The thing with assigning responsibility is that it does not ever solve anything.
Assigning it to individuals actually does prevent solving issues, since if you assign individual responsibility to a systemic problem, you get to - instead of looking for a root cause - say “people should just be better”. By attributing it to some individual moral quality, you get to avoid the hard questions - like “why is everyone stupid?” or “why is everyone immoral?”, and not realize the environment in which these people live foster the stupidity or immorality, and the only way to solve it would be education or higher standards for leaders.
I agree with everything you said, genuinely. Ignoring societal factors would be foolish and expecting personal responsibility to be the deciding factor is naive. All that said, to ignore it entirely leaves you with an incomplete view as well. People have the potential to be more than our nature and circumstances dictate us to be.
To address your point directly, I don’t expect anyone to do anything. I do though believe that personal responsibility is a core element of any non-autocratic political system. I will ask for it, because my fellow citizens belong to the same government I do and I have a vested interest in it working. I’ll also be doing what I can to improve those contextual circumstances we mentioned earlier. Expect, though? No, I really don’t.
I understand your point, but “a culture of personal responsibility” will still be a societal thing. On a moral level, you can of course assign blame to individual people, but that will not solve the problem, and my point is that a lot of people use personal responsibility to distance themselves from a problem and justify why they aren’t solving it.
What I mean is that it is beneficial to think of personal responsibility when you think of your personal responsibility. You see somebody stealing public funds? You go and be the whistleblower because you are responsible for making society a better, fairer place.
The problem is when people go and see a problem as someone else’s personal responsibility. Simple example, you see a guy throw away some trash on the sidewalk. If you think it’s their personal responsibility to keep our streets clean, and you justify not picking it up after them, the trash will still be there, as long as someone doesn’t pick it up.
The point is, it’s fine to think whatever, but thoughts in themselves won’t solve problems. Thoughts are secondary to actions, and whatever thoughts you have that motivate you making the world better are good, and whatever thoughts push you into apathy, or even stir you to actively make the world worse, are bad. The notion of personal responsibility can be both.
The thing with assigning responsibility is that it does not ever solve anything.
Assigning it to individuals actually does prevent solving issues, since if you assign individual responsibility to a systemic problem, you get to - instead of looking for a root cause - say “people should just be better”. By attributing it to some individual moral quality, you get to avoid the hard questions - like “why is everyone stupid?” or “why is everyone immoral?”, and not realize the environment in which these people live foster the stupidity or immorality, and the only way to solve it would be education or higher standards for leaders.
I agree with everything you said, genuinely. Ignoring societal factors would be foolish and expecting personal responsibility to be the deciding factor is naive. All that said, to ignore it entirely leaves you with an incomplete view as well. People have the potential to be more than our nature and circumstances dictate us to be.
To address your point directly, I don’t expect anyone to do anything. I do though believe that personal responsibility is a core element of any non-autocratic political system. I will ask for it, because my fellow citizens belong to the same government I do and I have a vested interest in it working. I’ll also be doing what I can to improve those contextual circumstances we mentioned earlier. Expect, though? No, I really don’t.
I understand your point, but “a culture of personal responsibility” will still be a societal thing. On a moral level, you can of course assign blame to individual people, but that will not solve the problem, and my point is that a lot of people use personal responsibility to distance themselves from a problem and justify why they aren’t solving it.
What I mean is that it is beneficial to think of personal responsibility when you think of your personal responsibility. You see somebody stealing public funds? You go and be the whistleblower because you are responsible for making society a better, fairer place.
The problem is when people go and see a problem as someone else’s personal responsibility. Simple example, you see a guy throw away some trash on the sidewalk. If you think it’s their personal responsibility to keep our streets clean, and you justify not picking it up after them, the trash will still be there, as long as someone doesn’t pick it up.
The point is, it’s fine to think whatever, but thoughts in themselves won’t solve problems. Thoughts are secondary to actions, and whatever thoughts you have that motivate you making the world better are good, and whatever thoughts push you into apathy, or even stir you to actively make the world worse, are bad. The notion of personal responsibility can be both.