Culture of blame hurts American society

President Bush, in his recent State of the Union address, said something I, at least, found very interesting, if not somewhat self-evident, about how the United States has become the greatest economic power on the planet: “Our greatest advantage in the world has always been our educated, hardworking, ambitious people.”

That statement should not provoke argument. Looking over the history of American development one can easily see that education and hard work in the areas of science and technology are what put the U.S. on the map as an economic (and thus political) juggernaut.

Unfortunately, the statement amounts to little more than back-patting while the nation rushes headlong into what may turn out to be its greatest crisis yet: an increasingly prevalent culture of blame.

What do I mean by a culture of blame? Why, simply that here in the U.S. we’re becoming increasingly desperate to avoid taking personal responsibility for anything.

Indeed, talking about our “hardworking, ambitious people” year after year becomes more and more of a false truth, repeated to convince ourselves that we are not slipping, that we are not rapidly being overtaken by the rest of the world in all of the areas that count.

Ambitious people certainly do not shirk responsibility in work or in life; educated people don’t need others to make all of their decisions for them. A hardworking individual will have no need to blame others for his or her own failings.

Meanwhile, in the States we sue McDonald’s because our inability to control our own diet cannot possibly be our own fault. Evidently our weight gain is actually caused by secret, undiscovered chemicals created by those insidious McDonald’s clerks that make us addicted to eating 1000-calorie burgers while patting ourselves on the back for drinking a Diet Coke.

At least we apparently still have ample ambition to try to get rich through doing nothing.

Our increasingly litigious society is just one example of this responsibility avoidance. Just last week, the Technique published an article about one such shining example of Americanism, Michael Leahy, a speaker who came to speak here at Tech recently.

This crusader-du-jour’s nemesis is the pornography industry. You see, Leahy seems to blame pornography for destroying his relations with his wife, children and even a business partner.

Leahy was apparently but an uninvolved observer as pornography took over his life, forcing him to watch enough porn to bring him to ruin. (He also claims there are twice as many adult bookstores in the U.S. as McDonald’s restaurants, which is a statistic I’d love to see the source for.)

With whom does the fault for the end of these relationships lie, though? Do people really believe the pornography industry is responsible, by virtue of existing, for someone’s inability to control his behaviors and the impact they have on his life?

Leahy says he has kicked his 35-year porn habit. Of course, he blames God for that accomplishment.

Our nation’s increasing support of legislating citizens’ behavior further illustrates our increasing desire to not have to think for or about ourselves.

Take the outcry over some of the material that’s airing on cable television. Shows like South Park, or shows that might (gasp!) show a breast or two on occasion.

If a parent walks in on little Johnny watching a show that is probably inappropriate for him to see, does the parent take stock of the situation and actually take the time to check what channels and shows Johnny is watching in the future, or better yet, try to actually watch something with his or her offspring?

No, of course not. The proper behavior by modern American standards appears to be to whine to a legislator to pass laws that will take care of parenting the children and then plop one’s behind down on the couch and watch more American Idol. That’s how lovely ideas like subjecting cable television to the same censorship standards as network television become bills that are actively considered in Congress.

While I could cite such frustrating examples for days, and while I can (embarrassingly) think of quite a few cases of myself shifting the blame onto some external factor, that won’t address this nation’s current issues.

The United States is losing its lead. Frankly, the other nations want it more than us. While Americans are continuing to grow lazier and lazier (and, according to quite a few studies, fatter and fatter) with more and more corpulent waste, active, more dedicated people elsewhere in the world are inventing the next technologies that will shake up the global landscape.

A university like Tech is hopefully not as guilty of the same blame shifting much of the general populace is. But 10 or 20 years from now, we very well could be.

And it is then that it will be most important to remember some of the lessons that we do learn in college: That we are ultimately responsible for the grades we get, for the experience we get out of college, for the quality of our work. That we can accomplish amazing things if we try hard enough. That in the end, what we do with our life is up to us and not to anyone else. And if we, as the next generation, can successfully keep that in mind and take charge of our own fates, maybe the United States won’t lose its edge after all.