Personal Responsibility Rant
I watched the premiere of "Wonderfalls" tonight, and it coalesced an idea I've had about the series dealing with being given assignments.
It probably wasn't the first, but "Early Edition" comes to mind as one of the earlier ones. And now we have "Tru Calling," "Joan of Arcadia," and "Wonderfalls." In each case, an outside entity(s) takes control of a person's life either through offering the opportunity to change things or from threats if the instructions aren't followed.
To me it's damn annoying because it's reflective of what I perceive as our current abandonment of the idea of personal responsibility. Your life sucks? Well, something/someone will come along and give you a purpose. You have no control over your own life; you have to obey orders from outside yourself. The essential implication is that there is some outside power that can at its whim interfere with your life. Shades of the Old Testament deity.
Yes, it's likely comforting to believe it's not our own fault, and there are those who will always find someone else to blame for every little thing, but whatever happened to taking responsibility for one's own life and actions? Seems like along with everything else in the overarching societal culture, we're heading even further down the Roman decadence path -- it's the gods' fault! I'm only a little guy! Not my fault!
Balderdash.
It probably wasn't the first, but "Early Edition" comes to mind as one of the earlier ones. And now we have "Tru Calling," "Joan of Arcadia," and "Wonderfalls." In each case, an outside entity(s) takes control of a person's life either through offering the opportunity to change things or from threats if the instructions aren't followed.
To me it's damn annoying because it's reflective of what I perceive as our current abandonment of the idea of personal responsibility. Your life sucks? Well, something/someone will come along and give you a purpose. You have no control over your own life; you have to obey orders from outside yourself. The essential implication is that there is some outside power that can at its whim interfere with your life. Shades of the Old Testament deity.
Yes, it's likely comforting to believe it's not our own fault, and there are those who will always find someone else to blame for every little thing, but whatever happened to taking responsibility for one's own life and actions? Seems like along with everything else in the overarching societal culture, we're heading even further down the Roman decadence path -- it's the gods' fault! I'm only a little guy! Not my fault!
Balderdash.