In his novel The Gilded Age, Mark Twain describes a deadly steamship accident in which an investigator concluded, "Nobody to blame." As one modern commentator noted, the statement reflected a 19th century legal doctrine (the assumption of risk) that refused to reward people who acted carelessly.
That was then, this is now. These days, everyone has a scapegoat--and, it seems, a lawyer to help them profit from their mistakes. Finger-pointing is a national pastime, as it was long before we started coducting this exercise 12 years ago. And yet we have not lost hope. Occasionally we hear about stand-up individuals such as Ronnie Steine, vice mayor of Nashville, who owned up to stealing a $7.50 pack of trading cards. "I did something wrong," he told reporters. "It was a mistake. I'm not a kleptomaniac. I'm an idiot." Or Tom Regan, the Atlanta television newscaster who muttered "a horrible obscenity" into a live microphone while a taped segment aired during the evening news. "My comment was incredibly stupid, and I make no excuses for it." But such admissions are rare. James Watson, one of the scientists who helped discover the structure of DNA, says advancements in gene therapy could someday eliminate stupid people. But that's not necessarily a good thing. Who would we have to write about?
