The issue of accountability

(Some reworking of yesterday’s post here – apologies for the repetition)

I’m struggling with it. Accountability and responsibility both. Who is to blame for all of this? This is not to simply point fingers and shift the blame elsewhere – rather that we will be unable to suggest a progressive solution unless we can identify the problem.

I’m often assumed to be a good little leftie. And, while I’ll admit to reading the Guardian and voting red every time, those closer to me are sometimes shocked by what are referred to as ‘right-wing’ leanings… I don’t know. I think the left/right dichotomy is a red herring. That our opinions and beliefs are more complex than ‘x’or ‘y’.

I think that a society is responsible for nurturing it’s young. For raising children within a moral framework – a scaffold of discipline and rules that is gradually removed to leave an ethical structure ready to stand by itself. I think that we have failed to do so. We, as a people have dropped the ball and permitted a degradation of youth to go unchecked. At least my own experiences would indicate such. We are responsible for raising these kids. So maybe it’s our fault?

Our current government, acting under clearly ideological motivations, have hardly helped matters. I think that there are obvious consequences to profound and swinging cuts to community funding. That if you make Higher Education a choice only for the wealthy elite. You go to US private providers and proclaim openly that public healthcare in the UK is up for sale. You allow the financial sector to go unregulated and unpunished for a catastrophe mostly keenly felt by those outside it. You close libraries and community centres, public pools and gyms. You take away the EMA struggling families. You clearly evidence that only the wealthy are protected and served by the state. You do all of these things in a society that is the most stratified in the developed world and this is what happens. They are responsible for pushing a malicious and vindictive agenda of social engineering too far and too fast. For setting light to a very dry and very ready tinderbox. So maybe it’s the Tories?

But your environment does not excuse your actions. You are responsible for what you do. The closure of your local pool does not justify your arson nor your manslaughter. I understand that if you and your forefathers are utterly disenfranchised then you may feel compelled to take payment from society where you can. But that does not make it right. So it’s their fault and theirs alone? Because goodness is an objective truth that exists apart from your upbringing – to act in a malicious manner is not excusable.

… But I don’t know… I’m really struggling… A friend of mine has commented that she was afraid of consequence as a child. Of parents and the great bearded sky wizard who threatened damnation, and indeed interviews with looters have revealed that it it’s the certainty that will be no retribution that has spurred them on… but I don’t know… It wasn’t *only* the fear of consequence that limited my actions as a child. And it’s not only the fear of consequence that stays my hand today. I did and do possess some kind of basic morality.

Those who have carried out obscene crimes in the last few days are accountable and should be held accountable. As individuals… But… it’s up to all of us, state and society, to try and create an environment that nurtures a different kind of child.

Male teachers in primary schools for kids raised without fathers. Activity centres offering alternatives to spending one’s time lustfully looking at a culture of excess that you are ostracized from. Paradigms for parenting that allow both profound love and stern discipline without seeming contradictory. Mixed housing schemes to banish the ghetto. Deeper and more complex (and more expensive) community policing methods than the criminalizing stop-and-search… So many ideas. But the real difficulty is that these pursue long-term goals. We don’t conceptualize the long-term very well. We expect results immediately – certainly within the span of one government. Cameron will flood the cities with police today but will he re-open schemes to put a local Bobby into every school and estate? Pump funding into teenage mentoring schemes? Complex plans that won’t benefit his government or even the next. Plans are about human relationships building over decades rather than immediate headlines and target figures.

This should not happen again – that responsibility is shared by us all. It is perhaps distasteful to admit that many of those who looted in the last few days are lost to us. There are no means of saving them. That does not mean that their progeny are also write-off’s; continued neglect evidently doesn’t work. We need to take better care of our society’s children.

What do you think?

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