Sunday, August 13, 2023

Responsibility Hypocrisy 101

 Notes on a common dynamic I see...

Person A harms Person B. Person A says "hey person B, it's your responsibility to manage your reactions!"

Person B harms Person A: Person A says "hey person B, you have a responsibility for how your actions impact others!"

So which is it? Two directly opposing accountability systems being employed, leaving Person A never at fault and Person B always at fault.

What's a better way. I don't know what exactly we owe each other and that's a complex question humans have been trying to answer for over 4,000 years. I do think we can work from the edges (fix the worst systems), and the form of hypocrisy above is something I see employed almost everywhere. Complete shielding of "never my fault, always something or someone else's".

A related variant is the arrogance of "I take on only the fault I decide, using my value system alone and no-one else's". Why their value system alone? Why is their's automatically correct? Doesn't seem like a very just form of conflict resolution. And the common straw-man reply of "so I have no say at all, is that what you're asking of me" is not what's being said here either.

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Photo by GDM on Unsplash

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