A Dispatch on the Collapse of Everything

It’s reported to me, with great urgency and several capital letters, that we are witnessing the death of accountability in real time. It is alarming news, though I must say death has been quite busy lately and may need to schedule it like the rest of us.

The complaint runs thus: nobody is responsible anymore, standards have fled the building, and the world is soft encouragement and low expectations. Schools have mistaken participation for excellence, which is a clever trick if one can teach a mule to graduate.

Parents are also said to have taken up arms, not against ignorance, but against anyone who suggests an improvement. It is a modern innovation: defending the flaw instead of fixing it, like applauding a leaking roof for its commitment to hydration.

And there is, of course, the familiar warning that lowering the bar only guarantees more tripping. It is true enough, though I have observed that raising the bar only guarantees more arguments about whether bars are outdated and oppressive.

These concerns conclude that responsibility is not a burden but a requirement, and character matters, which is a statement carved into stone tablets, church doors, courthouse walls, and probably one refrigerator magnet.

Now, I do not dispute any of it.

But I have lived long enough to notice something unfortunate about humankind. Each generation believes it invented decline, and every generation is shocked to discover it has simply inherited the same old human beings wearing slightly different shoes.

So we stand again at the edge of civilization, pointing at the ground and announcing it is lower than before, while the ground quietly remains exactly where it has always been. And somewhere, no doubt, accountability is still alive, avoiding society for its own well-being.