Victims 'Я' Us

I think my friend Molly hit the nail on the head for quite a few of society's issues in her blog Quintessential Sophism the other day: "...[M]any people don't necessarily take responsibility for their actions or feel a level of accountability when something goes amiss. This tends to lead us into the victim... paradigm."

The way I see things unfolding, far too many kids are raised these days in a climate of "entitlement"——that is, that they deserve certain things just because they exist and not because they have earned them; it is, in part, a confusion between rights and privileges. And while I do believe that there are most certainly things that every human being is indeed entitled to simply by the mere fact that they exist (see the U.S. Declaration of Independence & the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights for starters), most of those basic needs and rights do not, and should not, extend very far into the materialistic world of our modern day.

This pervasive sense of entitlement is extremely destructive, both to the individual and to society as a whole. We are creating a population that is out of control; they are unwilling and/or unable to control their own lives. There is always someone else who is responsible for the things that are needed/wanted. There is always someone else who is responsible for whatever happens. "It's not my fault." The individual is, in a very real sense, giving up control of his* life to those people whom he feels is obligated to fulfill whatever it is he believes he is entitled to. She is giving control of her life to those people whom she feels should be responsible for her actions.

This abdication of responsibility in and of itself isn't necessarily wrong or evil—in fact there are groups who are and have been successful with this societal model——but everyone in the society has to agree upon the model. Everyone must agree that things will be allocated for the common good. Everyone must agree that decisions will be made for the common good. Everyone must agree that it is OK for all of their needs to be met and their obligations mitigated, but that they will not have a say in how those needs are met or how they are directed to live their lives. Everyone must agree that the abdication of control and responsibility must be total and complete—they must give up everything in order to get everything (or anything). I don't particularly agree with that model, but when done correctly, it can work.

Where the biggest conflict arises is when that abdication is not total and complete——when people expect to get everything and not give anything up. People want to have everything provided, and are willing to take the credit for their decisions and actions when things are going smoothly, but as soon as the ride starts getting bumpy, they look to someone else to responsibility. But in choosing to give away the responsibility, we are choosing to let someone else make decisions for us——and that is what we perceive as a loss of freedom.

Just take a look at all the frivolous lawsuits out there. Just take a look at all of those things that you remember from your childhood as commonplace, ordinary and "just the way things were" that are no longer around or are regulated to the nth degree.

I think one of the things that lies at the basis of this issue is a misunderstanding of the concepts of "control" and "responsibility."

Control is an illusion—well, more accurately, lack of control is. You are always in control of what happens to you. You are constantly making decisions that have an impact——even "giving up control" is a choice that rescind at any time. By looking at control in this manner, it is easy to see that the concept of "victim" is also an illusion and merely another choice to let someone else make certain decisions on your behalf.

Responsibility might be more understood if it were spelled differently: response-ability. Being responsible is simply being able to respond appropriately to a given situation, whether that response is action or words. "Appropriately" is the key word, here: if you are unable to respond appropriately, you are irresponsible—and, of course, what is appropriate is decidedly fluid, depending upon the context of the situation (culture, law, morals, ethics, etc.). But again, by choosing to live where we do, we are explicitly or implicitly agreeing to frame our lives within a specific context or set of contexts.

So what we seem to be teaching our children these days is that the appropriate response to anything that is perceived as "wrong" or "bad" is to point the finger at someone else. The appropriate response it to say, "Poor me! Look at what they have done to me! Look at what they have made me do!" The appropriate response is the response of the illusory victim.

It is a vicious circle——more a downward spiral than circle, really. Individuals refuse to accept the consequences of a given choice, instead foisting it off on someone else. Our courts and leaders have, in many cases, supported this transfer of blame by rewarding individuals and punishing those to whom the blame has been shifted. As the pattern develops, it becomes almost classic behaviorism: positively reinforced behavior is learned and passed on; unreinforced or negatively reinforced behavior is avoided.

How do we break the cycle? We must stop rewarding the "blame game." We must force people to accept the consequences of their decisions. We must educate people to the level that they can understand the cultural and social contracts and contexts that they are agreeing to by living where they do——educate them so they are able to respond appropriately to the choices they are faced with in life. We must remove the incentives to go along with the "blame game" that are inherent in our leadership structure today.

These are definitely not easy tasks: essentially rewiring an entire society/culture. And it most certainly won't happen overnight. It starts with each of us consciously taking "control" of our lives, educating ourselves to be response-able, understanding and accepting the consequences of each choice we make and, ultimately, teaching it to our peers and those that look to us for direction——not only through words, but also through actions: modeling the behavior we want to see spread.

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*I'm not a big fan of political correctness—indeed I have some serious issues with the concept that we aren't adult enough to interpret what someone says into whatever gender/race/creed is appropriate for ourselves or to understand and accept the variety of cultural differences that might influence someone's words. In fact, political correctness has, I feel, a major contributor to the "victim" paradigm we are so critical of by creating a hyper-sensitivity to the differences between people. That being said, I do try to be somewhat inclusive in my language, but I will not obsess over it. [Hmm... this might make for another blog topic...]