LETTERS - An old-fashioned view
Sir: Being of the older generation I recall a time when debt was shameful; if you couldn't afford something you couldn't have it.
Martin Vander Weyer ('Bankrupt but not broke', 16 July) attributes the decline in debt repayment to, among other things, moral relativism, cynicism towards institu- tions and changing patterns in family life, all of which he considers were characteris- tics of the 1980s.
It is commonplace nowadays to read comment blaming the 1980s for the gener- al decline in personal responsibility. How- ever, moral relativism and disrespect towards national institutions were charac- teristics of the 1960s and 1970s youth counter-culture, an era when adults now in control of social and economic affairs were growing up. It was the youth of those times who clamoured for freedom from the restraints their parents lived by and demanded the right to choose whatever 'lifestyle' suited them. It was a time when adults lost control of the young and the young lost control of themselves. In the 1980s it fell to that generation to take on the duties their parents had carried in sterner times, and a right royal mess they have made of it!
L. A. Chambers
Bower House, Baunton Lane, Cirencester, Glos
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