why do we shun responsibility?

Fuinseog

why do we as a nation shun responsibility? we expect the EU to bail us out, we expect the state to do everything for us, yet do not feel obliged to do anything for our country at all.
even our children are protected from all forms of responsibility, whether it be looking after a pet or accepting that they got a bad grade in school.
we offer all manner of excuses, but mention not the r word.
this cannot be good for the development of our society.

Jo King

It is because of the landlords.

Fuinseog

Jo King wrote: »

It is because of the landlords.

okay with larger things I could accept such a long established tradition of thinking, but within the last decade or so you have parents saying they do not want their kids to have responsibility as it might cause them stress and there will be plenty of time later on in their lives for responsibility.

come to think of it we are loved and to a certain extent laughed at, abroad for our feckless irresponsible nature.

nyarlothothep

With respect to dog owners I agree that so many are feckless and irresponsible.

Standman

The average person is seen as responsible for themselves up to a point. The government is a bit like a parental figure.

CDfm

Someone should do something about it.

I did some work with a charity a few years back and yes lots of people expected our efforts as a right and entitlement.

When people see government and the health service etc they do not see it as real money.

So when you get an EU bailout scenario you have to look at it from the point of view that as a country we have overspent. So if the health service and civil service is more than we can afford that needs to be addressed.

We are a little Island nation on the north atlantic and have no natural resourses but we spoend as if we have oil revenue.

Its a collective delusion.

Are any of our politicians ethical - yes. Their duty is to coat the unpalatable and secure re-election. We do not get politicians to sort out the mess because the proposals would mean they would be unelectable.

Denerick

Its our instinct to look to our parents when we're in trouble - ie, the state. Generally we've become a very unimaginative lot. This isn't just an Irish malaise, its a western one. We've become incapacitated by our fear of real independence. The state should provide a safety net and defend our interests, but should it be the solution to all problems? Certainly not.

CDfm

Some peoples attitudes are Monty Pythonish when it comes to public services and want them but want someone else to pay for them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso

When you vote you don't just abdicate responsibility and our politics in Ireland is still very much at the parish pump level.IMHO the culture needs to change as we do not have the money for these things.

We have reached a level where we can't go back with the begging bowl to europe as there are lots of other begging bowls out there.


Economists in Europe have been saying for years that for the services we have our taxes need to increase and during the celtic tiger era we were told to cut back on expenditure. It was fairly basic economics that we would see the outcome we are seeing now -but the people voted for it.

Go into any convenience store or petrol station and the shop assistants are foreign on student visas or work permits. Those jobs are filled by foreigners because the Irish wont do them. Are we too good or are we lazy?? My granny would have said we have notions about ourselves.

So the options on why we are like we are, do we vote irresponsibly , are we lazy or are we selfish.

Black Swan

Fuinseog wrote: »

why do we as a nation shun responsibility?

It would seem that in Ireland we have people that are responsible in varying degrees conforming to a normal distribution of the population, not the dichotomous distinction of responsible/irresponsible nominally categorized (e.g., good/bad) and stereotypically applied in a broad sweeping way with the claim that "we as a nation shun responsibility."

Prior to the current (and temporary) recession that is affecting our economy, as it is affecting economies world wide, Ireland showed itself to be very productive in comparison to other EU countries, with extraordinary growth rates up to 5% per year, surpassing the UK, Germany, and France, which resulted in an influx of immigration from the Continent to fill growth related job vacancies.

The technological education, motivation, and job-related responsibility of a large number of Irish workers encouraged major tech corporations to open divisions in Ireland (e.g., Intel, Dell, Pfizer, etc.) prior to the recession.

Social entitlements offered in Ireland to its population may have needs for improvement, but we must not forget that our nation is ranked higher than the super power across the pond in terms of responsible health care for our citizens, with the WHO ranking Ireland #19 and the United States #37.

Sources:
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
http://www.nationmaster.com/time.php?stat=eco_gdp-economy-gdp&country=ei-ireland

CDfm

We may have shown ourselves to be more productive. That was at a time when our wage rates were 70% of the pre-enlarged EU.

Our economy needs to be relatively low waged and low taxed to overcome our geographical location. We will never have oil or mineral wealth or the capital wealth of our neighbours and that is our karma. So our public services may never be world beating etc but they can be better than a lot of the world.

So our vision of reality and what our nation can provide us with are different.

I don't know if many people know this old joke

Back to the top


Once upon a time in the kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for seven days. Eventually, Michael the Archangel found him. He inquired of God,
"Where were you?".
God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds;
"Look son, look what I've just made"
The Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said,
"What is it?" God replied, "it's another planet but I'm after putting LIFE on it. I've named it Earth and there's going to be a balance between everything on it. For example, there's North America and South America. North America is going to be rich and South America is going to be poor, and the narrow bit joining them - that's going to be a hotspot. Now look over here. I've put a continent of whites in the north and another one of blacks in the south. And then the Archangel said,
"and what's that green dot there?".
And God said "Ahhh that's the Emerald Isle - that's a very special place. That's going to be the most glorious spot on earth; Beautiful mountains,lakes, rivers, streams, and an exquisite coast line. These people here are going to be great crack and they're going to be found traveling the world.They'll be playwrights and poets and singers and songwriters. And I'm going to give them this black liquid which they're going to go mad on and for which people will come from the far corners of the earth to imbibe. Michael the Archangel gasped in wonder and admiration but then seeming startled proclaimed:
"Hold on a second, what about the BALANCE, you said there was going to be a balance God replied wisely:
"Wait until you see the neighbours I'm going to give them"

So if you look at it we think we live in a special place.

How come we have such more to spend on health per capita than the US - what makes us so special and does the world somehow owe us.

So what I am saying is that we are a small little country on the edge of Europe in the North Atlantic -yet we do not behave like we are.How can we justify ourselves.

The Corinthian

Ireland is one of those nations that unfortunately has developed a victim culture. As a child, growing up in Ireland, I remember the idea that the economic woes of our nation were as a result of "800 years of oppression" being touted on a regular basis. It wasn't because we had mismanaged our own affairs for over sixty years, but because we had inherited disadvantages that doomed us to a dysfunctional society.

By the Celtic Tiger, it was evident that we couldn't really blame the English any more, so with the advent of the sexual abuse scandals, we turned on the Catholic Church - they were the one's who were holding us back. It was their insistence on a conservative Ireland that had delayed the advent of economic prosperity and social freedom for so long.

Then came the economic crisis and we couldn't blame the Catholic Church for that. It became solely the fault of the bankers, developers and politicians that we are in the mess we're in.

The point to the above is that all of these historical outlooks have one thing in common; it was someone else's fault.

That the economic mismanagement of the country was carried out by Irishmen and women, democratically supported by us is ignored, with the Lynch government's giveaway budget of the late seventies, and the popular support that it enjoyed, despite the economic damage it caused by the eighties, being a case in point. Another is that the Catholic Church ultimately had our support - in many cases people knew what was happening in the dark corners of churches and schools, but remained silent. And neither were we forced at gunpoint to take out 110% mortgages for grossly overvalued properties off the plans, but we did.

This is not to suggest that the English, Catholic Church or now bankers, developers and politicians do not hold a large measure of responsibility - naturally they do. But our attitude has always been to point to others and accept no whatsoever responsibility ourselves, and this is the important point.

The danger with this attitude is that it leads to a victim mentality, where we expect others to fix our problems - after all, we didn't cause them, so why should we solve them? And until we can let go of this mentality, to roll up our sleeves and deal with an issue regardless of who's to blame, or to accept our own part it it, then we will continue expecting to be bailed out and finding new scapegoats to blame.

CDfm

Ah come on. Victim culture. :eek:

Victim culture. The Romans did not invade us, probably, because of our neighbours the British were keeping them busy & this led to our celtic society surviving another 5 or 600 years and not developing into a nation state.

Could it be that our citizens do not value Ireland in a "dont ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country way" style of patriotism or national pride."Me fein" not "sinn fein" seems to be the national value system.

metrovelvet

Ireland was a dependent nation for a very long time and even after they gained their independence they had a theocracy which dominated them. They are still getting their heads around what independence and choice means.

CDfm

metrovelvet wrote: »

Ireland was a dependent nation for a very long time and even after they gained their independence they had a theocracy which dominated them. They are still getting their heads around what independence and choice means.

That seems like a very lame excuse to me.

Eh. Dependent on who or what -we were a colony and in the later years supplied clerical, admin and military staff to the Empire.

Theocracy is not an economic theory and our current woes are economic.

I didnt live under British Rule and I am educated and am from the 2nd generation as my parents did not live under British rule either. My son is 3rd generation.

Wasnt it a Nazi Intelligence officer voiced the opinion that he met loads of Irishmen who wanted to die for Ireland but none who wanted to live for Ireland.

Denerick

@The Corinthian,

I applaud one of the most far sighted, iconoclastic and comprehensive analysis of Irish exceptionalism ever posted on these forums.

The Corinthian

CDfm wrote: »

Victim culture. The Romans did not invade us, probably, because of our neighbours the British were keeping them busy & this led to our celtic society surviving another 5 or 600 years and not developing into a nation state.

The Romans did not invade Ireland because, by most accounts and historical analysis, it made little economic sense to do so. Britain was invaded largely for political reasons (to bolster the emperor Claudius's military image), but also because it had significant resources, particularly silver. Ireland had few resources and those few it had were easier to trade for than mounting a military conquest. To this end Roman trading outposts have been unearthed on our eastern coast.

That our society remained fractured until (after) the arrival of the Normans is not unique either. Britain became just as fractured after the Roman retreat and suffered numerous invasions for centuries after. Germany and even Italy, which was the center of the Romanized World, remained disunited until the nineteenth century. So lack of unity really does not wash as a reason for this mentality.

Could it be that our citizens do not value Ireland in a "dont ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country way" style of patriotism or national pride."Me fein" not "sinn fein" seems to be the national value system.

Certainly the problem is one of "me fein" versus "sinn fein", but such attitudes do not appear spontaneously and you have to ask why we are like this.

Due largely to English domination, we developed an antipathy to authority and society as something imposed and alien, which continues to this day. Culturally we reject civic virtue, instead looking to anti-social 'cute hoors' as our role models. That we are the only European country without any type of honours system (which existed even in communist countries) is a demonstration of this.

The victim culture is a large part of all of this. Regardless of it's origins, it rejects civic virtue because it would imply collaboration or capitulation. Long after independence this attitude has persisted and authority and society are still treated as foreign impositions. Thus we feel no responsibility or loyalty towards them.

I say this largely because what we're discussing is the civic virtue which exists in many societies. In those where it is strong, you will almost always find that there is little or no 'blaming' of others - or more correctly, you might blame, but you still feel the responsibility to fix the problem yourself, regardless of it. We don't feel the same way, because our society was 'imposed' upon us, defining us as victims and so not responsible for it.

We're not alone in this, Greece is another example of a similar mentality, as is much of sub-Saharan Africa.

metrovelvet

The thing is Ireland was a victim. No harm in acknowledging that. But then what do you do with that?

It begs a larger question about victimisation that probably deserves its own thread, but the real question is how does a culture get out of that? What do you do with your victim status? In Ireland I think its more subtle than that because there is an indidious inertia/passivity pumping through the veins of the nation.

[An old lady at a NYC hotdog stand says to the guy behind the stand, 'First I get the holocaust and now I have to pay $3 for a pretzel?' ]

The Corinthian

metrovelvet wrote: »

It begs a larger question about victimisation that probably deserves its own thread, but the real question is how does a culture get out of that?

Some cultures and nations have escaped that mentality. The Finns managed it for example, despite centuries of suffering under either the Swedish or Russian yoke. India has avoided it altogether, despite treatment under the British Raj that was often worse than anything that the Irish had to deal with.

I don't know if it's really possible for us to truly escape it. The Celtic Tiger period, had it lasted as long as Japan's economic boom, may have done enough to distance us from that mentality. However, even then it is very heavily ingrained in the Irish psyche at this stage, to the point that we don't even know where it comes from any more and even the Koreans have never fully shaken it. Even suggesting in most discussions here that we may share some of the responsibility for our ills will likely result in a belligerent response.

"Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis." - Brendan Behan

drkpower

I agree with the victim mentality theory.

It is also closely linked to the 'screw something out of the boss' theory. The cute hoor who manages to take what he can get, to hoodwink or steal something from the 'boss' is an admired figure in this country. That may have been fine when the 'boss' was the British Government or the aristocracy. But the 'boss' is now us; the national government, the national exchequer, the national interest. Yet people still admire the guy who manages it.

There is also short-term-ism, the 'short-term' analysis of almost everything. This is also lnked to the 'screw something out of the boss' theory. Whatever you can take or steal, you need to take it now, when the opportunity is there, because the 'boss' may be watching more closely next time. And when you get it, best spend it now, because the boss might find you with it otherwise.

There is no sense that these kind of activities now damage ourselves. Planning corruption, tax evasion, the negligent mismanagement of and by the banking industry and even governmental policy ('spend it while we have it') have all been dominated by this kind of mindset.

metrovelvet

drkpower wrote: »

I agree with the victim mentality theory.

It is also closely linked to the 'screw something out of the boss' theory. The cute hoor who manages to take what he can get, to hoodwink or steal something from the 'boss' is an admired figure in this country. That may have been fine when the 'boss' was the British Government or the aristocracy. But the 'boss' is now us; the national government, the national exchequer, the national interest. Yet people still admire the guy who manages it.

There is also short-term-ism, the 'short-term' analysis of almost everything. This is also lnked to the 'screw something out of the boss' theory. Whatever you can take or steal, you need to take it now, when the opportunity is there, because the 'boss' may be watching more closely next time. And when you get it, best spend it now, because the boss might find you with it otherwise.

There is no sense that these kind of activities now damage ourselves. Planning corruption, tax evasion, the negligent mismanagement of and by the banking industry and even governmental policy ('spend it while we have it') have all been dominated by this kind of mindset.

Isn't that also millennial anxiety at play? Is it just a coincidence that the boom was at the fin de siecle?

CDfm

The situation we are in now is that we viewed EU as a begging bowl.

It was not really, when we joined we sold our rights to customs etc for their rights to sell into our market.

During the celtic tiger years our politicians behaved like the first pools winner

n 1961, Yorkshire housewife Viv Nicholson won £152,319 in the football pools. When a reporter asked her what she planned to do with her new fortune, she replied, "I'm going to spend, spend, spend!," which is exactly what she did. Her rags-to-riches-to-rags-again story takes her through five husbands, expensive sports cars, fur coats, and jewelry, a battle with alcohol, and bankruptcy as, unable to cope with her new-found wealth and fame, she rapidly spirals downward

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viv_Nicholson

Spent, spent, spent - pools winner now living on £87 a week





Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-449820/Spent-spent-spent--pools-winner-living-87-week.html#ixzz14siA7kap

Thats what we were like as a nation.

In fact, the EU Commission and politicians warned us that this would be the outcome but we carried on.

The option we have now is fiscal rectitude by our own hands or invite the EU or the IMF to come in and do it for us.

THe EU have sent over a Commisioner to show us what we have known all along.

So we adopted a Viv Nicholson Economic Policy and now we have no money.