The Culture of Blame
So what happened? Well the jury is still out on that one. Who was responsible for the collapse in society? Who caused the recession? Where did we all go wrong? Who was to blame?
And therein lies the problem. BLAME. Our modern society is increasingly feeling the need to identify specific culprits and hang them out to dry. People are scared to think and act for themselves in case they unwittingly break some law, some rule, and get sent to jail.
During the last fifteen-to-twenty years there has been a definite shift from collective responsibility towards cultural responsibility. Twenty (or so) years ago there used to be more of a culture of collective responsibility. People within a community stood together. Nowadays it’s every man for himself – instead of growing together, communicating, living according to our individual consciences, the tendency is now to see individuals as heroes or villains of the hour. Where rules are broken, the situation invariably results in witch-hunts, with the authorities and/or the media desperately searching for someone to blame. But IMO the problem is not who is to blame, but the fact that our governments chose to perpetuate this culture of culpability and liability in the first place.
There is a new trend in our western societies towards increased regulation. We are not allowed to make decisions for ourselves as individuals. Instead our governments think for us. As the population of the planet balloons, our authorities seek to keep control the only way they can – by inventing ever more laws to keep control. In densely populated countries such as the U.K. we are particularly susceptible to exponentially increasing amounts of legislation. The burden of the people to comply with ever-increasing numbers of new RULES is immense. America and the rest of the world are rapidly following suit. 2257 was just a smaller symptom of a bigger disease. Behold the rise of the nanny state! As individuals, we are no longer trusted to choose how to live our lives, do our jobs, what to feed our children or how we spend our leisure time. Instead our governments are choosing for us.
The society we grew up with has changed beyond all recognition. The desire to govern effectively is seen to be achievable only by legislating for all eventualities. As a result we have an audit-based society where the authorities are forever checking that we have complied with their rules. So our governments are spending more and more of our hard earned money (which should be used to fund economic growth, healthcare and education) on creating compliance organisations whose function is to check and certify individuals and companies comply with all the new rules. Governments are creating more process, more systems, more legislation and ever more red tape.
The world is moving away from trusting individuals to think and judge for themselves. Increasingly the ability to make decisions is being stripped from us, and with it, our power over our own lives.
Things will never be the same again, but it is my belief and hope that eventually we will reach a tipping point, a point where our governments will decide not to see the worst in its citizens and instead have the courage to trust us again. One day our rulers will realise that the best way to govern is to cut legislation and restore the principles of individual responsibility and freedom.
It is only then that we, as a society, will grow strong again.














