6 ms·

lived for 3 years in germany; i was extremely clubbing. Forget shooting you don't see much fighting neither. In comparison, in my one year in England, I witnes

lived for 3 years in germany; i was extremely clubbing. Forget shooting you don't see much fighting neither. In comparison, in my one year in England, I witnessed 5 club fights, and in Russia two gun fights. It seems mostly an attitude of the society towards violence and guns. On the other side, in Germany, you frequently see your neighbor calling the police if you make some noise.

arethuza 14y ago
In my experience, violence in the UK tends to be concentrated at very specific times and places - generally city and town centers between 11pm and 3am on a Friday and Saturday night. Avoid these times and places and you'll never see a fight, go to the worst of these places and there will be multiple fights. As for culture - where I grew up (70s/80s, small town, North of Scotland, fishing and oil as main employers) there was a lot of fist fights but I never heard or saw anyone using a knife - I suspect that has changed.
- DanBC 14y ago
  > violence in the UK tends to be concentrated at very specific times and places > but I never heard or saw anyone using a knife - I suspect that has changed. Not disagreeing with you, but just wanted to say that Glasgow is the "knife crime capitol of Europe". Here's a map showing knife crimes, and arrests. (Read the numbers for offences.) There are about 570,000 people in Glasgow. (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=201273553307969061853.0004b2cb09a882b2446dd&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=55.854076,-4.334302&spn=0.178251,0.467654&t=m&vpsrc=6&source=embed http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=201273553307...)
  - arethuza 14y ago
    There are considerable cultural differences between Glasgow and the rest of Scotland. For example, I grew up in rural Moray and had never encountered sectarianism until I moved to Edinburgh - and it's very tame here compared to the West. Glasgow was also infamous for organised crime and territorial gang violence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_Kingdom#Glasgow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_Kingdom#Gla...
  - bazzargh 14y ago
    The 'knife crime capital of Europe' thing is largely an invention of the tabloids. There have been a lot of posession offences reported, but in large part this is because of more police stop&search. What's more interesting is the violent crime statistics, and the way the press gets its knife/murder capital of europe headlines by abusing them. One way they do this is by picking numbers from different reports, and combining them in ways that don't make sense. For example: one of the Daily Record's 'murder capital' articles was based on taking the number of murders in the greater Glasgow area, and dividing it by the population of the central Glasgow area (590,000 instead of 1.2m!) and then feigning surprise when the murder rate seems to be double the European average. They've also used changes in the very small numbers involved to generate headlines; a difference of 5 murders from one year to another doesn't sound much, but it can when the change is 25%! (straight to the front page) While there is violence - particularly around the Old Firm football matches and when the nightclubs spill onto the streets - its not as different as the local rags would have you believe; their job is selling papers, and fearmongering does it.
    - olegious 14y ago
      I spent almost 2 years in Glasgow. I read the frightening headlines before coming there, the headlines don't match the reality. Most of the violence occurs in the East side of town and on weekends around certain clubs. Frankly, there are many times I feel less safe throughout San Francisco. Glasgow has much fewer panhandlers and your really have to try hard to get into the more dangerous parts of town, unlike SF where 2 or 3 blocks in the wrong direction can create a fairly uncomfortable situation.
ticks 14y ago
I think the UKs main problem is alcohol abuse, which has a tendency to fuel violence - thankfully the violence is mostly limited to pointy things due to guns being banned.
- anghyflawn 14y ago
  It's not so much alcohol consumption per se as the culture. In the UK, and in general in much of historically protestant northern Europe, there is a very deeply ingrained culture where Bad Things will happen if you drink; the flip side of that is that if you do drink, it is much more socially acceptable to go out and get in a fight (after all, that's what you do when you're drunk, right?). In many Mediterranean cultures people do not consume significantly less alcohol (normally in the form of wine, of course), but people are generally more relaxed about this, and as a consequence there is less binge drinking and fewer drunken brawls. Here is a report on this: http://www.sirc.org/publik/drinking7.html http://www.sirc.org/publik/drinking7.html, or, for a less technical explanation, see Kate Fox's Watching the English
  - hnhg 14y ago
    There's also a food culture there and alcohol gtts consumed with a meal, whereas in the UK people scorn having food when it takes up drinking time - "eating is cheating" I've heard from many a folk.
  - arethuza 14y ago
    "In the UK, and in general in much of historically protestant northern Europe, there is a very deeply ingrained culture where Bad Things will happen if you drink" Possibly the most inaccurate statement ever made on HN. :-)
    - anghyflawn 14y ago
      Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sure what you mean :). It's not like I'm making this stuff up, social anthropologists have known about "temperance cultures" for a long time. Ever notice how Mediterranean countries don't have a history of mass temperance movements, which have been very strong in Britain, the US and Scandinavia? Do you think it's a freak coincidence?
mjwalshe 14y ago
But they do seem to consider having a regular riot with the police as almost a tradition.
PaulMcCartney 14y ago
I'm led to believe that societally they are repressing their anger and aggression in reaction to WWII. The lack of bar fights and the number of shootings are strangely low. I think this is the most compelling explanation. It is known that the atrocities committed by their people during WWII weighs heavily on their psyche.
- PaulMcCartney 14y ago
  Down voting without providing a response to my comment or a without furthering the conversation in any way is the type of meaningless emotional response that down voting was meant to combat in the first place. You have not helped the conversation in any way and have not provided me with a reason to reconsider my assessment.
  - ma2rten 14y ago
    I did not downvote your original comment (only this one), however, here is why I think it might have been downvoted: a) Your comment does not make sense: People only very few people who commited any war crimes in WW2 are even alive anymore. Germans these days learn about it in history class. While it still has some influence on their attitude towards nationalism, it is unlikely that it has any influence on their general aggressiveness. b) This is a sensitive issue. It might have been considered offensive.
- soc88 14y ago
  That's probably the dumbest thing I've read this year and the year is far from over. Congratulations.
  - PaulMcCartney 14y ago
    Again, comments like these are why the down vote was created. Please be constructive with your feedback. Where do you think my assessment falls short?
    - chc 14y ago

arethuza 14y ago

In my experience, violence in the UK tends to be concentrated at very specific times and places - generally city and town centers between 11pm and 3am on a Friday and Saturday night. Avoid these times and places and you'll never see a fight, go to the worst of these places and there will be multiple fights. As for culture - where I grew up (70s/80s, small town, North of Scotland, fishing and oil as main employers) there was a lot of fist fights but I never heard or saw anyone using a knife - I suspect that has changed.

DanBC 14y ago
> violence in the UK tends to be concentrated at very specific times and places > but I never heard or saw anyone using a knife - I suspect that has changed. Not disagreeing with you, but just wanted to say that Glasgow is the "knife crime capitol of Europe". Here's a map showing knife crimes, and arrests. (Read the numbers for offences.) There are about 570,000 people in Glasgow. (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=201273553307969061853.0004b2cb09a882b2446dd&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=55.854076,-4.334302&spn=0.178251,0.467654&t=m&vpsrc=6&source=embed http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=201273553307...)
- arethuza 14y ago
  There are considerable cultural differences between Glasgow and the rest of Scotland. For example, I grew up in rural Moray and had never encountered sectarianism until I moved to Edinburgh - and it's very tame here compared to the West. Glasgow was also infamous for organised crime and territorial gang violence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_Kingdom#Glasgow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangs_in_the_United_Kingdom#Gla...
- bazzargh 14y ago
  The 'knife crime capital of Europe' thing is largely an invention of the tabloids. There have been a lot of posession offences reported, but in large part this is because of more police stop&search. What's more interesting is the violent crime statistics, and the way the press gets its knife/murder capital of europe headlines by abusing them. One way they do this is by picking numbers from different reports, and combining them in ways that don't make sense. For example: one of the Daily Record's 'murder capital' articles was based on taking the number of murders in the greater Glasgow area, and dividing it by the population of the central Glasgow area (590,000 instead of 1.2m!) and then feigning surprise when the murder rate seems to be double the European average. They've also used changes in the very small numbers involved to generate headlines; a difference of 5 murders from one year to another doesn't sound much, but it can when the change is 25%! (straight to the front page) While there is violence - particularly around the Old Firm football matches and when the nightclubs spill onto the streets - its not as different as the local rags would have you believe; their job is selling papers, and fearmongering does it.
  - olegious 14y ago
    I spent almost 2 years in Glasgow. I read the frightening headlines before coming there, the headlines don't match the reality. Most of the violence occurs in the East side of town and on weekends around certain clubs. Frankly, there are many times I feel less safe throughout San Francisco. Glasgow has much fewer panhandlers and your really have to try hard to get into the more dangerous parts of town, unlike SF where 2 or 3 blocks in the wrong direction can create a fairly uncomfortable situation.

ticks 14y ago

I think the UKs main problem is alcohol abuse, which has a tendency to fuel violence - thankfully the violence is mostly limited to pointy things due to guns being banned.

anghyflawn 14y ago
It's not so much alcohol consumption per se as the culture. In the UK, and in general in much of historically protestant northern Europe, there is a very deeply ingrained culture where Bad Things will happen if you drink; the flip side of that is that if you do drink, it is much more socially acceptable to go out and get in a fight (after all, that's what you do when you're drunk, right?). In many Mediterranean cultures people do not consume significantly less alcohol (normally in the form of wine, of course), but people are generally more relaxed about this, and as a consequence there is less binge drinking and fewer drunken brawls. Here is a report on this: http://www.sirc.org/publik/drinking7.html http://www.sirc.org/publik/drinking7.html, or, for a less technical explanation, see Kate Fox's Watching the English
- hnhg 14y ago
  There's also a food culture there and alcohol gtts consumed with a meal, whereas in the UK people scorn having food when it takes up drinking time - "eating is cheating" I've heard from many a folk.
- arethuza 14y ago
  "In the UK, and in general in much of historically protestant northern Europe, there is a very deeply ingrained culture where Bad Things will happen if you drink" Possibly the most inaccurate statement ever made on HN. :-)
  - anghyflawn 14y ago
    Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not sure what you mean :). It's not like I'm making this stuff up, social anthropologists have known about "temperance cultures" for a long time. Ever notice how Mediterranean countries don't have a history of mass temperance movements, which have been very strong in Britain, the US and Scandinavia? Do you think it's a freak coincidence?

mjwalshe 14y ago

But they do seem to consider having a regular riot with the police as almost a tradition.

PaulMcCartney 14y ago

I'm led to believe that societally they are repressing their anger and aggression in reaction to WWII. The lack of bar fights and the number of shootings are strangely low. I think this is the most compelling explanation. It is known that the atrocities committed by their people during WWII weighs heavily on their psyche.

PaulMcCartney 14y ago
Down voting without providing a response to my comment or a without furthering the conversation in any way is the type of meaningless emotional response that down voting was meant to combat in the first place. You have not helped the conversation in any way and have not provided me with a reason to reconsider my assessment.
- ma2rten 14y ago
  I did not downvote your original comment (only this one), however, here is why I think it might have been downvoted: a) Your comment does not make sense: People only very few people who commited any war crimes in WW2 are even alive anymore. Germans these days learn about it in history class. While it still has some influence on their attitude towards nationalism, it is unlikely that it has any influence on their general aggressiveness. b) This is a sensitive issue. It might have been considered offensive.
soc88 14y ago
That's probably the dumbest thing I've read this year and the year is far from over. Congratulations.
- PaulMcCartney 14y ago
  Again, comments like these are why the down vote was created. Please be constructive with your feedback. Where do you think my assessment falls short?
  - chc 14y ago