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Entitlement, in a word, is the attitude some people seem to exhibit in their daily lives. When someone goes through their day expecting to be taken care of the end result is a lack of responsibility for their actions. There would be some debate as to whether this attitude is prevalent than it was a generation ago. In the free love days of the 1970's I don't think that any thought of being personally responsible was better than it is today. In fact, today, we have more knowledge and information at hand to extend that knowledge to make ourselves better, and even more responsible, people. Although we have every means by which to understand that what we do will have consequences and benefits this is not always the case.

Our litigious society has become a melting pot of blaming others for their own problem's. From slavery to smoking to hot coffee at McDonald's, it seems that some want to blame someone else. Blaming others also infiltrates the criminal society that blames the economy or prejudice attitudes for their actions. Speaking of the 1970's era, Charles Manson should be the poster child for not taking responsibility. When listening to his psychotic rants he exclaims that society made him and turned him into a monster. This is the ultimate in blaming others and taking no responsibility whatsoever.

From these examples I would have to look back even further to see if there were ever a time that people actually did take responsibility for their own actions on a wide scale. It seems that even in history people seemed to have someone else to blame. If they weren't executing Jesus or burning Witches, kings taking peasants prisoner who didn't agree with their rule, there were presidents not taking responsibility for marital affairs.

It's funny how we tend to think that today is somehow more thoughtless or brutal than days past. We hear people saying terms like "gosh, those kids today" or "In my day we didn't act like that". When all things are considered we are likely more civilized today than we ever have been. That is not to say that people don't still displace blame to make themselves feel or look better, maybe it's a sad slant of human nature. If this attitude is human nature it does not mean it has to be a normal part of our being as we also have the ability to do right and act right. There are cycles of family abuse which have extended from many generations past. The difference is that no one talked about a spouse or child being abused 80 years ago, there were no TV sitcoms, no outreach groups, no email and no equality. The point being, the abusers when asked why they do what they do answer mostly that it was done to them. They think they act that way because it was done to them and they are free of having to consider their own actions.

In closing, this attitude is nothing new, and is it worse today, by whose gauge?

Learn more about this author, Rob Purifoy.
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