whence personal responsibility?

[cellio]

A story in today's paper reported that in Richmond VA, in a city park with fenced areas for animals, the park-keepers killed two black bears because one of them bit a child and they had to find out if there was a threat of rabies. (The only test for rabies in an animal kills the animal.) These bears have been in that park for years, and when the news broke (days after the deed was done), people in the community were outraged.

The child, four years old and accompanied by his mother, bypassed one four-foot-high barrier and then put his hand through a larger chain-link fence. The article didn't say, but I assume there were plenty of "keep away from the bears" signs too, in case two fences didn't make that point. The child got bitten (not badly enough to require stitches). Mom couldn't identify the biting bear, so both of the bears in that pen were killed.

Rabies is an unpleasant disease, but it is treatable. The treatment is painful, but many people have to undergo it because they have no choice. Sometimes you do something stupid and have to suffer the consequences; sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time and, yet, you still have to suffer the consequences. Life isn't fair, and sometimes no one is at fault.

Accidents happen, and the kid here is not to blame. For all we know, neither is the mother -- there are conflicting reports about whether she helped him climb the first barrier or looked away for a moment and he did it on his own. But that doesn't matter (except for settling the tort); even if this was completely an accident, a fluke, people have to accept some personal responsibility. It appears that someone made a decision to test the bears instead of treating the kid just in case; I think that decision was wrong.

There was clearly no fault on the part of the park or the bears themselves, so the child's discomfort is not adequate reason for killing the bears. The child, and the mother, could have gotten a valuable lesson about personal responsibility here, but they didn't. It probably didn't even occur to the parents, because we increasingly live in a world where the meme is "protection over everything, and when that doesn't work find someone to take it out on". But that doesn't help kids grow up into responsible adults, and you can't child-proof (and idiot-proof) the world anyway.

We are becoming, and raising, a nation of spoiled brats, who think that if they're unhappy, there must be someone to punish -- as if that makes anything any better. Punishment should be reserved for willful acts (including negligence). When there is clearly no fault, we need to minimize the overall damage, not our personal damage.

By the way, the bears tested negative.

Comments

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

good point on the quarantine. I'm not sure why I didn't think of that.

I still stand by the fact that the medical professionals may have (and possibly with good reason) discouraged the family from beginning treatment without knowing for sure, since it WAS possible to determine the facts.

I'm not disagreeing that it's a tragedy and that people are stupid and coddled. However, if treatment had a strong possibility of being seriously detrimental to a 3 year old's long-term health, one can hardly punish the three year old who probably just isn't old enough to make judgment calls for his or herself. So yes, it's coddling, but punishing a 3 year old isn't really going to do anyone any good.

If the child had been older, I'd likely have been in full agreement with you.

But if it's the parents you think are being coddled, and the treatment would be painful and dangerous for a three year old, why punish the three year old?