What’s happened to Personal Responsibility?

Outrage of the Month from uschamber.com – September 2008

It seems that no one has any sense of shame anymore. No one is embarrassed about their actions. No one wants to take responsibility for their actions. Personally, when I walk down the sidewalk and trip over something that isn’t there, I try and look casual about it and hope no one notices my blunder. Too many people today look for ways to push the blame onto someone else. It couldn’t possibly have been their own fault! “Did you see what happened to me? Someone should pay!”

This sense of entitlement does nothing more than serve to keep lawyers employed and to drive the cost of everything up because of the potential liability. Insurance has become a huge expense to our industry (and probably all industries) because of that “what if” potential for liability.

Unfortunately we’re ingraining this into our children from before they can talk. I watched a mother and her son interacting the other day. The toddler was walking, but was still at that uncoordinated stage. He stumbled and bumped his head on an end table and began to cry. “Did that mean old table hurt your head?”, asked his mother as she comforted him. “Poor, Baby!”

What lesson was learned here? Did the toddler learn to be careful and watch his step or was this part of his early education about transferring blame?

Am I a cynic? Yeah, guilty as charged…

Kevin L. Berger