“To accept that we are free implies accepting responsibility for what we do, and even for what we try to do, or for the unwanted consequences of some of our actions.”
In my opinion this is, if not the most, one of the most important ideas of this chapter, because I think our whole society is based in this principle; we are free to act, but we must take responsibility of whatever comes from those actions, this is how human societies function, or how they should function, because, and I think this is the cause of all our actual problems, not everyone takes responsibility of their actions.
It is so easy to accept credit of good actions, but as soon as something comes out wrong it seems that it is no one’s fault, no one did it, we just blame each other without accepting our mistakes and its consequences. We are used to complain about the world we live in, putting the blame on everyone but us, and doing nothing about it; we might say it is not our fault if the poles are melting down or whatever because we recycle and all that stuff good for the environment, but in a way it is our fault because we are not doing anything else to help the situation even though we can, we are free to act and do something else. We are responsible of what we do, but also of that we decide not to do.
In my opinion this is, if not the most, one of the most important ideas of this chapter, because I think our whole society is based in this principle; we are free to act, but we must take responsibility of whatever comes from those actions, this is how human societies function, or how they should function, because, and I think this is the cause of all our actual problems, not everyone takes responsibility of their actions.
It is so easy to accept credit of good actions, but as soon as something comes out wrong it seems that it is no one’s fault, no one did it, we just blame each other without accepting our mistakes and its consequences. We are used to complain about the world we live in, putting the blame on everyone but us, and doing nothing about it; we might say it is not our fault if the poles are melting down or whatever because we recycle and all that stuff good for the environment, but in a way it is our fault because we are not doing anything else to help the situation even though we can, we are free to act and do something else. We are responsible of what we do, but also of that we decide not to do.
I agree with you Mariana. I think people have a hard time accepting responsibilities when it comes to something that went wrong. People like to accept credit for the result of a good action, but in the other hand, people have a very hard time to accept guilt when something goes wrong. It is very important to take in count responsibility when we think about our freedom. It is a very important thing because a lot of problems like the economic meltdown origin because of the lack of responsibility in free choices.
ReplyDeleteWell I think it is logic that is someone is going to be recognized in an optimistic manner then he or she will automatically accept a responsibility which involves that, but also, responsibility comes when you think you are responsible or when other people judge your acts or lack of acts and decide what your responsibility should be, because there is not an absolute responsibility. I think responsibility varies from each level of consciousness and ethics, and that is why we have discomfort when other people are not able to please our concept of responsibility for what their actions should be, and so we identify that as a problem while for that person it could not be, yet I don't dismiss the idea that there are basic responsibilities everyone should follow if the Choose to Belong to a specific society.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Mariana, I think that you are correct comparing this quote to societies. Everyone is always whining about things, but the problem is that they instead of trying to fix that thing they keep whining and things stay equal. It’s true that if we make a good action, we say that we made it, but if we make a bad action we don’t take the responsibility of it.
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