Evil and Postmodernity

Postmodernism, in recognising that we are all deeply flawed, avoids any return to a classic doctrine of original sin by claiming that humans have no fixed 'identity' and hence no fixed responsibility. You can't escape evil within postmodernity, but you can't find anybody else to take the blame either.
We should not be surprised that one of the socio-cultural phenomena which characterize postmodernity is that of major disasters for which nobody takes the blame, such as when a horrific train crash is traced to faults in the line which were well-known and not repaired months in advance but for which no single company executive, nor even a board, can be held responsible.
Postmodernity encourages a cynical approach: nothing will get better and ther'es nothing you can do about it. Hardly surprisingly, this has produced a steady rise in the suicide rate, not least among young people who (one might have thought) had so much to look forward to, but who had imbibed postmodernity through every pore. not that this is new. Epictetus, that hard-bitten first-century philosopher, would have understood, even though he would have scoffed at the intellectual posturing underneath it all.

N T Wright, page 33 of Evil and the Justice of God (hardcover edition, IVP 2006).

Curiously, in the last year Dunedin has experienced a similar public example of no one wanting to take the blame. The metal flaps on a goods train container passing under the Railway Station's overbridge hit the bridge and took out the central section of it, nearly killing a person who was on the bridge at the time. Even though, Toll Holdings Ltd admitted its error at the time, for months afterwards no one would take responsibility for paying for the bridge to be restored.