The Decline of Personal and Societal Accountability

by Michol Mae

The blame game, something that is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s society, slowly eroding our honor and our accountability.  This is a controversial topic, particularly with tragedies plastered all over the television, a television that we find ourselves increasingly reliant on.  We turn to news media expecting the truth, but we should be learned enough to know there are many sides to the truth.  We know there are at least two sides to every story, so why do we blindly follow the media, because it is easier.  We follow the media and we don’t have to do the research, we don’t have to look any further, and social media makes it even easier for people to access a plethora of information.         

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The societal need to blame the victim is well known through the sociology and psychology.  It is often easier for society to blame the victim because it requires less work.  This is especially true for victims of sexual assault whose attackers are people they know.  Society blames the way a person dresses, or carries themselves, the same society turns around and promotes the skimpy clothes the victim might wear.  Regardless of the clothing, how a person walks, where they chose to hang out, or even how promiscuous they may be, they can still be the victim.  Yet, blaming the victim of a sexual assault is not the last stop on train to the decline of personal and societal accountability, it is one of the first, with many more to follow. 

Every few years music gets a major overhaul, some new sound, new look, and new controversy arises in the music industry.  With these changes comes the next stop on our travels through the decline.  That’s right, we as society began to blame music, we blames it for violence, sex, and drugs.  It is easier to blame the music than to take a hard look at what we as person or society could be doing wrong.  Parents united against the music industry, convinced that it could not be their children acting this way on their own, not once looking at their own household as the possible issue.  Why?, because it is easier to blame the music, and so much harder to look at ourselves.   But this crazy train of unaccountability does not stop here.

Now we blame food and soft drinks for our obesity problem and allow the government to implement restrictions on what we can buy.  Has anyone stopped to consider that the increase in technology might be more to blame than the soft drinks and fast food?  Has any considered that technology has led to an increasingly sedentary life?  Wait, now that I have brought it up, will they look to restrict our access to technology?  Before we go blaming the soft drinks, fast food, and technology, let’s once again take a look at ourselves and society.  We know enough to know we need to be active even employers are starting to identify the need to let their more sedentary employees be active throughout the work day.  As an individual and as a society we should be able to find ways to incorporate being active once again, if not, we should know enough to adjust our own diet.  However, if we don’t choose to adjust our diet or our workout schedule, isn’t it our choice?

All aboard! We have arrived at the last stop, and perhaps the most controversial stop.  In light of the recent tragedies advocates and oppressors of guns have rallied together to create a male storm of media.  Who was responsible for any shooting?  Was it the Gun?  No! It was the person, it was the crazed manic, the mentally ill, the depressed, the psychopath, the sociopath, or perhaps it was someone who believed what they were doing was not wrong, regardless, the blame is on the person.  It is quite possible that the blame could bleed out onto society, but that very idea just made many of you reading this article cringe.  Society has facilitated this steady decline in accountability and everyone including society itself looks for someone or something to blame.  Individuals and society are guilty of facilitating this decline, because it is easier.  It is easier to say ban the guns than to face the fear that another person could create such an act, it is easier to say ban the guns than to face the fact that our mental health system fails and flounders hopelessly because we cannot begin to clearly define and treat mental illness, and it is easier to assuage those fears by swift knee jerk reactions.  This article is not to advocate or oppose any gun issues, it is to show the lack of accountability, it is show how individuals and society contribute to that decline in accountability. 

Benjamin Frankin once said “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety, if we allow our liberty to be taken away because we don’t want to be held accountable, or because we are afraid to face our fears, is it not the same principle.  Our liberties are being taken away, eroded a little day by day, and if we do not look at ourselves and hold ourselves accountable we will find ourselves, as Ben says, without liberty of safety and we will have ourselves to blame, not the clothes, food, soft drinks, technology, video games, or guns.  Instead the decline of personal and society accountability will have robbed us of our freedom and our security. 

         

          

               

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