Caleb Anderson: The loss of personal sovereignty and the war on common sense

A war has been raging in our universities and institutions for over fifty years. This is a war on common sense, but also on personal sovereignty.

It was interesting to read recent data indicating that approximately 60% of those who enter psychological counselling in the United States exit counselling before the mid-point is reached. I suspect the figure would be largely similar in other Western countries. Approximately 10% complete their therapy. The primary reasons given for non-completion were lack of motivation, and inability to be contacted by the counsellor ... by simply not returning calls.

At some point, often about mid-way, a client is challenged by most therapists to consider what they might do, where they might take responsibility, where they can be courageous. Every counsellor knows that this is a critical step, ultimately, but this is also where the really hard work starts ... it is simply easier for the client to exit, especially when easier options present.

This is an object lesson of where part of the problem lies in the comparatively affluent West today. The biggest threat to the West is, arguably, the state, and elite, sanctioned denial of personal responsibility and, with this, the erosion of personal sovereignty.

Abdication of personal responsibility is the disease that has taken root with devastating consequences. It is no longer sufficient for the state to create opportunities to succeed. It is considered the primary duty of the state, not to nurture opportunities for wealth generation, but to redistribute wealth, to endlessly manage and manipulate the social, and economic order, to mitigate disparities, and to dispense, almost without question, to those (supposedly) in need.

For the critical theorists on the political left and, not infrequently, even on the political right, this has become an obsession.

As a consequence, we have a burgeoning class locked into intergenerational welfare and state largesse, dependent on the advocacy of sometimes self-interested others, with the inevitable hopelessness that goes with this ... and an even larger number willing to perpetuate the necessary supporting myths, and to cheer them on their way.

The former give little thought to how wealth is generated, the latter to the consequences when a huge slice of the population no longer contributes in any meaningful way to the generation of wealth that makes most things possible.

It can be helpful to dive a little deeper into what motivates people, and how we generally make sense of things. The problem is largely (but certainly not exclusively) a psychological one ... less than it is a structural one, as critical theorists maintain. It is largely about world view, about where responsibility begins and ends, about service, about duty, about how we deal with disappointment, about our propensity to persevere, about the capacity to delay gratification, about what we do with guilt ... and about how we want to be perceived.

It can also be about terrible deprivation and unimaginable harm ... such are not included in the ambit of this argument.

Fundamentally, human beings have three choices when it comes to assessing where responsibility (for almost anything) lies. We seem to have no problem concluding that it resides somewhere, we just have different views on where, and to what degree.

The three obvious positions are ...

... Our problems are largely caused by the things outside of us, and largely beyond our control.

... Our problems are largely caused by the things inside of us and, at least in part, possibly, within our control.

... Our problems are a complicated mix of both.

It seems that most (but certainly not all) people acknowledge that the cause of our problems is a mix, but not necessarily evenly so.

From the very earliest humans the evidence is clear, people have contemplated often whether they were the primary architect of their problems, or whether it was the family, or tribe, or nation next door, or on the other side of the hill, or across the sea. When push came to shove, it was too often concluded that the family, or tribe, or nation, next door, on the other side of the hill, or sea, was the problem, simply because this was the easiest path to take.

Personal responsibility takes time, sacrifice, perseverance, resilience, endless effort, and sometimes huge courage ... blaming, projecting (or taking from) the family, or tribe, next door is simply easier, even if the gains are short term..

Enabled by the comparative wealth of the West, personal responsibility has been displaced by a preoccupation with laying blame elsewhere, and with making a profession of seeking redress. Entire departments in our universities, media, the leading lights in our public service, and a large chunk of our body politik, have this as their primary modus operandi ... target, legislate, redistribute ... target, legislate, redistribute!

Victimhood, as opposed to giving things a go, has become a virtue, a badge of honour, a shared cause, a form of community. It is a creed to sign up to. This is now a constituency in most Western countries that is huge and politically influential. It is well organised, supported by state media, encouraged by a corrupted (and compromised) academia, taught in our schools, state (taxpayer) funded, and ready to mobilize.

On Waitangi Day we will, again, see this on steroids.

In truth, everything in life is multi-causal. The simplest things are complicated really, people can be unpredictable, and often self-serving, but there are commonalities in time and space. Critical theory is flawed on multiple grounds, but mainly in its denial of complexity, its blindness to the clear, and universal, patterns of human behaviour, of motivation theory at large, and of history itself.

It is a denial of our natural predisposition to take the easy path, and to live in the moment, to sacrifice the future for the present, even when we know this may ultimately come back to bite us.

Our parents and grandparents knew this, they knew there was no such thing as a free lunch, and they made sure their progeny knew this.

Applying oneself at school, getting a job, even if not your dream job, paying your way, taking responsibility, overcoming, were a given fifty years ago for most people ... anything less than that would not do. Laying responsibility elsewhere, expecting someone else to fund you through life, no matter how much you think they owe you, were simply not options. And those who managed our taxes sort of thought the same.

This is not to say that everyone's road to success is the same, that some people have not been deeply hurt by life, that a helping hand is not a just, decent and civilized thing to do.

Personal responsibility alone, to the extent that this is possible, gives life meaning, and positions us to deal with our demons. Perpetual grievance, and finger pointing, does the opposite, no matter how convincing the arguments in its favour, no matter the pseudo academic spin.

Those who advocate for the displacement of personal with collective responsibility, and who engage in endless finger pointing, are dealing the cruelest of blows to the recipients of their de facto largesse.

While this garners the left easy votes, provides cheap slogans, and unifies those of like mind, or circumstance, it impoverishes, divides and deceives.

Bottom line, it enables wholesale projection of personal and collective shortcomings, and the forfeiture of the self-knowledge that makes personal responsibility, and social cohesion, a possibility.

Even worse, it is the appropriation, by the state, of personal sovereignty, and its inevitable sublimation into an amorphous, malleable and easily manipulated collective.

Once we sort of knew all this, or at least, in the absence of words, we thought this.

Once this was simply common sense.

Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.