On the Nature of Responsibility

Well, how nice of you! You’re still reading my blog despite the recent lapse in posts... I can’t apologise enough for that, so thank you for the evident forgiveness.

Today’s post will be of a slightly different vein- more attempted philosophy rather than attempted current affairs analysis. Though I will use David Cameron’s political attitude as an example of an evil I hope to rid the world of (possibly), so it won’t be entirely politics-free.

The political attitude in question is Mr Cameron’s constant relaying of blame to the previous government. We’re all aware of it- whenever a decision he makes is unpopular, such as raising tuition fees, his got-to response is “well, the previous government messed up and left us their problems to clean up, so it’s their fault we’re taking this action!” This is generally considered to be irritating by the lefties of Britain, due to the unjust diverting of blame towards their preferred political party. However, said lefties have to admit that Labour were guilty of much the same during Tony Blair’s first few years in power- whenever he got criticised for a decision, he would say “well, it’s only because Thatcher and Major messed up so badly.”

So this shifting of responsibility is found across the political situation, as well as on a much smaller level. You hear it every day- “I didn’t make that mess, I’m not clearing it up!” “I didn’t want to take this course of action, I’m not going to help you deal with the consequences!” “I didn’t set that house of fire, I’m not putting it out!” (okay, the last one was a bit extreme.)

This raises a problem. Not only does this tactic of getting out of doing anything irritate people (generally something to avoid), it decreases the chances in any given situation of Things Getting Done. What if the person responsible for a problem is presently unable to sort it out/clean it up? Are you going to leave the mess/consequence as it lies until the culprit is available for duty? What benefit does that have? None, as far as I can see. Even if the culprit is available, there’s no reason not to help out- two people doing something leads to the something being done in a lot less time. Also, said culprit may be being stubborn, in which case it’s probably best just to sort it out now and reprimand them later. And what if there is no clear culprit? What if any number of people could be considered responsible? Rather than arguing about who has the pinnacle of responsibility, it would be so much more efficient if people just got on and sorted the consequences out.

For the sake of Things Getting Done, and the subsequent improvement of people’s lives, I think a new definition has to be applied to the concept of responsibility. For this, we must think of the most overly-quoted line in the Spiderman franchise- “with great power, comes great responsibility”. Now, as annoying as it is that people have clichéd this line, they wouldn’t have done so had it not made sense. And if we accept that the statement makes sense, we can expand it, to simply “with power, comes responsibility” or, for the mathematical among you, “power = responsibility”.
The point is, if you have the power to improve a situation, then you subsequently have the responsibility to use that power. This new attitude towards responsibility is vital, I think, to ensure people don’t wriggle out of doing things that really need doing. The attitude outlined at the start of my rambling, “if I haven’t caused something, I have no responsibility in improving it” is illogical and ineffective, and more often than not, leads to things that need to be done being left alone with horrible consequences.  

So, in a vague sort of conclusion, I challenge you. I challenge you to go forth from this blog and make something better that you didn’t cause. Clean something up that you didn’t spill, campaign for a change in law you didn’t pass, try to mend a heart you didn’t break. It can be a little thing or a big thing, it doesn’t matter. But find some way to utilise our refreshed attitude towards responsibility, and hopefully inspire other to do the same. In the words of Ghandi, “be the change you want to see in the world.”

The majority of this post, I confess, was very rambling and awkwardly-worded, which I think was down to my desire to get a blog post out quickly. I may go over and re-words bits of it at a later date.
And yes, I know I’m being over-dramatic, bringing Ghandi quotes and broken hearts into something that possibly seems inconsequential. I’m having an over-dramatic sort of day. But the point still stands!

Thanks for reading!

Democracy ≠ violence

I couldn’t decide whether to blog about the American midterm elections, or university fees. Then I saw this article, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11726822, and the decision was made.

Raising the cap for university fees is a bad idea on a number of levels. Obviously it’s bad for students- prospective and current undergraduate students may be forced financially to drop out of or not go to university, which will lead to a decrease in job prospects and quality of life. This also has the effect of increasing the rich-poor divide, as better-off students will find it much easier to study and get better-paid jobs, and not-as-well-off students will find it much harder to study at higher education, leading to not-as-well-paid jobs.
 It will also affect everyone else, too. A decrease in uni students means a decrease in professional workers (doctors, lawyers, teacher, etc), which means the services those professionals provide will be less abundant. As well as the obvious disadvantage, this also means the economy is eventually going to suffer- which right now is the last thing we want.

So the government’s cut on university funding is a bad thing. We get that.
But is starting fires and breaking windows really going to change anyone’s mind?

So, you’re marching to make a statement. Marching is good. I like marching. Marching, in its’ best form, is a way of peacefully objecting to the government’s actions, and it ensures said government can be held accountable by the public between elections.
But when it amounts to vandalising the Conservative and Lib Dem part headquarters, something’s gone wrong.

Firstly, this instantly creates the image of “sensible, coherent people making a decision” (the Coalition Government) being attacked by “incoherent, selfish thugs” (the students involved with the vandalism). There are sensible arguments against the cuts (more, I dare say, than sensible arguments for the cuts), but this image is going to induce the gut reaction in the floating/moderate public that the only people against the cuts are violent, unintelligent and have no reasonable objection to the cuts. Therefore, support for the student cause will go down.

The government must be seen to not be compromising with violent protests such as these- imagine if they decided to legalise gay marriage, then changed their mind because certain right-wingers lit fires outside registry  offices. If any MPs change their vote because of the protesters, they will forever be labelled as “cowardly”, and even “unworthy of office.”  It’s also a personal issue- you wouldn’t want to change your mind because someone threatened you with violence, as a matter of pride. So not only will the vandalism not convince anyone to vote against the cuts, it may even stop people amongst the Coalition voting that way who may have done so before.  

In conclusion, if you are going to object to the rise in fees, you have my full and enthusiastic support. But please, for the sake of everyone who stands against the cuts, prevent yourself from becoming violent during your objection.