Whatever Happened to Personal Responsibility?

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from Truthdig:



Whatever Happened to Personal Responsibility?

Posted on Sep 24, 2008
By Ellen Goodman


In the gospel according to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, “there are no atheists in foxholes and no ideologues in financial crises.” Suddenly, we are all pragmatists, trying to dig our way out of the Wall Street rubble with whatever tools are at hand.

Well, there is some truth in that. But I think we are still capable of emotional multitasking, holding anger in one hand and fear in the other while grasping for a solution. I also think it is possible, maybe imperative, to exhale some outrage. In this case, some moral outrage at the sudden, convenient collapse of the ideology of personal responsibility.

For decades now the mantra of personal responsibility has kept a lock on our imaginations. And our political dialogue.

I saw it back in the 1990s, when we ended welfare for better and for worse with something called the Personal Responsibility Act. More recently, I’ve heard conservatives resist the morning-after pill on the grounds that it would foster irresponsible behavior. When Hollywood puts sex and violence on television and Madison Avenue sells junk food, we expect parents to—guess what—exercise their responsibility.

In the economy even more than the culture, personal responsibility has been a best-seller. We were told by conservatives and free-market holy rollers that markets were smart and governments were dumb, that the government was the problem not the solution. So when credit cards come through the mail, college freshmen are expected to just say no. When poor people were wooed and seduced by subprime mortgages, they are the ones dubbed irresponsible. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080924_whatever_happened_to_personal_responsibility/?ln