by Dr. Robert Owens
Whose Responsibility is It?
God
makes all of us to be round pegs in round holes. In a free society if we end up
a round peg in a square hole…..that’s on us.
There
is no feeling worse than believing we have squandered our talents, wasted our
life, and made no difference in our short time upon the world stage. If we live
in a society that chooses what, where, and how we do things it is easy to feel
as if the opportunity to become who we were created to be was stolen. However
in a free society where we can choose for ourselves the responsibility for those
choices as well as the freedom belongs to us.
Freedom
does not merely mean that each individual bears the responsibility and the
burden of choosing their path. In a free society it also means that each
individual will also receive either the praise or the blame that results from
those choices. Freedom and responsibility cannot be separated if either is to
have a realistic bearing upon the individual. If you cannot choose you are not
responsible. If you can you are. A society cannot call itself free unless
individuals ultimately occupy the positions and bear the consequences resulting
from their own actions. For that society to remain stable the individuals need
to recognize that their positions and the concurrent consequences are the result
of their own choices and actions.
A
free society can only offer the opportunity to choose, and in a society of free
agents this can only provide the chance for success. The outcome always depends
on the accidental interactions between circumstances and others. Someone who
has taken their destiny into their own hands while cognoscente of what they
cannot control will concentrate their attention on what they can as if these are
the only aspects of the endeavor which matter. Circumstances and chance will
either be advantageous or limiting. Only the individual will know whether they
have made the most advantageous use of either their talents or their
circumstances therefore the responsibility for their actions resides with
them.
In
America today the knowledge of and the belief in this link between freedom and
responsibility has become as rare as the honest man Diogenes spent a life time
looking for. Today victimhood has been raised to an art form. It is inspired
and rewarded by a complex system of laws and social conventions that offers
praise for the helpless pawn and reviles the individual who succeeds. Driven by
the apathy and antagonism it elicits from those who accept the arguments that
“You can’t fight city hall” and “It wasn’t my fault” even the word
responsibility disappears from the vocabulary of motivation from the pulpit to
the hustings.
The
I’m OK you’re OK culture that accepts infanticide, suicide, and much else of
what was once known as vice as not only morally acceptable but as civil rights
flees from moralizing. This throw-away culture elects people of the lowest
morals and of the most glaring narcissism: media rock stars who rule instead of
lead and who trample upon the freedoms our forefathers fought and died for.
This is not only accepted it is voted for since if our leaders are morally
bankrupt it is all right for us to do whatever feels good. If our leaders are
attempting to weld the shackles of a totalitarian gulag in every sphere of life
we truly are deprived of choice and are mere victims.
If
you attempt to tell people that they are responsible for their choices and their
conditions it will often provoke outright hostility. These people have been
taught that society has made them what they are. It has determined their
position in life and it is nothing but external circumstances that decide
whether they succeed or fail. They have rejected all responsibility because
they fear it and in consequence they have rejected freedom.
In
a large part this is a development that is not purely either religious or
political in nature. The rise of science and of the attempt to apply it to our
understanding of humanity leads to several conclusions which are incompatible
with freedom.
The
first of these misapplied axioms is that everything is governed by iron-clad
laws. While this may apply to thermodynamics it does not relate in the same
fashion to free agents in a free society. Thoughts are infinite and new
thoughts can always inspire new choices. The second axiom erroneously used to
understand human action is the idea of universal determinism. The idea that all
things are the inevitable consequence of prior action directed by inherently
immutable outside forces precludes spontaneity and freedom of choice. In such a
system human will becomes an illusion and reality a maze with always only one
way out.
Of
course based on reality as experienced by everyone it has to be admitted that
except on rare occasions the outcomes of human action could not be predicted and
the results of particular circumstances interacting with particular individuals
could not be foreseen. However from genetics to economics from sociology to
politics the belief that everything is determined by laws eliminates the space
for a belief in freedom of the will and the responsibility which its operation
engenders.
Those
who accept the determinist position assert that it is genetics shaped by
education tempered by society that constructs and controls all of us. We are
all the product of both nature and nurture and we exist within a grid designed,
created, and controlled by society. Whatever we are and whatever we become it
isn’t our fault and it isn’t our choice or our effort. This position was summed
up brilliantly in the statement, “You didn’t build that.” If you accomplished
something you didn’t do it on your own just as if you fail it isn’t because of
you, you’re merely a victim and as such society owes you support.
Divorced
from morality and excluded from personal experience by education and an ever
more regimented society responsibility has become a legal concept. There are
intricate webs of laws used to determine liability in the case of negatives
while the “You didn’t build that” mentality erodes the concept of responsibility
for success. Once the link between choice and responsibility has been severed
one of the major motivators for excellence has been silenced. For the greatest
significance of this fundamental concept is that a feeling of responsibility for
one’s own choices is its role in guiding the decisions and actions for free
people.
If
nothing is ever your fault, if nothing is ever your achievement what does it
matter what you choose or what you do? If we are to be free we must bear the
responsibility of that freedom or else we will search our whole life to learn
whose responsibility is it.
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