What does Personal Responsibility mean in our modern culture? The way that we deal with problems. There's a story called 'The Spendthrift and the Swallow' in which a man sells every possession he has, including his coat because he's seen a swallow, a sign of coming spring. The next day, the winter is still there and it's colder than ever. The spendthrift sees the dead swallow and blames it for him being cold in the winter.
Our modern society has become increasingly willing to push the blame for someone's actions onto other circumstances. We look at convicted killers and blame drugs, parental abuse, mental illness, societal pressures, just about anything we can to take the blame off of the person who has committed a crime against society. Why? Why is a man or woman no longer responsible for their actions? And at what point does a society draw the line?
E.g. - A couple of years ago there was an elderly pedophile living in Citrus County. He and his sister in law were habitual drug users. This old man broke into a home, kidnapped a nine year old girl, raped her, and buried her alive. At trial, he was continually brought before mental health experts, claiming he was mentally handicapped and thus was not in control of his actions. Mental illness and drug abuse had forced his hand into kidnapping, raping, and killing a young girl. If we take that as true, then logically it must follow that every mentally handicapped person or drug user or combination thereof will act criminally. However we see from hard evidence that mentally handicapped citizens are not always criminals.
But personal responsibility is not limited to illegal activities alone. The United States education system has been battling over sex education for a long while now. When to start it? What is appropriate to tell children in schools? In some of the more liberal states, there are reports of handing out boxes to girls and boys filled with contraceptives. Condoms to the boys, and birth control pills to the girls. With many states allowing abortions without parental consent, states such as Connecticut, California, Illinois, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, and Nevada as well as others. The schools equip children with birth control and condoms, a virtual pass saying 'feel free to have sex'. And when children in those schools do have sex and a pregnancy results, children can go to the local neighborhood abortion clinic and have an abortion. Yet any time someone mentions talking to kids about abstinence, it's considered draconian.
Is responsibility that difficult to teach? Is it so horrible to teach children respect for the society in which we live that being culpable for our own actions is considered outdated?
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2 comments:
Ah, well, lack of personal responsibility goes hand-in-hand with socialism. How can you trust the government more than yourself unless you relinquish responsibility for yourself and your actions?
I know it's not exactly fully on your topic, but I find I resent the idea of 'bailing out' mortgages that people who make less than me got for houses twice as grand as mine. When a society starts rewarding irresponsibility, why be responsible?
There are quite a few things that are lacking in society these days. I think people don't want to take responsibility because it would mean that they have to also accept the bad decisions they make came from themselves and not an outside source. This ties in with an apathy to right the wrong they are experiencing. It's one thing to say 'hey, I screwed up' and a completely different thing to step up to the plate and commit to the solution.
There is no magic pill that will get you out of the karma of your actions. You can ignore the problem, but while it may appear to go away, it just comes back in a more detrimental form on down the road. People need to learn to become the master of their life in an active way before life makes the choices for them. This is very true when you shirk responsibility or even point the finger at other people.
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