’ are a drain on society and ruin the life of everyone around them.

There was a case in the papers yesterday where a 15 year old child had caused trouble and when the father was called, without even listen to what the problem was, he hit the other guy with his crash helmet and killed him!  And what punishment did he get?  4 years in prison…  The wife of the guy who was killed said ‘…it sends out a message that yobs can ruin people’s lives and hardly pay any price at all for the grief they cause…’ 

SR…  And then there are those few people that are constantly stealing cars, driving them madly and burning them out, running around the streets kicking off wing mirrors, smashing car windows and stealing anything.  If we leave anything unattended for a moment – it’s stolen.  They are out in the streets, drink or drug crazed, shouting and screaming at 4am with no fear of anyone or anything not even those £80 fines!

DJ  It’s easy to deal with the normal kids, you can just tell them off – that’s if they are doing something wrong.  But everyone’s scared of these troublemakers and their parents and that’s not just at school.  I fear that a small percentage of the kids diagnosed with ADHD are simply troublemakers who have never been dealt with properly.  Forty years ago there was firm discipline in schools and in society.  Today there is hardly any discipline in society and the easy answer can be to put children on pills to control their behaviour, what’s gone wrong?

SR  The worst child that we have ever had to deal with had teachers as parents!  And they blamed everyone but themselves for his behaviour and they were all seriously dysfunctional!

DJ  More than likely they spent all their time trying to please the child!  There is also a problem when a child’s opinion is given equal credibility to that of an adult.  They say that they are entitled to an opinion – they are, but only within limits.  Whether it counts or means anything depends on how they behave – and if it’s disrupting a class or causing problems on the street – it doesn’t!

SR  In the past, children looked up to the older generation and tried to emulate them.  Now, thanks to the media the older generation are constantly trying to look like – and behave, like the teenagers.  That’s sad!

DJ  The few are ruining life for the many- so what’s the answer?  I found the ‘Vedanta Treatise’ very illuminating.  ‘…Passivity in a man may lean towards good or bad. A passively bad man is one who is involved in wrong, immoral activities but does not intend to be bad.  And contrary to the passively bad; an aggressively bad man is one who intends to be bad.  He wilfully and viciously plans and schemes, manipulates and manoeuvres…  An aggressively good person is one whose basic nature is good…He studies facts, foresees consequences, reasons carefully and acts in the best interest of all.  Their actions are benevolent to the core.  Even a single aggressively good person present in a community can bring about peace, prosperity and happiness to its entire people.’   We need more aggressively good people!

SR  As Bob Riley (the Governor for the state of Alabame)  said:

“Tolerating evil leads only to more evil. And when good people stand by and do nothing while wickedness reigns, their communities will be consumed.” 

There has to be a swing in the opposite direction where decent people are fed up with having their lives constantly disrupted by the few…. And the General Elections are not that far away…

Steve Rowe

Steve Rowe is a highly successful Martial Arts instructor - an International Neigong, Qigong and Tai Chi Teacher and an 8th Dan Karate with many other senior dan grades in other martial disciplines.

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