Enabling Entitlement: What Rob Ford and Jian Ghomeshi Have In Common

 

 

Both men have their supporters and detractors.  Both have their strengths and weaknesses.  Both have been accused of doing awful things, unlawful things and both have played the victim card in their defense.

 

Perhaps they're both vengeful, too.  It's not uncommon with successful people; they make their way up as much through cults of personality and fear as through actual talent.  Employment lines are bursting at the seams with talented people of less dynamic personality.

 

We could add Mike Duffy or Patrick Brazeau to the list; people accused of doing bad things who, it turns out, did so with the support and enablement of countless others who at the very least had an inkling as to the misdeeds or potential misdeeds of the people in the middle.

 

As the Ghomeshi story slowly turns from one strictly about him, his accusers and defining who's the victim, we're also seeing a growing interest in the culture around these people that allowed for these sad affairs to develop.

 

How is it we constantly end up in the same place?  How is it the Nigel Wrights and Michael Sonas of the world keep popping up?  Why do Chris Mazza-like stories keep emerging from the kept back-rooms of the nation?

 

It's not that difficult to understand, conceptually, but incredibly difficult to process.

 

The problem is us. 

 

We have a laissez-faire culture that encourages and rewards those who hustle, break boundaries and deliver results.  It's easier to just give them some resources and let them run than to be more proactive ourselves. 

 

It's far easier to be reactive to that which we don't like (crime and punishment) than it is to proactively work at delivering what we do like (committing sociology).

 

We have a laissez-faire society that rewards and enables the kinds of people who do things we don't like, but are willing to ignore so long as we can avoid responsibility.  It's easier that way.

 

We are enablers of entitlement.  And the entitled like it that way.  They will perhaps get mad at those who aren't hustlers, aren't catalysts, but at the same time they aren't interested in the competition. 

 

Consider the surface scratched, but we have a long, long way to go before we reach the bottom of the rabbit hole.