TWATANS

TWATANS
This may not seem at first ‘political’, but wait until the end.
I have been desperately searching for an acronym for a seemingly growing number of people in British society whose practices suggest that they have a mindset which places them outside or above the norms of behaviour of most of society. They include :
· (obviously) investment bankers and senior company executives who pay themselves or as for huge rewards not directly relate to performance. Apparently the size of these payouts in relation to average earnings in the companies has spiked alarmingly in recent years. They clearly believe that it is acceptable behaviour. The norm is for people to be rewarded reasonably for success but not excessively and certainly not at the expense of other employees who may work just as hard and effectively in their own sphere.
· People who own fast, powerful cars (premier league footballers are often in this group), think it acceptable to drive at high speed when over the alcohol limit, and then attempt to escape by hiring an expensive loophole lawyer to get them off, having endangered many lives. It is a norm of society not to drive excessively fast or when under the influence or both.
· Comedians who think it is acceptable to insult and degrade totally innocent people in the name of ‘humour’. Most people do not gratuitously insult people they don’t know.
· Journalists who think it is OK to destroy people’s privacy and/or reputation to further their own career and to sell papers. Most of us respect the privacy of others and expect ours to be respected too.
· Politicians who steal taxpayers money in the name of expenses and think it is OK if it ‘technically’ falls within the ‘rules’. Most people do not steal even when they have a safe opportunity to do so.
· The very wealthy who think it is OK not to pay taxes (legally or illegally) as the rest of society does. Most believe tax should be based, either strictly or loosely, on the ability to pay. On the whole those who evade or avoid tax most voraciously have the greatest ability to pay.
The best I could come up with is Those Who Adjudge Themselves Above the Norms of Society – TWATANS.

Here is the political bit. Governments often lecture, cajole and even legislate us into not smoking tobacco, using narcotics, drinking excessive alcohol, becoming obese etc. Perhaps there should be a campaign appealing for such people to act within society’s norms.
I think a simple test is this. ‘If most people behaved in one of the ways described above, society would soon disintegrate’. It is thus not acceptable for individuals to behave outside the norms because most are operating within those norms. I think it was Lord (Geoffrey) Howe who said something like , ‘ the test of a stable democratic and just society is whether people conform to its norms of behaviour, whether or not they are coerced into doing so by law’

But.....we may have to put up with them.



http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Colleges/Government---Politics.aspx?mRef=CNM01