The following quote typifies the thinking that's rampant across New Zealand's health and education sectors:
"The presentation of comparisons between different ethnic groups is not to provide commentary on the deficits of any particular ethnic group but rather to highlight the deficits of a society that creates, maintains and tolerates these differences."
It's never the fault of an individual that he or she is under-achieving or obese; absent from school or drug-addicted. It is society that has let them down.
This collectivisation cop-out has developed over many decades.
A close cousin - non-judgementalism - first started to grind my gears when, as a community volunteer, I was expected to embrace its inherent virtuosity. Yet we all make judgements constantly. From childhood we learn through the process of comparing and drawing conclusions. Perhaps if advised to 'not judge a book by its cover' I would accept that as a commonsense caution. But to suspend judgment totally is to deny one's intelligence and humanity. It negates our values. But non-judgementalism is rife in the social work sector.
James Payne, author of "Overcoming Welfare", wrote:
"Today's social workers have genuinely internalized a value-free approach. Instead of guiding clients away from foolish choices they set up systems that reinforce them."
Michael Bassett's recent piece highlighted a prime example of this in the DPB.
Another astute writer and observer of modern-day mangy thinking, Theodore Dalrymple, described how his prison hospital interns from third world countries would eventually come to the realisation that "a system of welfare that makes no moral judgements in allocating economic rewards promotes anti-social egotism. The spiritual impoverishment of the population seems to them worse than anything they have ever known in their own countries."
Denying the importance of morality is muddleheaded. The suspension of judgement prevents reasoning. (In any event to criticise someone for making a moral judgement is in and of itself a moral judgement.)
But if otherwise intelligent people are not allowed to look at a problem and at least consider personal responsibility as a factor then all they are left with is deterministic nonsense ie nobody has freewill or agency. They are mere victims of greater forces beyond their control.
Amongst the most evil of those 'greater forces' is the highly fashionable 'inequities'. On Monday a report was released about New Zealand's high rate of femicide. It contained the following statement:
"We identified inequities in the rates of family violence homicide for wāhine and kōtiro Māori compared with non-Māori women and girls between 2018 and 2022 (see ‘The inequitable impact of femicide on Māori’). Had these inequities not existed, there would be approximately 25 more wāhine and kōtiro Māori alive today."
It would be just as true to claim that had these inequities not existed there would be many more non-Maori females dead today. It's just silly guilt-tripping. But again blame is laid with the intangible culprit 'societal inequities' rather than actual perpetrators.
What is it that academics and public servants are afraid of? That the consequences of enforced personal responsibility would drive worse outcomes? It's hard to imagine.
Or that their livelihoods would be threatened by a functioning country inhabited by mainly well-educated, healthy, independent, free-thinking and productive individuals?
https://www.hqsc.govt.nz/assets/Our-work/Mortality-review-committee/FVDRC/Publications-resources/Femicide-Deaths-resulting-from-gender-based-violence-in-Aotearoa-New-Zealand.pdf
https://www.hqsc.govt.nz/assets/Our-work/Mortality-review-committee/PMMRC/Publications-resources/16thPMMRCReport_FINAL.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment