So close and yet so far

A guardian writer almost gets it, so close then lets things slip through his fingers into the standard anti-capitalist rant that you would expect. He is talking about the fear of teenagers that is developing across society.

We Brits are significantly more likely than western European counterparts to think the young are mostly to blame for anti-social behaviour. Whether justified or not, it's clear that they terrify us grown-ups. We let them get on with it. We give them a wide berth. What can you do?

How about not giving them a wide berth, standing up to them and not letting them get on with it. Change the balance of risk and reward so that it is nolonger such an easy choice to be a chav. But if you do that then you will always end up worse off, ignored, ridiculed as powerless, or knifed by the teenagers. And they are right, adults are powerless. They cannot do what is needed to maintain a civil society because if they do then they will be arrested by the police for daring to show up it's ineptitude. And he almost gets it writing:

Adult society as a whole has a duty to behave in an adult manner, to regard the conduct and wellbeing of children at large as part of its collective responsibility.

For in the world of the Guardian taking collective responsibility decays quickly to keeping your head down, letting them get on with it, giving them a wide berth. And then blaming everything on Grand Theft Auto. Since obviously teenagers are all simple automota programmed through the consumer goods that they are required to buy. Not actual living, thinking people like Guardian readers.