If you murder a human, should you go to prison?
If you steal an item, should you pay for its value?
If you scam hundreds of people out of their homes, should you lose your job?
If you lie to a nation about your intentions, should you be held accountable?
Apparently not.
Our society, and by extension, our nation has been attempting to remove all our responsibilities. Soon we will be able to do whatever we want, with no consequences whatsoever. Soon we will be able to kill, pillage, rape, plunder, lie, cheat, and so on, and it wont even be our fault.
The newest fad in "it's not my fault" is the mean gene.
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/18/are-mean-people-born-that-way/?hpt=hp_t3
Apparently scientists are performing experiements to see if there is a gene that is directly correlated to being mean, as opposed to being nice. I don't have a problem with the experiements or the desire to fully understand the human body. "The more knowledge we have as a species, the better!" I say.
No the problem I have is the approach that the article takes. It starts off with the title "Are mean people born that way?" Implying that such a thing would be uncontrollable, like hair color, eye color, skin color, height, breast/penis size, etc. That mean people can not control whether they are mean or not. And then it ends with "So it's probably a little too early for mean people to start using their DNA as a convenient excuse for their bad behavior. But maybe someday..."
WHAT THE FUCK?!
When is it ever o.k. to not control your behavior. We spend the first 20 years of our life LEARNING to control our behavior...and then what? we just stop? After that we can just blame it on the genes?
Let me be clear: Our choices, our actions are always controllable by us. I'm not saying it's always easy, I'm not saying that it's always clear. I'm simply saying that if you are mean to other people, then you should be held accountable for your actions.
What does it mean to "blame your genes" or "excuse your bad behavior"? To me it implies an inability to deviate from one's genetical predispositions. And while you might be able to justify such things in low cognitive creatures, I believe that homo sapiens have reached a cognitive level that allows us to control and alter our behavior, despite our predispositions.
This isn't the first time science/society/government have tried to eliminate our responsibilities for our actions (remember 'fat people have a virus'?), and it wont be the last.
But hopefully that'll just mean that some douche-bag will stupidily push the button and we'll all be dead, cause after all, it wont be his fault! He was just born that way.
