(00:00:00) Before I begin in the discussion of what I mean by a nation of victims, I want to make a couple of things clear because they tend to get lost in these discussions a society that cares about victims is a good Society a society that's compassionate towards the underprivileged is a (00:00:17) good Society a society that cares about Justice and tries to eliminate unfairness is a society that's (00:00:23) answering it's better instincts. The problem is when you have a society that loses a sense of balance which more and more individuals and groups take up the cry. Don't blame me. (00:00:36) I'm not responsible. I'm a victim (00:00:39) now whenever I deal with a complicated sociological economic political and cultural issue. I always go to the primary (00:00:46) texts and and I will again this morning my text for the morning is Calvin and Hobbes the cartoon where the young boys talking to his imaginary friend Hobbs and Calvin. As nothing I do is my fault. My family is dysfunctional and my parents won't Empower me consequently. I'm not self-actualized. (00:01:10) He goes on says my behavior is addictive proper functioning in a disease process of toxic codependency. I need holistic healing and wellness before I'll accept any responsibility for my (00:01:20) actions and then Hobbes says to him one of us needs to stick his head in a bucket of ice water. But but (00:01:28) but but Calvin concludes, I love the culture of victimhood. Well, he's obviously not alone. There's a lot of this going around. He just look around us, you know, people ask why did I write a nation of victims? Well, if you pay attention to some of the things that are going on it's hard to miss that this is happening in American society. You only need to look at survey some of our leading institutions turn on daytime television talk (00:01:52) shows, which I don't necessarily recommend that you do or spend time on a University campus read the media. All the politics of our inner cities or spend time in an (00:02:03) American court room daytime television talk shows (00:02:06) have become virtual parades (00:02:08) of victims and abuse (00:02:09) sufferers pitting handicapped sex addicts against overweight victims of incest and (00:02:14) I'll lead campuses Children of the (00:02:16) upper classes Vie with (00:02:18) one another over who is the (00:02:20) most victimized or the most oppressed. It's a remarkable thing to go to schools where the tuition is twenty thousand dollars a year and you find that one of the great pastimes is groups arguing with one another contending with one another. No, I'm a bigger victim than you are. No, I am the most oppressed, you know, it is it is it is hard (00:02:37) to retain ones composure when you're at a campus like (00:02:40) Bryn Mawr telling them that you know, yes, there are victims and oppressed people in the world go to Bosnia, but Bryn Mawr is not the center of Oppression and But this culture of victimization has resulted in something that you've all sure familiar with the the spread of speech codes on University campuses and the rise of political correctness all designed to ensure that nothing offends the sensibilities of victim groups. Of course, the media is zealous and its expansion of the definition of victimization one leading network of few years ago did a breathless report on a new form of homelessness that they had discovered in their investigative Endeavors. They called it the (00:03:18) hidden homeless now, it turned out that the hidden homeless weren't technically homeless they were just people who had moved in with their relatives. (00:03:26) And as one (00:03:29) as one reporter for the Washington Post later remark, we used to call these families. And then of course there is the courtroom (00:03:42) the where we (00:03:44) are living out a litigation explosion where no slight or injury goes on litigated. I tell in the (00:03:49) book The Story of the gentleman in Upstate New York who engage in refrigerator races carry the refrigerators on their backs and a couple of injure their back and because this is America and it is the 1990s they turned around and Sue the manufacturer of the refrigerator on the ground that they should have been warned against doing this. My book opens with the story of the FBI agent who embezzles two thousand dollars from the federal government and loses it all in an afternoon of gambling in Atlantic City when this comes to light the FBI frowns upon this and fires him as you'd expect which you might not (00:04:22) expect is that he successfully sued in federal (00:04:25) court arguing that he should not have been dismissed because he should have been (00:04:29) considered handicapped his handicap (00:04:31) being what his lawyer called compulsive gambling syndrome. And in fact, he won that case similar case in school district and Philadelphia fellow couldn't get to work one day on time is late every day is finally fired even by a public school district, and (00:04:51) he also argued in court that he had been unfairly discriminated against as a (00:04:56) handicapped individual and his handicap was he claimed that he suffered from chronic lateness syndrome? He actually won in the lower courts in Pennsylvania of the law stand on (00:05:07) appeal in my hometown of Milwaukee. It was a case of a young man who at a crowded (00:05:14) bar wants to impress his girlfriend. I assume so does a backflip in the bar slips (00:05:22) Falls breaks his shoulder and then turns around and Sue's the bartender on the grounds. The bartender should have stopped him from doing this (00:05:31) and want to $5,000 out-of-court settlement (00:05:34) what we're seeing in this country. We've seen in the past Revolutions (00:05:37) of rising (00:05:38) expectations, but we're also seeing now, I think a revolution of rising sensitivities in which we are increasingly stringing invisible tripwires of grievance in which we encourage individuals and groups to think of themselves in terms of being abused or aggrieved to think of themselves in terms of (00:05:57) entitlements to which they might be denied (00:06:00) again as I began the my talk. It's important to recognize that there are real victims out there. (00:06:07) There are real victims of discrimination. There are (00:06:10) real. Dividuals who are disabled. There are people who have been the victims of Injustice, but my argument is that there's sort of a gresham's (00:06:19) law of victimization gresham's law. Of course that bad money drives out good money. The gresham's law victimization would be that bogus de victims tend to drive out (00:06:28) genuine victims that in the Universal chorus of complaint the people most likely to be elbowed aside are those people precisely those the precisely that Society most wants and should help. I think what's most (00:06:43) striking about the current culture victimization (00:06:46) is not that we are a (00:06:48) compassionate Society reaching out trying to solve the problems of (00:06:51) Injustice. But what's most striking is the promiscuity in the universality with which victim status (00:06:58) is is being claimed. They were not just talking about the victims of racism and sexism any longer but the victims of lookism people who claim they're discriminated against based on their appearance young people who claim to be the victims actually Young Will be members of the baby boom. I'll come back to that later who claimed to be the victim of toxic parents the victims of ableism people who claim bicyclists who claim that they are victims of motor is MM students who claim that they are victimized by having to read books by dead white guys and even and even kids who are educational bureaucrats who believe that children are victimized by being forced to read Mother Goose rhymes. There's actually a movement now to rewrite many of them. If you haven't seen the new politically under gentler Mother Goose rhymes, you know, Georgie Porgie pudding and pie kissed the girls and made them cry. Blatant example us sexual (00:07:51) harassment. (00:07:55) Has to be (00:07:55) removed we have new groups called the (00:07:58) codependence where you don't actually have to be an addict of anything. If you just would be around people codependence. (00:08:03) The latest one of the latest disorders people who (00:08:06) suffer from what is called with a perfectly straight face work inhibition disorder. (00:08:14) I used to describe in my speeches up till about six weeks ago (00:08:18) my prediction that was I believe never taken seriously by a single (00:08:21) audience that one of the next groups that would get special protection under the law (00:08:26) would be the the large the obese tell the story of a man threatened to sue McDonald's under federal civil rights laws because he said the chairs were too small for his backside and he wrote saying, you know, I represent a minority group just as visible as blacks and women and Hispanics and they are the large. He said I have a 60 inch waist and my behind will not fit in these McDonald's chairs and therefore I'm discriminated against and (00:08:52) that used to get a good and you know (00:08:53) sort of a humorous reaction about how far this could go but as you all know by now the EEOC and a federal appeals court has declared that the obese are covered under the Americans with Disability Act. They are now a protected class. (00:09:07) The ACLU is already saying very (00:09:09) publicly that the next group that they have targeted for special protection are the aesthetically challenged the victims of (00:09:20) lookism this process. I think reached a certain point of absurdity this summer when the head of the California Bar (00:09:27) association held a press conference to say that that may be lawyers ought to be considered a victim group that we all ought to stop telling lawyer jokes, and because this was a form of hate speech (00:09:41) To reiterate the main point here that that rather than in this attitude rather than focusing our societies attention on real genuine victims and concrete (00:09:50) cases of Injustice. We're now a society in search of (00:09:53) expanding the definition of victimization. We can detect racism and sexism and classroom seating patterns or (00:10:00) oppression in The Shakespearean sonnet and constantly multiplying the ways in which we are offended going back to my theme of using cartoons. You might have seen a Jules feiffer cartoon that appeared this summer in which she portrayed a young white male complaining African-Americans are victimized Native Americans are victimized gays and lesbians are victimized all minorities are victimized all women are victimized children are victimized senior citizens are victimized the physically challenged of victimized then he (00:10:29) concludes I don't belong to any group (00:10:32) that's victimized. So where do I get the right to feel so lousy? Well (00:10:39) the answer the answer is (00:10:40) That he's not out of luck. Because if you can't blame racism or sexism or some other large institutional form of Oppression, you can blame your mom or your dad. In fact, one of our great growth industries is a member of the baby. Boom generation has been to blame our parents for virtually all of our unhappiness and and disappointment or as the middle class has been doing with a great friendly the upper white middle class has been doing with a great deal of enthusiasm developing inventing and elaborating new diseases and maladies that only we suffer from in my hometown of Milwaukee. There is actually a psychotherapist (00:11:21) who is marketing treatment for a disease that she calls affluenza From the word affluent rich people who are not understood and (00:11:35) have lots of time on their hands and go to her for (00:11:38) therapy not you have to give her credit from an entrepreneurial point of view. For coming up with a disease that is only suffered by people who can afford to pay her bill. And once again the fight (00:11:55) against Injustice is not new and nor is the you know, they attempt to expand our consciousness of what of what constitutes victimization but what I find remarkable (00:12:06) is the way that this culture binds together so many (00:12:10) disparate elements of society the rich and the poor alike. I mean, it binds together such diverse personalities as Reagan aide Michael Deaver who said victim of alcoholism when he was caught doing some things DC. Mayor Marion Barry who after he was caught smoking crack cocaine said he was a victim of racism the county super the supervisor in San Francisco Dan White who murdered the mayor there and another supervisor said he was the victim of Twinkies literally that here it ate too much junk food got off on the murder rap as a result of that this culture binds together the residents of South Central Los Angeles where people suffer from actual poverty and people from Manhattan's Upper East Side who don't (00:12:53) In poverty, but who can go on endlessly about their own injured inner child are at the late Aaron would all (00:13:00) ski will dulski suggested that if you add up all the groups in American society that consider themselves to be oppressed. It would come to three hundred and seventy-four percent of the total population of the country. (00:13:14) So I would suggest that we Americans have done with grievance what the Japanese have done with a microchip. (00:13:20) We've multiplied it endlessly and applied it to all manner of aspects of our life and the (00:13:26) result is a new form of gridlock. Not the gridlock we read about in Washington, but the gridlock in American society among (00:13:33) ourselves and I Define that gridlock as caused by the (00:13:37) irresistible search for someone to blame colliding with the unbendable (00:13:44) unwillingness to for any of us to accept responsibility for our (00:13:47) lives. We see this I think more and more in the aspects of our public and private (00:13:52) lives increasingly public debate is dominated by victims (00:13:56) speak the use of (00:13:57) one's victim status as a trump card. I think (00:14:00) victim speak, you know, I'm a bigger victim. You (00:14:02) can't possibly understand me. I'm a victim therefore. I know more than you. I am morally pure I am innocent is become virtually a substitute in our society for moral (00:14:12) reasoning which is perhaps (00:14:14) inevitable in a society where we no longer have a workable consensus about what constitutes either Justice or (00:14:20) fairness. But rather than expanding (00:14:24) our Consciousness making us a Kinder and gentler country. I really think that we are in danger of becoming a country that will suffer from compassion (00:14:32) fatigue. We are the most compassionate people on (00:14:36) Earth, maybe the most compassionate people in history, but our compassion is sorely tax to these days. (00:14:42) So why is it how have we gotten to this point? Why are so many Americans so anxious to Don the cloak (00:14:48) of (00:14:49) victimization? I think there are four major routes to this. The first is a sense of expectations what Americans think that light think that life owes them. It used to be that Americans believed in the pursuit of happiness. That's why we wrote it into our (00:15:07) Declaration of Independence, but (00:15:09) somewhere along the line and I think that my generation the Baby Boomers had a great deal to do with this a lot of us decided that happiness was not something simply to be pursued (00:15:18) or work for or struggled for or (00:15:21) sacrifice for But that happiness was something to which we were entitled as a matter of right. In fact that we were entitled to all sorts of self-fulfillment self-realization good (00:15:33) sex with no consequences or strings (00:15:35) attached and if we didn't get all of those things (00:15:38) we were disappointed and it was probably somebody else's fault. We also I think have come to believe that life should (00:15:44) be pretty much pain free and that we should be indemnified against any bad thing happening to (00:15:50) us. We believe that that basically there should be very few risks in American society. (00:15:57) Now if Americans haven't noticed this people abroad have (00:16:01) the British publication The Economist wrote A couple of years ago about Americans (00:16:06) if you lose your job, you can sue for the mental distress of (00:16:09) being fired if your bank goes broke the government has ensured your deposits. If you drive drunk and crashed you can sue somebody for failing to warn you to stop drinking there is always somebody else to blame. (00:16:22) Now along the same (00:16:23) lines the second major root of this having raised our expectations about what life should be we've experienced a rights revolution in this country and continue to experience a rights Revolution and is defined by Harvard's Marianne Glendon. (00:16:38) It's basically the attitude that have some rights are good more rights must be better and that we all ought to demand all the rights. We possibly can as loudly and shrilly as possible and never under any circumstances (00:16:51) allow those rights to be linked to any sense of personal responsibility. Now the irony here, of course is that just as rising expectations of what life owes us as led to a nagging disappointment when faced with life's realities the expansion of Rights and the expansion of our definition of equality has (00:17:11) enhanced our hypersensitivity to any differences that (00:17:14) might remain and Alexis de tocqueville predicted this a hundred fifty years ago. He predicted that as we move As Americans (00:17:21) Move closer and closer to an (00:17:23) egalitarian society people would become more and more annoyed and sensitive at the remaining inequality. I think we're seeing that right now (00:17:31) the third major route. Is the depersonalization of blame (00:17:36) in American society the shift of responsibility from the individual to society and what I suppose can be best described (00:17:44) as the medicalization of sin and by that, I mean we take it for granted that it is more sophisticated more advanced to say that someone is ill or they suffer from a complex or a syndrome. Then it is to say that they have done something bad. We've lost the moral language to be able to evaluate people on the basis of the categories that have been used for centuries. When's the last time someone stood up and said what I did was wrong or something was evil. We use the terms of the medical analogy almost reflexively and the attraction is obvious. Why would people use the disease analogy? Keep (00:18:23) in mind? It is an analogy. (00:18:24) Well Disease by definition is something that happens to us. It's not something that we can help be held responsible for so we have an explosion of New diseases in this country new addictions for example, (00:18:39) the National Association of Association of sex addiction problems (00:18:43) estimates that between 10% and 15% of all (00:18:46) Americans which would be about 25 million (00:18:49) are addicted to sex (00:18:51) used to be a different word for that (00:18:54) the National Council on compulsive gambling claims 20 (00:18:56) million addicts, but topping all of this (00:19:01) is the vice president's wife Tipper Gore who wrote in USA Today (00:19:07) that one of the reasons why national health insurance should cover mental health is that listen to this (00:19:12) carefully is that and she wrote this that 28 (00:19:17) percent of all Americans will suffer from symptoms of (00:19:21) mental illness in any given year 28 percent that is more than one in four (00:19:27) Americans. (00:19:29) Now either that means that (00:19:31) we are a nation of basket (00:19:33) cases or it means that someone has radically redefined what mental illnesses (00:19:38) I would submit its the second. In fact in the chart accompanying her article the (00:19:43) leading leading forms of mental illness. She (00:19:46) described were anxiety and stress now the fourth root after expectations the rights Revolution the depersonalization by the fourth is the most obvious. It's the one you've all been (00:19:58) waiting for. It's the basically (00:20:01) they asked Willie Sutton. Why do you rob banks? He said well, that's where the money is (00:20:06) and the fact is that through governmental programs legal changes. We have created tangible Financial political and social advantages to being a (00:20:15) victim in our society. We (00:20:18) have created in the workplace in politics (00:20:21) through a series of entitlements in this country (00:20:24) positive incentives for people to label themselves in that way. For example, once we began segmenting Society up into special interest groups each with their own protection. It shouldn't be surprising that more and more groups say well now where's my piece of the action? Where do I (00:20:41) fit into this (00:20:42) Americans increasingly no longer think of themselves as Citizens with rights under the Constitution as they do as potential litigants or potential members of protected groups (00:20:53) all of which want their special their special status under the law. It means give you an example of how the subsidization of certain behaviors (00:21:03) results in it in Wisconsin. Do you (00:21:05) call her program called SSI supplemental security income administered by the Social Security Administration a classic example of how this works a program designed to help families (00:21:18) with disabled children again a program. That's a (00:21:22) laudable intentions right. Now. One of the (00:21:25) fastest-growing (00:21:27) disabilities at least in my home. Eight among children is something called oppositional Defiance (00:21:33) disorder. Basically what it means if a young (00:21:36) child is obnoxious enough if they swear at their teacher refuse to obey them behave in a out of control Manner and it is severe enough (00:21:47) and one can be diagnosed as (00:21:48) suffering from Oppositional Defiant Disorder. You're not just a rotten little kid you are now entitled to five hundred dollars a month from the federal (00:21:55) government. Under this the the parent is not required to get (00:22:00) treatment for the child. And if in fact the child were to be suddenly cured of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Theoretically the money would be cut off as a result of that right now about three percent of the children who are covered under SSI suffer from this new disorder. (00:22:16) I think I think part of (00:22:17) what's happened is that the process that we've gone (00:22:19) through is that Americans want to be free, but that has evolved into a desire to be free of the (00:22:24) consequences of all of our behavior and (00:22:27) that freedom has evolved into a sense that not only should we not be accountable but that if we make bad choices if things go wrong that our unhappiness should be an entitlement in a sense. A lot of Americans of many different age groups have taken up the typical Cry of the Adolescent or the teenager. It's (00:22:47) not fair. It's not fair (00:22:50) now again, I'm not arguing (00:22:51) that all victims are bogus or fake. But I also think it's (00:22:55) important to note that regarding oneself as a victim is not the inevitable result of Injustice or setbacks mean. Let's assume that in some cases bad things have happened to individuals. I think that nothing separates our attitude from the past more radically than our attitude towards adversity. It used to be that we recognized that stuff happened. That in fact the world was not fair that there would be that they would be setbacks that they would be (00:23:22) unfairness (00:23:24) and that in the past. This was seen as a bit as a reality to be overcome. Not as an excuse or an entitlement not as something that (00:23:32) that we needed to (00:23:33) obsess on or (00:23:34) build our culture around and I think by the way (00:23:39) that (00:23:41) the worst thing that this culture does is the ways not only that it separates us (00:23:46) from one another divides us from one another but that it is reductionist. (00:23:51) It forces us to think (00:23:53) of ourselves reduces our status to our race our ethnicity our addiction. We are of course those things if we happen to be those things but we're (00:24:02) more but victim is MM encourages us to see ourselves through the Prismatic (00:24:06) lens of our victim status (00:24:08) and while they're obvious (00:24:09) short-term benefits to this which I have just (00:24:12) delineate it victim is MM does not Empower people. People it does not Empower people to encourage young people for example to overestimate the barriers. They have to face and underestimate their opportunities. It doesn't Empower children in the (00:24:26) inner city, for example, if they're constantly told to live in a hostel (00:24:29) malevolent white racist world or the Jewish doctors are engaged in a (00:24:33) vast conspiracy to inject them with AIDS their response to this sort of paranoia is not likely to be Enlightenment more (00:24:39) likely will be fear (00:24:41) hopelessness and perhaps even despair. I think one of the scariest things that we're going to see in the 1990s is the increased balkanization of our society (00:24:50) the re tribal ization (00:24:51) of American society and that we're already seeing it around the country in (00:24:55) Washington DC civil disorders pitted Hispanics versus blacks New York City Hasidic Jews versus blacks in LOL. (00:25:03) Asian Americans versus blacks these maybe the emblematic struggles of our time victim versus victim groups. (00:25:11) Now this was not inevitable some people when I talk about this assume that this is somehow comes out of the civil rights movement and there's some truth (00:25:19) in that but there's also it's also not completely true. (00:25:23) I think Martin Luther King recognized the dangers of playing the victim card and when he spoke in 1963 (00:25:31) the March on Washington he talked (00:25:32) about the day when his children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, one of the great ironies of our time came in the 1960s by the end of that decade anyone who suggested that people be judged by the content of their character was accused of blaming the victim remember what happened in the 1960s. It's a very interesting debate given what's happening. Now when Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the (00:25:58) 1960s said despite all the civil rights legislation, despite the anti-poverty programs. We have not closed the gap between white and black between rich and poor (00:26:07) and he said maybe this has to do with the breakdown of the (00:26:10) family. Maybe this has to do with certain breakdown in the social Fabric (00:26:15) and that's where the phrase came from. He was denounced for blaming the victim because what is happening there (00:26:22) was the culture decided (00:26:25) that in fact to be a victim at never having to say you're sorry that by definition victims could never be held accountable that we could never talk about values. We could never talk about Behavior. We could never (00:26:37) talk about personal responsibility (00:26:39) and I would argue that the taboo that that occurred for more than a decade after 1965 the taboo on any discussion of the family of these social norms contributed fundamentally to the rise of the black underclass the use of that phrase blaming the victim the notion that victim status meant that we could not discuss the moral values of individuals has had a tremendous and devastating (00:27:08) impact on our (00:27:09) society. It didn't have to be that (00:27:12) way Malcolm X once said that if a man (00:27:15) knocks me down, it's not my (00:27:17) fault if I'm on the ground, (00:27:20) but if I'm on the ground two weeks later than it is my fault and Clarence Thomas. I think put it even (00:27:26) more eloquently and I'd like to just a couple moments to quote (00:27:32) from a speech he gave in 1985 to (00:27:35) an all black college audience in Savannah Georgia on this particular theme and as (00:27:42) you listen to it think how different this message (00:27:45) is from the message that young people receive from the dominant Media or from the self-appointed (00:27:52) leadership. He told the students you can live. But first, you must endure you must endure the unfairness. You must endure the hatred you must endure the bigotry. You must endure the segregation and you must endure the indignity in 1964. When I (00:28:09) entered the Seminary I was the (00:28:11) Black in my class and one of two in the school (00:28:14) a year later. I was the only black in the school not a day passed that I was not pricked by Prejudice, but I had an advantage over black students today. I had never heard any (00:28:25) excuses made nor had I seen my role models (00:28:28) take comfort in excuses. My grandfather knew why his business wasn't more successful, but that didn't stop him from getting up at 2:00 in the morning to carry ice would and fuel (00:28:38) oil sure. We all (00:28:39) knew too. Well that we were held held down by (00:28:43) Prejudice, but we weren't pinned down by it. You have them you have a much tougher road to travel not only do you have to contend with the ever-present bigotry, (00:28:53) but you must do so with a recent tradition that almost (00:28:56) requires you (00:28:57) to wallow in excuses. (00:28:59) You now have a popular National rhetoric which says that you can't learn because of racism you can't raise babies you make (00:29:05) because of racism (00:29:06) you can't get up in the morning because of racism you commit (00:29:10) crimes because (00:29:11) Racism unlike me, you must not only overcome the (00:29:14) repressive - of racism, but you must also overcome the (00:29:18) lure of excuses. (00:29:19) You have twice the job I (00:29:21) had So (00:29:25) following that what Solutions can I offer? Well, I can't offer anything more eloquent than what Clarence Thomas suggested but and I don't have any (00:29:34) solutions but I do have some remedies. I think that one is (00:29:38) a society. We got to recognize that government contributed to this but it's not the only contribution (00:29:43) government can do some things one government can (00:29:46) stop subsidizing some of the behavior (00:29:49) think one of the tests we ought to ask is does any government policy encourages sense of personal responsibility or does it undermine it are we expanding our series of entitlements for dysfunctional irresponsible Behavior or are we encouraging people to be (00:30:01) self-sufficient and accountable? (00:30:04) I think it would help tremendously if we would shift back to the early vision of the civil rights movement and see people as individuals (00:30:11) not as members of (00:30:12) groups. I think we need to (00:30:14) resurrect the ancient concept of civitas rather than obsessing with our own personal Grievances and our own injured in her children to recognize what Obligations are to one another (00:30:25) it would be wonderful. If our institutions of (00:30:28) Higher Learning our social institutions and (00:30:31) government would begin to treat people as (00:30:33) Citizens rather than as clients or (00:30:36) patients (00:30:37) rather than keeping them as frail frail psychological chattel chattel cared (00:30:42) for by the big Nanny state if we treated people as if they were fully functional human beings who could be (00:30:48) responsible and accountable for their own (00:30:49) lives, and we need to begin talking about both at the private level and at the public level the very archaic old-fashioned (00:30:58) concept of character (00:31:00) and to end and openly and (00:31:03) candidly talk about things like the values of honesty probity responsibility and accountability talk about the need to raise children who learn how (00:31:13) to defer gratification and to tell people that this these are not outrageous plots against us. These are not outrageous schemes to deny us our full self. But these are the basic building (00:31:25) blocks of society (00:31:27) on a more tangible (00:31:28) basis. I would love to see some tort reform. I think it should be harder to Sue and harder to win wouldn't America be a different place if we didn't have the contingency fee tomorrow morning? I would hope that the courts and policy makers alike would be more skeptical (00:31:43) towards redefinitions of (00:31:44) behavior as disease (00:31:47) mean. Let's have if we're going to have programs which I believe we should for those who are ill and in need. Let's (00:31:53) focus on them not (00:31:55) take people's behavior (00:31:56) and turned it into an entitlement irresponsible behavior and turn it into an (00:32:00) entitlement. I also think we ought to have a moratorium on (00:32:04) blame a moratorium on finger-pointing (00:32:07) not ending the search for justice and for truth but asking ourselves how helpful it is to obsess upon others (00:32:15) and and rather than our own sense of responsibility. In other words the next time something happens and that instinct arises as it does in all of us Americans to blame someone else maybe rein it (00:32:26) in and finally the the most important remedy but is also the most disappointing to all audiences and I know that (00:32:36) it is disappointing because it is so simple common sense. (00:32:41) It would certainly help if we would all exercise (00:32:44) more common sense about what (00:32:46) constitutes real victimization (00:32:48) and those who are real victims and those who are simply on for the ride. I think the common sense can go a long way toward making a distinction between a bungled pass and rape between greed and compulsive shopping syndrome. In between the victims of racial discrimination and the victims of sizes (00:33:05) mm between the genuinely (00:33:07) handicapped and those who claim to be chronically late between bad luck and social victimization. Ultimately I think common sense is the stumbling block that this culture of victimization may not be able to (00:33:19) overcome at some level. We all know that something is required of us and that we can't blame all of our (00:33:25) problems on mommy or daddy and that we can't solve all of our problems in a court of law or through litigation. We (00:33:32) can't blame all of our problems on codependency or the system. We know that we're (00:33:37) not sick when we're simply irresponsible or week (00:33:40) and we know that others are not to blame when we have screwed up. We know that the world does not exist for the sole purpose of (00:33:47) making us happy and indulging our desires that is not a message of lack of compassion. (00:33:54) That's a message of telling people that it's (00:33:57) time for many of us to grow up. It's time for us to take our place as Citizens. And it's a time to remember that the American dream is the American dream. Not the American Nightmare. Thank you. Drake Lawrence, could you expand on to toke Fields thoughts a little further how he saw, you know our society developing. Did he go further than what you just said? (00:34:25) Yes, he wrote a rather thick book on quoted (00:34:27) one sentence of it. (00:34:31) Yeah. There's a lot there. (00:34:33) I'm not going to try to summarize Democracy in America in in in the next in the next two minutes. I would say however that that if you had to (00:34:40) read one book (00:34:41) talking about the American character and the and the problems of inherent problems of democracy, that's the one now. I'm (00:34:49) not blaming democracy or the American character. I'm saying that these things were always held in balance. These have always been dangers. I think that one of the things that we've done in our societies, we've (00:34:59) ignored the fact that a Democratic Society of free Society a prosperous (00:35:05) Society. Is basically relies on certain kinds of people on (00:35:10) certain kinds of values on certain kinds of personalities (00:35:13) and that what a lot of us seem to be amazed that if we get rid of those (00:35:17) traditions in those values that suddenly (00:35:20) why doesn't the system work the way it's supposed to we have been I think we have been (00:35:25) drawing on our accumulated moral Capital over the last few decades the belief that we can derive Notions of authority and responsibility that we can multiply our rights endlessly, but we can do all the things that de tocqueville said might be dangerous for a (00:35:41) democracy and we assume that there's no (00:35:43) trade-off on that and I think that again that's one of those documents that a hundred and fifty years ago said listen, this is a wonderful Society a wonderful government, (00:35:52) but these are the things to (00:35:53) watch out for (00:35:55) if you have individuals who care only about themselves who (00:35:58) pull back from society who begin to obsess upon, you know, the the rights that their neighbors have that you don't have that can destroy the fabric. Of this society and it's remarkable that he saw that back then and that so few people see that today since in fact, that's the process that were engaging in at the moment Harold (00:36:15) Craig. Do you see any turnaround and what (00:36:19) you're talking about? And could you give examples either in the public or private sector other than yourself? Yeah. No, I will do it making a change (00:36:27) here. I can I can be depending on the day be (00:36:30) very pessimistic or optimistic. The bad news is that if the courts continue to expand the definition of Rights and entitlements then nothing I say is going to have much effect, you know, you know where you follow the (00:36:42) money in terms of that if we pay if we subsidize dysfunctional behavior and division we will get more of it on the other hand. Isn't it? Remarkable how Bill Clinton has been talking about personal responsibility the last few weeks and I don't know how long it will last but saying, you know, Dan Quayle was (00:37:00) right about talking about family values. I mean that was that was remarkable over the last few weeks. The governor of Wisconsin signed a (00:37:07) bill abolishing all afdc (00:37:09) my 1999 (00:37:11) and he said for things that I think we're extremely (00:37:14) interesting. He said obviously we're gonna have to replace this with something. (00:37:17) This is what it should look like. Whatever it is. Whatever we put in its place should encourage personal (00:37:22) responsibility is (00:37:24) should encourage (00:37:25) parents to be held accountable for their parenting (00:37:28) should make people self-sufficient as quickly as possible and should not be an open-ended entitlement. Now those are for I think fundamental principles for Public Policy do they encourage (00:37:40) personal responsibility accountability self-sufficiency and do they undermine that sense of entitlement now, (00:37:47) who knows where this will go? But the (00:37:49) fact is that not only build has built been Bill Clinton been talking about Dan Quayle. He's also been talking about Charles Murray (00:37:55) who's been talking about fundamentally changing this entitlement culture. So maybe this is what the left would call a teachable (00:38:01) moment from from (00:38:03) the other side a teachable moment that you always (00:38:06) something happens and they want to exploit it as a teachable moment, (00:38:09) but I think that at some point the pendulum swings and the price that we're paying for this is so outrageous at some point people. Workforce (00:38:18) or in politics in the political Society will say look everybody else has got an entitlement. Everyone else has got a protection. I want mine and by the way, one of the next and and nastiest and loudest groups, will of course be white men who will want to get in on this but at some point beyond that I (00:38:35) Envision people will say look, this is just gone too (00:38:38) far. We've all got our various entitlements and protection. We're all dueling with one. Another is you know, dueling victims victim Olympics has become our national (00:38:46) politics. Maybe why don't we try a radical concept and all become citizens. Why don't we all try something where we can be judged by the content of their character and at the moment that seems like a radical concept, but perhaps the system will burn itself out but it will only burn itself out. If we sort of if we take away some of the flame in the (00:39:03) fuel which which tends to be the financial rewards in it. We have a question over here identify yourself, please. My name is Michael Ellis. I'm also from Wisconsin. So I'm not a wringer by the way. My question is what about the victims of the victims if radical feminism for instance has pushed for the right to Children? What about the grandparents? The father's if these people are being pushed away from their access to children for instance. (00:39:37) How do you address the difficulties that those victims (00:39:41) of professed victims are dealing with? (00:39:46) Let me answer that in two parts one is some of the issues that you're raising are legitimate on the other hand. If you listen to yourself, it sounds like a domino effect of victimization. You can endlessly multiply the victims of the victims of the victims. All of whom should be suing one another and to a point where you know, literally at some point, you know, the men's Rights Movement can develop the same sort of sense of grievance and entitlement and demand of the feminist movement, you know, that's a society in which people are not talking with one another where we were all screaming at one another in (00:40:17) which we are all find ways that we are victims victimized. I'm not (00:40:21) saying that there are not legitimate concerns. I am very skeptical of men's rights movements. That sounded me exactly like mirror images of some of the more extreme feminist movements. And once again, it's this whole nation no notion of you know, (00:40:35) how have I been abused how have I been aggrieved? What should I do about it? You know and therefore I will play my Victim car. It is (00:40:43) incredibly seductive. Attractive and it often pays significant dividends and it's the kind of Temptation that I hope that all of us will try to (00:40:51) resist. question back here Charlie Identify yourself, (00:40:58) please Barbara erlandsson you mentioned character in the importance of character in deterring us from feeling victims as a child of the 40s in elementary school growing up in the east coast. I remember the Arrow air raid drills that we had to have and and the blackout curtains and I don't remember teams of psychologists coming into the schools and attempting to calm us. I think that happens today and that's not to trivialize what children have to face serial killers Abduction of children, but I'm wondering if we buy by a teaching our children that they have to look outside themselves for help and and and we're not allowing them to take what life dishes out and I think that that sort of begins that process of feeling becoming a victim. (00:41:48) Well, we do live in a therapeutic age. We are therapeutic (00:41:51) Society where therapists social workers psychoanalyst have basically (00:41:55) taken over many of the roles that used to be (00:41:57) Formed by priests and pastors and parents and we do tend to treat children as as frail psychological beings, you know, very young we get them into therapy as quickly as possible one of the and she's absolutely right anytime (00:42:11) anything goes wrong. I mean they bring in the social workers in the (00:42:13) therapists and you sort of wonder what they say to the kids. We had assistant principal shot and killed and they brought in, you know, sort of SWAT teams of social workers telling the kids. It was all right to feel (00:42:23) upset. They knew that but One of the thing I'll tell ya I'm really troubled about you know, I was I was talking about the baby boom generation about the only thing sort of the good news bad news is the Baby Boomers who made an industry out of blaming our (00:42:39) parents and indulging our whims. We will get the kids. We deserve (00:42:44) one of the great movements in schools today rather than teaching kids to be resilient is the (00:42:50) whole emphasis on (00:42:51) self-esteem. Now, there's nothing wrong with self-esteem per se but it used to be that self-esteem was linked to a (00:42:57) sense of accomplishment used have to do something to feel good about yourself. (00:43:01) It's one of the what I'm always (00:43:03) fascinated by seeing these International comparisons of math scores. They measured in the South Koreans rate up here. We're about down here, but when they ask kids, how do you feel about your math abilities (00:43:15) you guess which country has the highest self esteem. We we we feel great about ourselves now when those kids When those kids when those kids come out of the schools and they've been told how wonderful they are. And you know, (00:43:30) don't worry whether you can actually do this stuff. You know, you are special, you know, you were you know, (00:43:35) these kids are going to come out into the work world and the real world. It's going to be a big shock for them. And what do you think their response is going to be? Do you think it's going to be maybe (00:43:44) it's I have to work harder. Maybe it's because you know, I haven't done what I'm supposed to do. Maybe I ought to redouble my effort (00:43:50) or will it be it's not (00:43:52) fair victimized. The other point is I this whole area (00:43:57) of character education raising kids to have a sense of character (00:44:04) is one of the (00:44:05) major educational (00:44:06) issues of our time I think and (00:44:09) have you ever seen some of (00:44:11) the values clarification curriculums, for example in a unit that I saw at someone Public School in our area on (00:44:19) cheating and lying (00:44:21) the the first question was a sort of a worksheet on Eating and the first sentence was I'm not kidding about this was (00:44:27) how do you feel about cheating not cheating is wrong. But when is it? Okay to cheat. When is it not okay to cheat list (00:44:34) circumstances in which it might be acceptable to cheat. How do you feel about lying (00:44:38) and then it would work for sixth graders are given a (00:44:40) sheet that says this psycho therapist says that most adults will lie 200 times a day. (00:44:45) Do you agree with this? Well, you know, these are fascinating intellectual discussions, but do they make kids come out of those schools more likely to tell the truth less likely to cheat (00:44:56) to recognize that they will be judged on the basis of certain Norms of character. Unfortunately, that's an alien Concept in many of our in many of our schools. And that ought to trouble us a great deal. (00:45:08) Our constitution is based on a theory of natural rights our natural rights, the Bill of Rights only protects rights. It does not create any rights can rights be created really are are we not talking about privilege is not right? (00:45:23) Well depends what level you're asking, you know? Yes, they can be created by (00:45:26) law whether or not their real rights. I mean the notion that for example that we have a right to healthcare. Yes, we can write that into the law. We can really I think that in our culture today the culture that dominates the legal profession or certainly dominates the law schools, you know, the (00:45:42) belief that right is what we say aright is that we take (00:45:46) something that is desirable that we want and that we redefine it as a right which then becomes an entitlement and this is this is the mentality of American politics and has been for the last 20 years. Now, maybe the fact that we've run out of money at the federal level is going to put some dampers on that but you but you're absolutely right. We've lost that sense of what the natural rights are because of course the natural rights also talked about, you know have a sense of what our of our natural responsibilities and obligations to others our responsibilities as Citizens might be as opposed to Simply autonomous individuals, you know getting ours we have about seven minutes. I'm Try to squeeze three questions in this woman over here. Then Jeff Seaman, then Jim linnell identify yourself, please (00:46:29) Janet Keith if we're going to hold our selves accountable and each other accountable. How do you feel about the old concept of parens patriae as far as parents rearing their children? Because that's where the characters begins. (00:46:43) Well, yeah. The fact is of all of the institutions that we have ever created for developing character. The only one that's ever been successful has been the family. I mean, it's only the family that cans mix affection and reproof in a way that's credible (00:47:00) and that can be effective. There. Is this this this myth that we have been cultivating over the last several decades that families can be replaced or substituted that schools can you know, take over the roles of family or that we don't really need families has turned out to be, you know, a very dangerous self-delusion. So there's no question about it. This is a tremendous amount of responsibility. (00:47:22) By the (00:47:22) way, I want to let parents off the hook. I mean, this is all a balance. It is possible to blame everything. I've been talking about (00:47:29) on lawyers and you can do that, you know, but you have to ask yourself why it is that so many Americans are willing to Sue and why juries are willing to give out the awards. You can blame it on psychotherapist, but I think they're responding to a market as well. You can (00:47:41) blame it on the government and they have created (00:47:42) the entitlements but I can also blame this on parents (00:47:45) as well. I mean it is often the parents who lack the confidence to to raise their children and a certain way to instill these (00:47:52) values of character. So the response of (00:47:54) the power and the responsibility, I think go hand in (00:47:57) hand. question from old number 50 Charlie I was wondering what your feeling is about the Oh the the blurring of traditional moral categories and the way that this has exacerbated the problem of victimhood and where do you see it beginning if you were this is kind of maybe the like the problem of trying to summarize it de tocqueville's work, but what would be the locus of the problem? And how is it influence the the problem of not accepting personal (00:48:32) responsibility? Well, you put your finger one of the key issues here, which is in fact that we no longer feel comfortable using a moral (00:48:40) vocabulary. No part of it has to do with the decline of religion in our society, you know from the late 19th century on (00:48:47) the fact that that we could live in a society with simply secular principles and the fact that we have found looked for various techniques and things to fill the vacuum created by the loss of that religious Faith, but also that moral universe and so some of us have turned to psychotherapy for example to provide the categories that the moral language use (00:49:09) Provide so (00:49:10) therefore what we've lost is I mean, it's not just a the (00:49:12) blurring. Is there among young people today? I don't have time to go through some of the anecdotes. But just the the whole (00:49:18) sense that there are right and wrong (00:49:19) answers to things is a totally alien concept to many of them. So I think that (00:49:23) it's part of part of (00:49:25) that. It is accelerated through the breakdown of society in the 1960s, (00:49:30) but frankly ever since, you know, we decided that we could live as a (00:49:35) society without the church without God and that we could sort of make things up as we went (00:49:39) along we've moved from one technique to (00:49:41) another to try to substitute for those lost values in the problem is none of (00:49:45) those techniques have filled the vacuum. So the result is that we become more confused (00:49:50) more frustrated more disappointed with every with it with every with every layer. We would we simply don't have those answers. And of course, there's only one (00:49:59) sin by the way in the 1990s. There's only one sin that is to be judgmental. I mean watch Oprah someday, you know, you can only be judgmental and that's part of what you're up against raising children pressing. These things is that there are some kinds of behavior that are encouraged and some that are unacceptable some sorts of behaviors, which people are there ought to be consequences and they ought to be held accountable for that. All behavior is not equal all choices are not equal and that there is something more fundamental and being a human being than simply getting in touch with your (00:50:31) feelings. Jim Linda (00:50:40) I think it's very interesting that you're giving this talk in the week one perverted priest is blaming the church for not treating his pedophilia. We have two young Killers who have killed their parents long after the time that the most young people have got real jobs, right? But my question is kept the politicians have really Escape some blame here can't we blame them for some of this truly? They they have reached out for ever-expanding concentric circles of victims to support them and they reward them then with legislation and judgeships and any number of things that that Pander to those victims interests. The answer (00:51:22) is Charlie. You should know that Jim is a former politician and clearly has been and looks like he's been through some kind of therapy and (00:51:32) I understand what that's like I'm I personally am a recovering liberal. (00:51:35) So, (00:51:39) of course you can blame the politicians. I'm just trying to discourage you from doing so exclusively because I think I mean it is easy to point to Washington and say and they deserve that responsibility, but the responsibility is so widely based here, you know in a sense we do. We also get the kind of government that we that we deserve, you know, if we really are a society as I've said that has the unwillingness to accept responsibility in the (00:52:03) desire to shift responsibility (00:52:05) onto others, then we get a government that will (00:52:07) promise us all sorts of things but never, you know, give us the tab for it and create entitlements and things like (00:52:12) that, but they are responding to things in our culture. Yes. They've encouraged it some of the social programs (00:52:18) we've talked about SSI afdc. I think (00:52:21) have encouraged behavior that undermines personal (00:52:25) responsibility but to single out (00:52:28) any one group in society. (00:52:31) Is the fact that we are (00:52:32) all complicit in this that with that this is something in the American personality. Now that doesn't mean that we ought not to hold politicians accountable for creating (00:52:42) public policy that that enhances personal responsibility and he doesn't mean that we ought (00:52:47) not to do something about the legal profession and you know runaway tort litigation, but it does mean that maybe we ought to be you know, show some humility in terms of you know, what we're going to do before we point (00:52:58) fingers at others (00:53:00) because I'll tell you the worst thing to come out of my critique would be everybody standing up and saying well, that's absolutely right and it's his fault not mine. It's his fault that we're a nation of victims. You know that kind of misses the point.