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Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Alcoholism is a sickness. Nicotine is addicting. Drugs are addicting. These are chemicals that physically disrupt the pathways in our nervous systems. Some drugs can be addicting with very few doses.

This type of addiction is physical. The body itself craves the addictive substance. The thing about all of these addictions though is that usually you have to make a conscious choice to consume the substance that you eventually become addicted to.

Nobody becomes an alcoholic without first consuming alcohol. Nobody becomes a smoker without doing so voluntarily. You don't get hooked on crack without smoking it yourself. There's definitely an element of personal choice involved.

Even so, these addictions can be hard to kick. There can be physical withdrawal symptoms when you stop consuming the drug. The symptoms can be severe.

But video games? Surfing the net? Give me a break!

This morning I read in the Olympian that there's a good chance that that will be the next "addiction". Actually, I guess it's already considered an addiction, but I think it's just another way to erode or avoid personal responsibility.

ORLANDO, Fla. - So you think your teenager is addicted to Xbox?

You may be right - and if the prestigious American Medical Association has its way, video-game addiction could become a legitimate medical condition.

It may sound like a bunch of hooey to a nation of game enthusiasts, but next week, at the AMA's meeting in Chicago, delegates will vote on a recommendation that "Internet/video-game addiction" be classified as a formal diagnosis.

I use the Internet from 30 to 60 hours a week. I use it as part of my job. I use it as a blogger. I use it to get news from multiple sources without having to pay for dozens of newspaper subscriptions. I use it as entertainment.

I'm not addicted to it though. I don't go through "Internet" withdrawal when I go on camping trips. I don't go through withdrawal when the power goes out. I think the notion of "Internet addiction" is ludicrous. If the Internet were suddenly gone I might be out of a job (or I might not, there are other uses for computers after all) and I'd lose a form of entertainment, but life goes on.

Both of my children are "video game nuts". They prefer playing video games over the "real thing". Thank God for that sometimes. My older kid (he'll be 21 next month) just loves to play those "first person shooters". Think of the horror if he preferred the "real thing".

They both become obsessed with their games. They'll play them for hours and occasionally become surly when they have to stop to perform their chores or go to work. When I was a teenager I was the same way, and video games hadn't been invented. It used to irritate the crap out of me when my mother called me inside to clean my room, or take out the trash.

I don't think this has or had anything to do with addiction. It was and is simply an aversion to work. It's not a new phenomenon. It can also be corrected without extensive psychotherapy sessions or behavior modifying drugs.

Not everyone is buying into this new malady, though. Some might compare it to a gambling addiction, but others see this as a lightweight diagnosis, akin to a shopping addiction.

"I'm an addiction skeptic," said Steve Jones, a communications professor at the University of Illinois and a research fellow with the Pew Internet & American Life Project. "Just because any activity might interfere with other activities is not enough to call it an addiction."

There's plenty of motivation to call it an addiction though. If you're addicted, then you "can't help yourself". You have a sickness. Let the trend carry far enough, and if your "addiction" interferes with your work performance you may be able to make an "Americans with Disabilities Act" claim.

In his practice, Dr. Joseph Keeley, an Orlando pediatrician, says he has seen evidence of addiction.

"There are some kids who clearly act like they're addicted, and, when you take them off, they'll go through withdrawal. They'll get irritable and hard to live with," Keeley said.

There are some kids that are irritable and hard to live with without "video game addiction" and withdrawal. There's nothing new about that. For thousands of years the "older" generation has complained about the poor work ethic and sullenness of the "younger" generation. Video games are just one current manifestation of the problem.

The problem hit home when he drove his daughter to Northwestern University last fall.

There, a Northwestern dean told him that 3 percent to 4 percent of the freshmen boys move into the dormitory, get their high-speed Internet hooked up - and never go to class.

"Needless to say, that's troublesome," Keeley said.

Sure it's troublesome. When I went to college, video games were brand new. They were just starting to become popular. I remember playing pong at Michigan State University. It was the first video game I ever saw. By the time I left the school there were dozens of much more advanced games.

Those video games didn't keep me out of class though. What did that was alcohol and hedonism. I was free from the behavioral restraints that had been imposed on my by my parents, and I indulged myself to excess. It ended up costing me my scholarships and I returned home to Florida in disgrace. Only through the grace of God and with my parents help was I able to clean up my act and finish college and take up a responsible life.

If you asked a dean from Michigan State how many freshmen move into the dormitories, get involved in the party atmosphere and never go to class in 1977, I wonder what the percentages would have been? Probably somewhere around 3 to 4 percent. Addiction to the Internet wasn't the problem then. The problem was a lack of personal responsibility.

Jones, the University of Illinois professor who has studied college students' use of video games, said American society overreacts to new technology - particularly when it involves children.

He said it started back in the 1920s, when there was hand-wringing about how movies were causing children to spend too much time inside.

"Fast forward, we started to hear the same thing about TV, then about comic books, the same thing about rock 'n' roll, the same thing about rap music and the same thing about the Internet," Jones said. "It's just a pattern."

So why is it that we have to find new disorders to describe every self-destructive or anti-social behavior in the world today? Could it be that the secularization of our society has left us without a moral compass? Could it be that the notion of personal responsibility and consequences is just too much to take for a few generations that have been raised with a silver spoon in their mouths?

If we're all addicted to this or that … If we all suffer from some form of mental disorder … why then none of us can be responsible for our own acts. If none of us can be held responsible for our acts then how can we hold any behavior to be criminal? The murderer must have been forced to do it by a mental disorder — we can't punish him for that. The thief had a psychological disorder — he couldn't help stealing your wallet — shame on you for wanting it back.

Today, many behaviors that were once deemed deviant or morally perverse are considered normal. We are told that homosexuality is normal. We are told that there's a genetic predisposition to homosexuality, that people cannot choose whether to be homosexual or heterosexual. There have even been recent studies that purport to show that society's repression of homosexual behavior may be responsible for the continued existence of a "gay gene" or set of genes.

None of this changes the fact that to engage is homosexual behavior is still a personal choice. Yes, it's true that some are forced into homosexuality by the predations of others, but for most it's a personal choice. Society once deemed this behavior to be deviant. Most religions still do. Today though, we consider it normal, because the homosexual is trapped by genetics. Personal responsibility is gone.

Our society has gone so far that to even say what I just did is considered to be morally suspect. Why, even by bringing it up I must be a homophobe and in need of sensitivity training. I think that's hogwash. I don't believe that homosexual behavior is the result of anything other than personal choices.

I know many people that are openly homosexual. Every one of them has made a personal choice to follow that lifestyle. I know better than to hold that choice against them. Whether I agree with those choices or not isn't the issue. Most of them are otherwise fine people that I am happy to know. The issue is that it's a personal choice, and that there are people that prefer to find a genetic cause rather than admit to personal responsibility.

Sexual predators use their so-called addiction to pornography as an excuse for their behavior. It's used to deny responsibility in court for their criminal behavior. They don't take any responsibility for the choices they made when they chose to seek out pornography in the first place. They don't take any responsibility for their crimes against others.

Today there are a great many people that are "addicted" to pornography. Is it really an addiction though? For that matter, is it even anything new? "Erotic art" has been around for as long as humanity has been capable of art. "Sex sells" is used as an excuse for pushing more and more unquestionably titillating material into prime-time.

Programming executives and marketing say that they're only catering to society's demands. But did society demand this degradation of our values, or did the programming planners help to accelerate it? Where is their responsibility for being the purveyors of this "addictive" content?

When personal responsibility is finally eradicated from our society our liberty will become license and our laws will become meaningless. If you recall anything at all about our history, you can see this trend continuing in our country since it's beginnings. This isn't a flaw in our government, it's a flaw in individual people.

Without personal responsibility our civilization will eventually fall, just as Rome fell. It will fall, eaten from within by the hedonists and the secularists that believe there is no true morality, and no personal responsibility. It will fall as our culture commits suicide, while the moral relativists cozy up to people who despise our hedonism and sloth.

Today Western Civilization is in a global war against terrorism. The terrorists we are most familiar with are motivated by (among other things) a hatred of the decadence of the West.

They despise our Republican form of government. They despise Democracy. They despise religious freedom. They despise our licentious culture. They despise our immorality. They despise our lack of resolve. The incredible irony of it all is that when our country is finally overrun by the Jihadis the "multi-cultural" relativists who are embracing them will be the first to taste the lash of Sharia Law.

If anything can destroy our civilization it's the trend within our society to abandon principles such as personal responsibility. The more we seek to blame outside influences for our behaviors and personal choices the more we buy into the "victim" mentality. If we're all victims, dependent upon our government to support us then how can we ever stand for anything?

And if we don't stand we will surely fall. 

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