A little over a year ago, the first article of this blog was entered. A conscious decision was made not to add another for a period, anticipating the direction the new Administrations leaderships policies and practices would take us and the world as well, one way or the other. The swift and precipitous rate of change in our lives and those around the world is staggering – but in many cases deliberate.
I remind readers the mantra tagged on the landing page of this blog:
During the course of change throughout human history, the struggle for freedom and liberty, and from tyranny, is a choice to lead or be led. To thrive for self-worth, driven by achievement, made possible only through knowledge and effort, is hard. To surrender is easy. Free will, a gift from the Divine, and enemy of the malevolent, must be used with great foresight.”
What is it to be responsible? By definition: (adj) 1. answerable or accountable for something within one’s control; 2. having a capacity for moral decisions; 3. being dependable; 4. involving important duties, independent decision making; 5. capable of being trusted; 6. morally accountable for one’s behavior. Antonyms: reckless, feckless, careless, mindless, dishonest, uncompassionate, cowardly, unaccountable.
Is “responsibility” under attack? It is progressively missing in certain segments of society. We should begin with our childhood and a hard look at history. Prosperous generations over time have depended on a life cycle where the young are taught well, through structure, by their elders, teachers, and parents. Everything from traditions, faith, academics, vocational skills, rules of behavior, civics, and so forth, and particularly self-reliance, self-worth and self-respect are transferred from one to the next. The idea has always been and should always be that these tenets are instilled by the time they become young adults and begin participating in their own cycle of transference of life attributes to those they are ‘responsible’ for. This is the teaching of responsibility and a dependence on oneself to become a productive member of society, to be able to “figure it out on your own” and not to rely on others to maintain, build or otherwise “fix” your own life. Every great society from the Persian Empire to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, to the tribes of the American Indians, to the development of peaceful and freedom loving nations have honored, respected, and maintained this cycle.
When this cycle is weakened, ignored, and not maintained, responsibility is damaged. When responsibility is damaged, society is damaged. It’s like a table, the weaker the leg the greater risk of it falling apart. You need to have trust in all legs that support the table – you need to have trust in the people in a society. The only way to accomplish this is to build responsibility among its members. If attempts are made to control society from the outside (i.e., other than from within the individual) there is no incentive to maintain responsibility. With no responsibility, there is no thriving society. If you don’t thrive, you don’t live, but simply exist.
My mom would tell me point blank from the age she knew I could comprehend it (I believe 13…., because I thought I had achieved a rite of passage…) “When you turn 18, you are on your own” ….as she would motion with her back-and-forth hand wiping motion. I think she recited this at least a hundred times. Both my mom and dad were self-made. The thing is, by the time 18 rolled around, I could manage. She, my dad and my mentors instilled the “life attributes” I needed to jump out of the nest with just about all the basic tools needed to prosper. We had very little money and somehow that didn’t matter. I made my life from that point forward.
I reference this entry a “Preamble” as the growing presence of attrition, fueled by ambivalence, when it comes to responsibility is permeating across society in multitude. This “gradually making something weaker and destroying it, especially the strength or confidence of an enemy by repeatedly attacking it” will be considered by subject in this series going forward, and not limited to crime, knowledge, faith, education, media, economics, family, history, to name a few. Anything in life of true value is earned.
TPO