Individual Accountability and Society

Individual Accountability and Society

Gloria Cockerall, Business Department

Over the past few years I have been struck with the seeming lessening of personal accountability in every arena of life which I observed, so I began to think about and to discuss with friends and family members the possible contributing factors and the probable resulting situations in a country which is becoming less and lessLet’s work together and more and moreI wasn’t aware there was anyone besides me. I have become keenly interested in learning about the ramifications on groups of the lack of individual accountability on as large a scale as seems to be the case in the United States, and I want to learn about as many connections as I can between lack of personal accountability and resultant changes which must be made by groups of all sorts to accommodate that lack. Such changes are already being made in various areas of American society, and I believe that if those changes remain in place long enough, they will gradually reshape the ethical, political, and social structure of the United States itself.

As I began to collect published works about individual accountability, I also began to realize that individual responsibility has two equally important ramifications: one, the effect that individuals who do not take responsibility for their actions have on groups to whom they belong and two, the effect those groups have/will have on individual members after the groups have restructured to suit the no individual accountability philosophy. That realization brought about another: In order to determine the cause of the no individual accountability perspectiveand its resultant effect on groups, I would have to study the group point of view as well as the individual perspective, and only then be able to understand the interaction of the two sides and the ramifications of that interaction onan entire society. The scope of my reading thus changed to include both the influence of individual members on groups and the influence of groups on individual members.

My interest in understanding concepts of individual responsibility began as simple curiosity, but soon developed into a desire to find connections between changing perceptions of individual responsibility and changing philosophies and structures of groups to mirror that individual philosophy. Perhaps I would not have noticed the trend to less self-accountability as early as I did had I not been teaching in higher education, specifically adults in the 20-60 age range, but spending semester after semester with adults who head families, operate businesses, and hold down fulltime jobs, as well as being members of at least four adult generations, provided me with a living measurement of the changes in perspective about what being responsible means, both being responsible toward other people and for functions which an individual has been assigned by his position in a family, company, task force, volunteer organization, or any other group.

After watching the changes for a few years, both inside and outside the classroom, I realize that the trend toward individuals’ thinking about themselves and being oblivious to almost

everyone else has morphedto include the belief that the individual is not only not to be held accountable for the results of his actions, but also to be given chance after chance to complete his responsibilities, no matter what rules are in place or to what standard everyone else is held. Individuals who believe thusly are now large enough in number to have an effect on the entirety

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of the groups to which those individuals belong, creating the obvious questionsof what changes groups are making because of the self-indulgent attitude of their members and how those changes are reshaping the groups themselves. Following closely on the heels of those questionsis the question of how long the making of changes by group after group will go on before American society itself is changed by the attitude/philosophy of non-accountability to a large enough degree that actual rules, ordinances, and laws are changed as well.

One semester is most likely not enough time in which to learn what changes are occurring because of the problem, to determine what can be done to change the attitude of current generations and to stop the spread of the non-accountabilitydisease to new generations, and to evaluate practices which can stop the accommodation of the individual by the group even when such accommodation is to the detriment of the group as a whole. One semester is, however, enough time for me tolearn aboutthe definition and scope of the problem and to become familiar with the connections among the individual non-accountability perspective, group changes that such perspective influences, and resultant influences on individual group members because of those changes to groups/institutions.

Such reading time as the grant will afford me will, I hope, result in my answering my first questions about what I see as a problematic situation and in my refining my perspective and statement of that problem. In addition, the grant will allow me to unearth materials for delving deeper into the problem at hand, to go into different areas of same, and to be able to monitor societal changes which I see as having come from the non-accountability source. Once I have completed the reading allowed by the grant, I should have material which will be beneficial to me when, at later times, I continue my reading to refine my knowledge of how the structure of a society changed by the perspective of non-accountability in turn affects the members of that society, I undertake learning about individual accountability in different eras, and I delve into the presentation of individual accountability in literature.

Rational for Study

I am interested in what I perceive to be a problematic situation because I enjoy learning about changes in my world as they are happening and because I believe that doing so helps me to understand that world and my place in it. I am interested also, however, because I believe that not too long from now Americans will be voting on whether to make changes or to hold the line in numerous situations directly created by the non-accountability perspective, and I want to be one of the people who is already aware of how certain voting options came to pass, not one of the people who has to scrounge around for information when the time for decision making is already at hand.

I plan to begin my ten-week, summer reading by defining what an individual is in works such as in which Rabbi Aron Tendler discusses questions of what an individual is and what an individual is who is part of a society, and to read as well lessons from the site, which gives a particularly Christian perspective of what

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an individual is and what are the responsibilities of an individual to the society in which he resides.

Armed with more-or-less religious perspectives of individuality, I shall round out my background reading with The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung, whose discussion of moral complacency and lack of responsibility will fit well within the framework of the information which I am perusing, and Individual Accountability as a Scientific Concept by Frank E. Hartung.

I will then feel ready to read my primary sources, which activity I plan to begin with the cheating culture by David Callahan. Because I first became interested in the topic of individual

accountability as I watched it change from generation to generation, I am eager to go throughthis book in which the author looks at differences in what used to be considered de rigueurfor personal accountability and what is expected/accepted currently. When asked about modern corporate scandals, men whom Callahan interviewed for his history of the Harvard Business class of 1949, let him know very simply that today’s values normalize felonious behavior whereas yesterday’s values were less tolerant of such behavior. The differences that these men see are exactly what I believe are indicative of changes in the American culture and just what I want to study. As I read Callahan’s book, I plan also to remain current by reading articles from which contains research performed by scholars of generational views of individual responsibility as well as differencesin how various generations view the world, determine if situations are problematic, and decide how to solve problems.

The Feel-Good Society written just this year by James G. Hutton is the next text with which I plan to spend time. Hutton’s discussion includes the concern that institutions such as churches and schools, which traditionally upheld intellectual and moral standards by giving people what they needed rather than what they wanted are now doing the opposite, which concern is what I see as the problem when the group changes to fit the philosophy of the individual. I am excited about reading what Hutton has to say and to see what support and what new perspectives he may give to my own concepts.

Final in the group of books which I want most to read during the Summer III grant time for which I am applying is a book by Andrew Bard Schmookler titled Debating the Good Society:A Quest to Bridge America’s Moral Divide. I hope by the time I come to read Schmookler’sbook that I will have an understanding of how individualaccountability and the good in a societyrelate to one another, and I believe that the construct of this text, that of a dozen or so fictional characters discussing via Internet the knotty questions of where goodness comes from and how good social order is to be achieved, will provide me with a thought-provoking construct for determining what my own perspective is of that relationship. As well, I believe that adding the discussion of this book to what I have already been considering from my other readings will help me arrive at a jumping-off place for the next opportunity I have to explore the question of how group norms, influenced by individual perspectives of group members, can then shape personal perspectives of those who become members of the groups after such influence has changed their concepts and methods.

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Sharing Learned Information with Persons besides Students

As for sharing my findings about ramifications of what I call the individual non-accountability perspective, I believe that all adults who have an interest in what is happening structurally/politically in America can make better decisions than otherwise from knowing theorigins and growth patterns of at least some of the situations which become questions for thepublic to decide. I believe also that certainly their knowing how individuals and their referent groups shape and change one another will make them better informed with regard to their own opinions and the importance of their own influence on family, organization, institution, and public policy.

In addition, I strongly believe that people in positions to help make changes either to oppose or to offset changes which would occur in favor of non-accountable individuals, or to help to change the non-accountableperspective itself, can benefit from having as much information as possible about the situation at hand. I intend to put my findings into both oral- presentation and written-report form so that I can be sure for myself that I have read, understood, and organized materials in such a way as to be able to consider them properly. Such organized information can be shared with civic organizations, medical personnel, parent groups, religious organizations, any other organizations who evidence an interest, as well as any friends and colleagues who are interested in the data.

Resource List

NOTE: Scores of books and articles have been written about individual accountability in education (Assessing Students in Groups),medical (Journal for The National League for Nursing),and business (Clashing Views in Business Ethics and Society) fields, but I shan’t include those in my initial reading list because they are concerned with highly specific points in their own areas whereas I am interested,at this time, in the topic as it relates to the entire American culture, not as it is being applied to specific subject areas.

Primary Sources

1. the cheating culture by David Callahan (353 pp.)

2. The Feel-Good Society by James G. Hutton (180 pp.)

3. Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America’s Moral Divide by Andrew Bard

Schmookler (380 pp.)

4. Imprimis Newsletter of Hillsdale College

Secondary Sources

1.

2. The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung (320 pp.)

3. Individual Accountability as a Scientific Concept by Frank E. Hartung

4. instructed by Rabbi Aron Tendler

5.