There is a feedback loop. 200 years ago there was no state school to teach the virtues of the state. 100 and even 60 years ago the state school system was no where as developed as it is today.

Combine state school with the modern circus that is mass media and with a system that promises something for everyone, and there you go. This is probably a gross simplification, but I think largely true.

Right—that’s essentially my point, although I took longer to get to it than you did here. It is state meddling that has brought about the infantilizing of this country’s inhabitants to a large degree. In my infrequent forays into history, it appears that every time a step was taken, a number of people cautioned that the proposal (welfare, social security, unemployment, etc.) would have unwanted effects; they were shown to be right, but by that time it was “too late” to do away with the program. And subsequent generations largely never knew of the opposition; and being raised with the programs from day one, too often don’t question their existence or dubious benefit.

People have always wanted to hand responsibility off to someone else and have always wanted something for nothing.

Maybe some people always want to duck responsibility, and maybe some people always want a free ride—and it is highly probable that if we were to sketch the groups in a Venn diagram, there’d be a lot of overlap. But I do not think either condition applies to all individuals, not even some of the time. I’m no paragon of virtue, but I remember feeling a burning shame when someone else was wrongly accused of something I’d done, even as a teen; I think that was equally due to my family situation and my personality. And it used to really grate on me that I could never really know if I got a job based solely on merit, or whether part of the reason I was hired was to help fill a “minority” column.

It also seems to me that children actively seek ways to test their abilities, which of necessity includes taking responsibility for what they do. Ducking responsibility—out of fear of punishment or whatever other reason—if it is permitted by the parents or other caretakers, is a learned response, not a natural one. And some adults show that they grok this, even as they engage in the dodge themselves.

But then, I am an idealist and I seem congenitally unable to do elsewise than see individuals as they could be, rather than as we really are. I would much rather try to live up to our potential and fail, than succeed at middling around (or worse).