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Fighting the good fight--barely
Nov. 23rd, 2005 09:58 amOne of the other department secretaries and I were talking about this yesterday and then an LJ friend mentioned something along similar lines in her post today. Basically it all boils down to : What is wrong with people these days?
They think rules don't apply to them. What do you mean I can't copy someone else's work? What do you mean I can't miss more than the allowed number of absences? What do you mean this paper doesn't deserve an A? But I tried to get in all my materials before the deadline, isn't that enough? Why do I have to pay a late enrollment fee when the reason I couldn't enroll was because of a parking hold on my enrollment? And that's just in the academic environment. Don't even get me started on actual Real World examples.
Our society, by and large (and it's getting larger by the moment) is a wreck. People won't even accept responsibility for what they eat for gods' sake. And why should we? From kindergarten up to the working world, we're constantly told It's Not Our Fault. Kids don't get failing grades in some schools anymore. They get "deferred success." Teachers are caught in a hideous paradox: They are blamed for not teaching students, but they aren't allowed to correct when students do wrong things--not to mention the expectation that they serve as surrogates for absent parents. So by the time we're adults, many of us haven't had a single lesson in taking resposibility for our own actions. We never saw such a thing in our homes because everyone was too busy watching reality T.V. At least that way we knew there was always someone out there worse off than ourselves.
We are raising--have already raised--a generation of selfish, lazy people who have no sense of ethical obligations to others. They have no sense of justice beyond how it serves their own immediate needs. The criminal who heads up our country is a terrifying example of this. I believe he is, appropriately, the ultimate model for this Society of Self. I'm not sure if he just gave no thought to the lives destroyed by his hobby war or if he thought about them and just didn't care. The outcome was the same: For his own desires and goals, he broke the rules and then refused to be held accountable for his actions. People watch the leader of our country shamelessly duck questions and responsibility at every occasion. Why should everyone else be held to a higher standard?
How do we get people, who as far as I can tell have no internal moral compass, to accept responsibility? How do we get people to comprehend the value of compassion when they were taught from birth to only look out for Number One? Is it even possible? We need something, but I don't know what. I'm not a great believer in revolution, but at this point, I really don't know what else will have a significant impact. The question is, who of us will have the energy left to participate? It's embarassing and exhausting. I once said that I would never leave this country. That I would be one of the citizens who stayed to fight. But I'm getting tired. I'm getting worn down. I have brief flashes of inspiration that light my spirit for a short time, but then I find myself even more burnt out than I was before.
I know what's wrong with me. I'm tired. But what's wrong with everyone else?
They think rules don't apply to them. What do you mean I can't copy someone else's work? What do you mean I can't miss more than the allowed number of absences? What do you mean this paper doesn't deserve an A? But I tried to get in all my materials before the deadline, isn't that enough? Why do I have to pay a late enrollment fee when the reason I couldn't enroll was because of a parking hold on my enrollment? And that's just in the academic environment. Don't even get me started on actual Real World examples.
Our society, by and large (and it's getting larger by the moment) is a wreck. People won't even accept responsibility for what they eat for gods' sake. And why should we? From kindergarten up to the working world, we're constantly told It's Not Our Fault. Kids don't get failing grades in some schools anymore. They get "deferred success." Teachers are caught in a hideous paradox: They are blamed for not teaching students, but they aren't allowed to correct when students do wrong things--not to mention the expectation that they serve as surrogates for absent parents. So by the time we're adults, many of us haven't had a single lesson in taking resposibility for our own actions. We never saw such a thing in our homes because everyone was too busy watching reality T.V. At least that way we knew there was always someone out there worse off than ourselves.
We are raising--have already raised--a generation of selfish, lazy people who have no sense of ethical obligations to others. They have no sense of justice beyond how it serves their own immediate needs. The criminal who heads up our country is a terrifying example of this. I believe he is, appropriately, the ultimate model for this Society of Self. I'm not sure if he just gave no thought to the lives destroyed by his hobby war or if he thought about them and just didn't care. The outcome was the same: For his own desires and goals, he broke the rules and then refused to be held accountable for his actions. People watch the leader of our country shamelessly duck questions and responsibility at every occasion. Why should everyone else be held to a higher standard?
How do we get people, who as far as I can tell have no internal moral compass, to accept responsibility? How do we get people to comprehend the value of compassion when they were taught from birth to only look out for Number One? Is it even possible? We need something, but I don't know what. I'm not a great believer in revolution, but at this point, I really don't know what else will have a significant impact. The question is, who of us will have the energy left to participate? It's embarassing and exhausting. I once said that I would never leave this country. That I would be one of the citizens who stayed to fight. But I'm getting tired. I'm getting worn down. I have brief flashes of inspiration that light my spirit for a short time, but then I find myself even more burnt out than I was before.
I know what's wrong with me. I'm tired. But what's wrong with everyone else?