I've written several diaries about my efforts to bring Democratic change to the still solidly Republican, rural area where I grew up and now live. There are some of the old values of my rural childhood, however, that I miss.
When we lived in the Colorado foothills, the city people moved in and seemed oblivious to the fact that bears and mountain lions lived there first. One man put rabbits in cages in his back yard. A local bear considered this a buffet and helped himself. The man reported it to the city, who suggested that he not leave bear food outside. The man just got more rabbits. The bear seemed to appreciate the buffet being re-stocked and helped himself to seconds. The second time, the man went to the press. "There’s a bear out there – and he’s learned to kill!" (Excuse me? How did the bear eat before? Bears are omnivores, not herbivores.)
My brother works in the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. He’s a marvelous story-teller and his stories have us all laughing. In one, a woman calls the park office terribly upset because she saw a mountain lion eating a deer. "What do you want us to do about it, ma’am?" "You’re the wildlife department – do something to protect the deer!"
Some stories aren’t funny. The tourist in Yellowstone continues to run the video camera as a family member is gored to death by a bison. Parents encourage their children to get close to the cute animal to get a picture – just like a petting zoo! Except that wild animal may be docile because it is rabid.
These seem to be stories of the world view according to children’s movies and amusement parks. All animals are cute and lovable (except the ones clearly evil by their appearance or the music cue) and all cute animals are harmless and should be protected. Animated animals on the Disneyland rides and shows dance and sing. They don’t hurt anyone.
It’s not just animals. The roller-coaster rides and other amusement park rides only give the illusion of danger. Cartoons and video games provide virtual danger and violence, not real. If a real injury happens in our society, someone or something must be at fault and has to pay. The lawn mower manufacturers warn you that you might cut yourself if you put your hand or foot into the blades under the mower - a warning required after someone sued because they apparently didn't know that a sharp, turning blade that cuts grass would also cuts flesh. A woman buys coffee at McDonalds and spills it. "That was hot!! Why didn’t they warn me?" So she gets a legal settlement and the rest of us get lukewarm coffee with a warning on the cup that it might still be hot.
When I was a kid, the playground was gravel and the big merry-go-round was probably an injury waiting to happen (although I never saw anything more serious than skinned knees). At home, we walked the rail fence with cactus on both sides (took hours to pick those spines out when I fell). We walked the rail across the center of the barn imitating hire-wire walkers. We perched in the top of trees and had bark fights. My father looked at us and told us that we were going to break our fool necks if we fell. At that point he figured that we were old enough to know better if we couldn't handle it. And we did injure ourselves sometimes. I broke bones. My brother got gangrene from an injury on a plow.
My parents didn't want us to hurt ourselves and they tried to educate us about the dangers. But they didn't think we would be prepared to live in the real world if they raised us in an unreal world. We knew that the real physical world could hurt us. We knew that there were rattle snakes that could bite us. A wild animal might be rabid. Even a strange dog could bite. We knew that there were consequences for our actions and that we had to have some common sense or we would break our fool necks as my dad said.
Now, I see people who lock their doors and cars because of fear of other humans – greater fear than when I was a kid – but seem to expect the world to otherwise be safe. Indeed, as a society we seem to demand that the world be safe.
I know that we need government to insure clean air and water in our growing industrial world. We need protection against unsafe foods since we no longer grow our own. I don’t want to throw out all protections. But, wild animals treated as though they are something out of Bambi? We don’t know enough not to run with scissors without being warned like little children?
I’m concerned that the real physical world I grew up in with its dangers, and the awareness of the reality of dangers, is a total mystery to an increasing number of people. It’s not just the children who are out of touch with the physical world; it’s adults as well. Maybe I’m part of the problem as a lawyer – too many lawyers chasing too few meritorious lawsuits so even the weakest claim may be pursued. Maybe I’m just getting so damned old that the children I first noticed being protected from the knowledge that the physical world could hurt them are now the adults. Maybe those adults grew up not knowing about the physical world except through amusement parks, movies and video games - in part because there are less opportunities now to experience it as I did growing up on a ranch. Or, maybe, as a society we have just come to expect our members to have less and less self-responsibility.
Ironically, this is happening during a time when there are increasing REAL needs for protection from the things we can't handle alone - like environmental quality, food safety, economic problems beyond the capacity of the individual.
Maybe this is too much of a reach, but it seems to me that this "Disneyfication" of our society is part of a larger problem: Lack of knowledge or the inclination to obtain the knowledge. Our president brags about being a "C" student and most voters don't bother to educate themselves on issues. Lack of self-responsibility: Even if people gripe about the country, they don't get out and DO something about it. Our corporations screw up and the taxpayers bail them out. (The failure of the institution would hurt all the employees who are not at fault, so I see the reasoning there, but it is still part of the pattern of expecting actions not to have consequences.)
I'm not a Libertarian who wants government to get out of the business of helping even those who cannot help themselves, but haven't we swung too far with our "helicopter mother" actions to protect people in the society from the consequences of their own actions? Sen. Obama has spoken about the need for self-responsibility, and I thought his speech was right on target. We need to focus our resources and energy on the problems from which we need to protection from by something greater than the individual. And we need to once again take personal responsibility for the problems we can address. Personally, I’m tired of the lack of common sense that is afflicting our society.
ADD: I have spent much of my morning defending my comments about the McDonald's lawsuit. In retrospect, I should not have used that example because I now realize that it has been misused in the past to argue that product liability lawsuits should be limited - which would deprive many people of a necessary means to address a valid wrong.
I am not in favor of limiting product liability lawsuits such as the McDonald's lawsuit, even though I personally still have questions about the reasonableness of that particular verdict. I know that many here disagree with me on that lawsuit. I do believe that there are real injuries done by unsafe actions of corporatons which should be prevented in the first place - but if that doesn't happen a civil tort lawsuit should certainly be pursued.
I did not mean to use what is viewed as a "right wing talking point" as an example for the point I was trying to make. I will try to be more careful in my selection of examples in the future.