The Attitude Lounge with Kodwo Brumpon: Stop the shifting

“Don’t sweep another’s house whilst your own is dirty.” – Kenyan proverb

It is very easy to point the finger, either at the system or a group of people as being liable for the decadence around us. What we often forget is that, there can never be collective responsibility unless individual responsibility has taken a fall.

And that is the state of modern society; individual responsibility has taken a fall. It has become trendy to blame systems; educational, governance, etc, for our failures. How can the system be responsible? Let us be real, the systems are manned by individuals including you and I.

Like our fathers used to lament, every accusatory point of finger, directs the rest of the fingers to indict you. Every time we blame the system, we are in fact prosecuting ourselves over our inefficiencies and shallowness. It is simply our attitudes we are criticising.

It is a sign that the superficialities in our behaviours are negatively affecting us. In the light of modern liberalism that upholds a ‘no passing of judgement on the actions of people’ as the most appropriate manner of human interaction; it is quite shocking that we dare to accuse the systems for the excesses around us.

This is a classic case of inconsistency. On one side of the coin, we have imprinted open-mindedness, and on the other side we exclude certain actions from the same canon of open-mindedness. What a joke. This is close-mindedness.

It actually betrays our capacity to think and choose right. As ‘educated’ individuals, we are to resound and echo right thinking to cultivate right attitudes and project these as right actions. Unfortunately, our endeavour to rid ourselves of blame has sent us swimming in the sea of absurdity. Is it any strange that the individuals, who cry wolf, are the very ones who slaughter the lamb for their barbecue?

Our failure to make substantive progress – minimizing the decadence around us, not simply improving technology – has mainly to do with our blame shifting attitudes. Let us be very frank, technology would not prevent crime, neither would it stop people from being evil.

In reality, it helps us to do whatever we want to do better. No wonder technology is helping to fall faster than ever before. It is like a free lunch. On the surface, it seems like one gets more than what one has asked for; but in actual fact, one pays far more than what one has bargained for.

All around us, the surprising majority of individuals with privileged knowledge (you and I included) have consciously being selective in choosing what standards apply to us. We have chosen the easier ones to make ourselves look blameless. In reality, what we have done is to renounce our integrity.

We know better, yet we do not live this better knowledge. We live by the knowledge that would profit us, to the detriment of the whole. We have twisted the essence of education to mean living in luxury, instead of using it to enrich and ennoble society.

The surprising majority of us take delight in occupying places and positions without a care about protecting the sanctity of where we occupy. We see our occupation as the sun shining on us and therefore the need to make hay. Nothing is more destructive our human interaction than this shallowness in our behaviour.

As a result, evil and vices are tipping the scale. The message is loud and clear, our choices are summonsing us. If we want to get the most out of the efforts we sink into developing the systems around us, we have to start being individually responsible for our world. We need to understand that our responsibilities extend beyond our self-esteem.

We are all individually responsible for every rot and decay around us; from the rise in corruption, through the institution of the ‘each for him/herself temperament, to the eradication of our moral statutes. Like our mothers used to sing, the tiny, tiny droplets of dew fills a basin overnight.

In the same vein, our failure to take individual responsibilities has translated into the societal rot and decay. We should lose sight of the fact that our attitudes are learned characters. We learned our irresponsibleness from those before us, and magnified it to suit our appetite. In the same way, you can never tell who will multiply the irresponsible attitude you are portraying now to satisfy their self-indulgence tomorrow.

Living is a matter of personal responsibility and not dependent on whether others are also taking responsibility or not. Too often we want others to act in a certain manner before we do same. We must start the order that it takes personal and individual responsibility to stop decadency. Our irresponsibleness affects everyone, including the unborn.

Let this awareness inspire us to start taking responsibilities for the thrive of life and subsequently our society. Being individually responsible is the new means that would strengthen us to shape the synergy we have always longed for.

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