First of all, I want to make something clear. As a pacifist, I hate violence but I see why people would resort to it. I don't want to moraly label it yet however.
Secondly, I regret people that have nothing to do with these matters fall victim to violence and pillaging.
I want to share my support with the people that say that these matters run deeper than "pointless violence and looting". As a Dutch social worker, I'm familiar with our own local/national issues on "street level" although they are not as severe as in England. Fact is that the Netherlands invests more effort/money/support on a person that needs it at the moment. I say invest, because MOST of the times, the effort is payed back in a safer neighbourhood, higher general welfare and low unemployment rates and low depression rates. Why am I glad that it happened in England? I am somewhat familiar with the situation in England from co workers located there and the situation on street level is sometimes very atrocious indeed. Also, in Western Europe, it is becoming a trend to cut on social security and health support; Maybe these riots will prevent further suffering after all.
In fact, I might actually be glad this happened in England at the moment. The (these) issues of the lowest class citizens have been around for decades, with the rise of capitalism and globalism. These issues always have been there, but you should be aware of them to see them. As others said, this is simply one of the major events where they have been visible for the entire community. These people that loot and use violence are exposed, or have been exposed to similar behaviour for a long time, without anyone caring about it. The community in general only starts to care when it affects us, which is a very big flaw of today's Western communities. Apparantly, people need examples first before they start caring.
As both a social law worker and sociology student, I dare to say that today's communities have many flaws. I bet most of you would agree to it and some of you might recognise some points that I will point out here that are relevant according to myself.
- Freedom of speech; A lot of people find it very important that they should be able to say and think whatever they want. Its a great liberty that has been hardfought, but people do not realise that with great liberties comes great responsibilities. Also, in liberties, you always have a "shadow side"; Each liberty will limit another. The "Freedom of Speech" for instance can be used to openly discriminate against social groups. It can also be used to lock people out of support, jobs and perspective which happens now all over Western Europe as well. Employers still reject people because they are foreign for various reasons and if they do hire them, they will try to abuse their weak status to cut on their payment (sometimes way below minimum wage) or to just saddle them with unreasonable labor/tasks which increases health complications. Which leads me to the next point.
- The free market. The community decides on what sort of people are made important and which aren't. Despite the sometimes arbitrary deal, society in general fails to understand that it needs a balanced working force for it to be functional. Society needs mechanics, janitors and cleaners just as much as executives and surgeons. Especially unpaid "volunteers" that sometimes work 48 hours a week for no pay are treated like dirt by society. These volunteers do tasks in society (like taking care of elderly people, handicapted people and working in public service areas) that no one else will do without payment, but which needs to be done. In theory, these people are labeled as "unemployed" and since they are unwilling to get "a real job", they can be cut on their support. This trend indeed leads to rich people getting richer and the group of poor people growing.
- Individualism. From birth, we are raised to be assertive and self centered. We're all the center of the world and we're all special, unique and filled with talents. Its because we live in a society in which this trait is needed to keep your head above the water. However, with this we allow selfcenteredness to run rampant. Don't get me wrong; Its not a bad quality, but at the moment, a great deal of society only cares about him/herself and his direct environment. Because of this, a great deal of society only can only relate to people somehow similar to him/her and won't even bother with others. Like others said; People are very eager to judge which people are worthy of honor, respect, support and titles. People don't want to be bothered with the issues of people they don't give a rats ass about, which leads to reactions like "shoot them all", or "punish them as hard as you can". Its very short-sighted and each time I hear it, I translate it in "If you punish them, they won't be a bother to ME anymore", which is basically all they care about. (me)
I agree that society in general failed to look out for their weakest and least fortunate and its getting worse. As in any deal with multiple partakers, the deal must be and remain satisfactory to all factions or people will turn away from it sooner or later. And just like a child that is crying for attention, its behaviour will become more and more extreme until finally it will be too late. If you ask me, we should increase our attention to our fellow man. Decadent that all our societies are, all we do the past 40/50 years is pursue our own happiness, ignoring the rest of the world in the process. As humanity, we could make the world a MUCH better place if we put the effort in it and would be willing to sacrifise some/more of our own interests. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or in this case the individual.
Sorry that it became a wall of text and sorry for the shaky English.