Un-Teaching Personal Responsibility

I find this "personal responsibility" narrative interesting (and, full disclosure: also bullshit), since it reminds me of sports discussions--everyone has a strong opinions, they're nearly all un-falsifiable, and they almost always appeal to notions that no one disagrees with.

i.e., no one actually thinks that actions ought not have consequences. Arne Duncan et al weren't trying to 'un-teach discipline' or whatever, they were trying to address secondary problems around discipline.

I love Google's ngram viewer for context here. Use of the phrase "personal responsibility" _skyrocketed_ around the late 80s[1], more or less matching the rise of the right-wing "bootstraps" narrative.

During the period covered in the ngram viewer (late 80s to 2000), the number of people in American prisons more than doubled[2]. In fact, it continued to rise precipitously until--you guessed it--circa 2008, where it finally plateaued (after more than tripling since 1988).

So, I dunno, maybe this is my bleeding heart talking, but if "unteaching personal responsibility" means "putting fewer people in prison," sign me up for the next lesson.

1: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22personal+re...

2: https://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Tre...