What issues or aspects of life are largely one's personal responsibility to deal with?
Asked mainly because
Conservatives say that's one of the things they believe in
It often seems to be wrong or misused ("if everyone just used masks and stayed home the pandemic would have ended long ago") ("not using masks during a pandemic has consequences for other people and thus doesn't belong in personal freedom")
A definition for stuff that fits the question could be this:
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The credit or blame for consistently failing or succeding at it is largely on you
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While you can ask for advice to get better, you have to do it yourself
So the main examples that come to my mind are largely (well) personal:
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Being motivated and committed to work towards what you want
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Being hygienic
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Being good at socializing and figuring out what's your relationship with other people gonna be
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(although obviously, given socializing depends on other people, this is very dependent on them doing the same and accepting/recognizing you or your choices and so is more accurate on progressive or apolitical social environments)
Which is good but doesn't explain it being used as a political belief.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about personal responsibility, and have come to the conclusion that not everyone has the capacity to accept or even acknowledge that their actions/decisions are their responsibility. And even if they can, they often they do not have the means to do anything about it. I believe that at any given time, most people are doing the best they can with the tools, if any, they have available.
Unfortunately, I spent too much time in my adolescence in mental hospitals and behavior modification programs where I was forced to take personal responsibility - even for things that were outside of my control - in order to get "better" and secure my freedom. the lasting effect is that I put all my actions/decisions under a microscope, and honestly it's exhausting. Does taking so much personal responsibility make me a better person? Does it make me healthy, happy, or a productive member of society? Does it make me a better friend, parent, wife, or employee? I'd say the answer is sometimes yes, often times no.
Right now I'm really cold (54 degrees Fahrenheit inside). I'm too lazy to fire up the wood stove. So it's my fault that I am cold. But I also live with two other adults who never fire up the wood stove and they are cold too, so why is it my responsibility that I am cold? Can't it be their fault I'm cold? Why do I feel like it's my fault they are cold too? How did I end up being responsible?
I was severely damaged as a child. Who's responsibility is that? I used to spend a lot of energy blaming my family and other adults who participated. And then I focused in on my mom for not protecting me. Then as I came into adulthood I started taking more responsibility for my actions. My oldest son is a wreck and it's my fault because I didn't get my shit together in time. But I couldn't, it wasn't my fault, was it? I wanted to be different, but I didn't know how. Me knowing I was fucking up, did not allow me to be different, instead it made me hate myself, which didn't help my son or myself either. Who's responsibility is it? It's mine, it's my mother's, it's my grandparents - is it my son's too since he's now in his 30s?
What am I responsible for?
Nothing and everything.
I think "personal responsibility" is a reactionary frame that is an integral part of the dominant ideology reinforced by neoliberalism, a frame that, in my opinion, is often used to attack consumer protections, worker protections, etc.
Example: Whose responsibility is it to prevent deadly accidents?
It's clear in this example that "personal responsibility" isn't a sufficient frame for understanding the roles in society that exist to prevent deadly accidents.
Why bring up neoliberalism?
"Personal responsibility" can consistently be weaponized to wipe out costly protections for working folks. For example, why do older folks need Social Security if they were "Personally Responsible" and saved for retirement? Why provide any social safety-net, shouldn't folks be responsible for themselves?
If we abandon the frame of "personal responsibility", radical questions start to follow, questions that aren't all that different from the "automobile deaths" example, like:
The dishonest framing of "personal responsibility" is a necessary ideological component of neoliberalism, a component that is absolutely necessary for its continued existence.
Edit: Who's to whose, thanks!
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say 'responsibility' is a multilayered concept and that multiple agents can be responsible for any particular event or class of events, and to varying degrees, depending on the amount of detail or context available?
Let's take your auto accidents example. If you want to examine a single specific accident, there will be a chain of events which caused the accident and some of those events can be attributed to the (in)actions of specific people or organisations. Perhaps one driver was speeding, which caused another driver to swerve, and then they crashed. Or perhaps the road condition was very poor due to a spill from a truck, where something wasn't strapped down properly. Or maybe the road maintenance crew did an improper job, maybe because they were not given the correct equipment, or the equipment itself wasn't properly maintained.
You can also look at accidents on a specific stretch of road, or specific types of accidents, or specific causes of accidents, or you can just look at all road accidents in aggregate across an area. You may find that a vehicle manufacturer performed insufficient safety checks on a critical component, and as you examine in more detail more fine-grained responsibility may start to appear. If workers report concerns about the safety check protocol to managers who then make no changes, the managers are responsible -- maybe there is one manager in particular? Maybe there are a few negligent workers who don't follow the protocol properly. Maybe the workers would have reported a concern, but they all think the protocol is fine, so who is responsible for deciding that the existing protocol is sufficient, and should the workers have been trained up to be able to think more critically about the protocol, as well as just carry it out?
I agree that some political actors will abuse the concept of 'personal responsibility' in order to deflect discussions about structural problems or deflect criticism of specific actors or roles. But I do think 'responsibility' is a 'deep' relationship which is likely to create a big graph of actors and actions to explain the interacting chains of cause and effect which bring about a particular situation, no matter how simple the given scenario is. As @monarda points out, the actions of our parents and carers have a direct impact on our personalities later in life and affect our capacity for responsibility over our own immediate actions, so in a sense we are responsible for "everything and nothing" -- everything because all actions tie into a giant social web that affects everyone else, and nothing because our own actions are already influenced by that giant nebulous web without us having any option.
I think 'responsibility' is not useful as a concept for assigning blame for this reason, and I don't think 'blame' is a useful concept for justice anyway. Rather, we should strive to understand the web of cause-effect relationships so we can determine the most effective way to bring about a different, more desirable outcome. Going back to the road accidents example(s), rather than try to decide who was 'responsible' for an accident, we could look at what actions should have changed in order to prevent the outcome, ie 'cause' rather than 'responsibility'. If speeding causes accidents, how can we deter people from speeding? If faulty components cause accidents, how can we reduce failure rates? Answers to these questions can extend deeply through the cause-effect graph, and there will be tradeoffs in which solutions are easy to implement; which will work in the widest array of cases; how many links of cause-effect need to change to enact the solution; and so on.
Sure, maybe. I just don't find the framing of social issues as being matters of "responsibility" useful at all. Instead, I find it actively harmful.
I find "responsibility" in neoliberal societies serves a similar function to the concepts of "honor" or "propriety" in other systems that are more widely accepted to be exploitative. Sure, we could reinterpret responsibility, honor, and propriety in more progressive or revolutionary ways, but I just don't see the utility in that. I think it's far better to just drop that way of framing social issues entirely.
“Responsibility” is a word that’s often used in obscure ways and it can be unclear what it means, but I think it has something to do with the making and breaking of promises?
When someone takes responsibility for doing the dishes, that seems to be another way of saying that they promise to do the dishes. If they don’t do the dishes then they can be blamed for not doing what they promised. But the blame isn’t really the point of it, it’s the job that has to be done.
It seems like this is not always about voluntary promises, though? A boss or other authority figure like a parent can tell someone to do something and blame them if it isn’t done. There is something else going on here, a way of ordering work to be done, that is somehow accepted as legitimate. You can have a promise made for you and be blamed for breaking it.
I think that, sometimes, this promise is either implicit or entirely made up. Something goes wrong, people want a scapegoat, so they find someone who should have prevented it and imply they had a duty to prevent it.
This seems illegitimate if there was no real attempt to assign that job to that person or organization before things went wrong? To be a legitimate claim that someone did wrong, you need to show that there was a job that was left undone and they knew or should have known that it was their job.
But to get away from the blame game, we should look at how work gets assigned in advance. What jobs are there to do? Who is supposed to be doing them? Do they have what they need to do the job? Is someone watching to make sure nothing falls through the cracks?
I don't have a whole lot to add here, but a small spelling nit: I think it should be "Whose" not "Who's".
thanks!
For sure, one of the worst things about Americans (even otherwise "progressive" ones, it seems) is that passing by a homeless person down on their luck they will ask "what's wrong with him?" While most Europeans I know are more predisposed to ask "what's wrong with us"
Makes me thing about arrogance vs responsibility. No one else will do this job right, only I can do it; I don't need anyone else, so I'll be withdrawn and refuse to lean on others; I am the best, so I must rule and take charge.
Versus: everyone around me would benefit if I got this done; everyone around me would benefit if I was healthy and supporting of others; I'll serve instead of control.
I don't believe there are objective answers to this question. In practice, there are cases where if you don't do it, nobody will, and there are cases where who does the work is a matter of convention, and there are cases where it's a negotiation. You instead might ask what's considered to be a personal responsibility in a particular culture.
It might be worth pointing out that being entirely incapable of a thing beats any other argument about fairness. For anything you say should be a personal responsibility, there are people who cannot do it themselves and if someone else doesn't do it for them, it won't get done.
At the stage of adulthood, your life is ultimately your responsibility. By my definition, you can only really be responsible for things you can control, and the only things you can control are what you think, what you say, and what you do. Ideally, one should be taken care of and prepared for that responsibility before then by one's parents, and it's interesting to note that the concept of the in-between stage that we call adolescence is relatively new in human history.
Having said that, the adage of personal responsibility as it relates to US Conservativism is largely an attempt to ignore social responsibility, protect the status quo, and avoid the slippery slope of nuanced examination of complex, deep-rooted problems that have historical context. There are countless examples of their hypocrisy showing when put in situations where they are disadvantaged and they forego pulling themselves up by their bootstraps in favor of rationalizing taking the very 'handouts' they scorn, with astounding cognitive dissonance. But to be fair, that's human nature, it's not unique to them, and is probably an issue that has affected every civilized human society to varying degrees.
(I started writing but got sidetracked and realized I didn't feel comfortable posting my opinions on this subject here in their totality as its a lot of different topics in one. It contained a lot of different things and since I am kinda hammered I shorted it to this wall of text, sry)
In general I believe that you're responsible for yourself. The woodstove example that @monarda posted for example has a clear answer. Monarda is cold, they can either ask their partners or house mates to help, do it themselves, or not. If they freeze after that its totally and absolutely on them.
Mental health is a social issue but like many social issues the strength lies in communicating it. My husband doesn't know I feel rejected unless I tell him. When I tell him he can react to it, until I do he can't.
We're all handed shitty cards. This world is dark and brutal and life is grim, cruel and short. All we have as individuals are tiny sparks of brightness - we can't carry the world on our shoulders and sometimes the weight of just our own miseries are too fekking heavy for us. But we have one thing that separates us from all other species: communication.
The horrid part is that we are not allowed to talk about things that should be talked about. Mental health, sex, empathy and all the fleshy nasty bits of human reality. Any time someone says "Oh thats a topic for another time" what they are saying is that you're not allowed to talk about it and that you should, if you do, suffer alone. Screw those people.
Talking and communicating is the bridge that ties us together. That lets me feel reflected in you and vice versa. That combines the sparks we have to a bonfire to guide others towards us. And its not about "truth" or similar decorative moralistic fantasies, its about being there, listening, talking and communicating. I can lie to someones face to save them, or tell the truth to drown them. It all depends on my ability to empathize and see myself in them and change my communication to what is the best for that moment.
So for example explaining the sensation of agoraphobia to someone doesn't help. They don't understand because its my brain who doesn't work right. But explaining that I am scared and panicked due to it, if they are empathetic means they will try to help - changing their communications and actions to better fit me.
Our responsibility is trying to do the best we can for others, to listen to others, to communicate with others and see ourselves reflected in them and do the best we can for them based on that. If you and another is in a boat that sinks saving yourself means being alone with yourself, saving the other means dooming them to that same isolation - its only together you can truly call yourselves saved.
I'm gay that means I have had to listen to strange questions all my life. I can either pretend that this isn't my job, or accept that it is since I am human and slightly different than what is normal. By communicating ("no there isn't a man/woman in me and my husbands relationship" or "no I don't eat fesces, thats a totally different thing and not what it means to be gay" or "why doesn't my girlfriend want to go down on me? You're a cocksucker, can't you explain?" <--- actual questions) I let others reflect themselves in me, and me in them.
My responsibility isn't to teach them, but to be a part of them. They asking isn't a rejection of me, but the opposite - a wish to understand me. If responsibility is a task of one, carried out for the benefit of another - this would be a cruel logic that I should have to teach them. But if it is just communication, a bridge - it is bigger and more complex than that - its making us both human in each others eyes and a task handled by both.
That, our communication, our ability to tell others our frailties, our miseries, our faults, with good intent and hoping for the same back - seeing the human in them, and hoping they see the human in you, is at the end all we have.
So in short: responsibility as an adult is trying to make the best you can in an imperfect world with imperfect tools for it, communicate with others to seek help and see the human in them and they in you, to extend your responsibility to them as they do to you. To share the tools each of you have. And sometimes you have to go beyond that.
EDIT: A thread called "Faggots answer straight peoples questions" should be a thing on Tildes :D (seriously I have talked about anal sex with straight dudes too many times and it should be written down somewhere instead of having to be repeated (although in fairness I kind of enjoy the discussions because it amazes me that a straight man can ask that question in a world of toxic masculinity and in so doing breaking slightly kinda free from it which is cool - although I once had to explain how to do pegging right to a couple, that was even more interesting in that regard)
I think that this is a topic that to do with power. Responsibility is the wrong framework to answer the question. When conservatives speak about personal responsibility, what I hear is an argument that says that the locus of power to make changes exists almost entirely within each and every individual. It has a lot of overlaps with christian belief around personal salvation as well as ideologies of supremacy ("how do you resolve a situation where my power to make change clashes with your power to make change? Whoever is most powerful decides.")
I personally think this is a complete fantasy that falls apart into either incoherence or individualism-destroying totalitarianism under the lightest investigation of its boundaries. We are part of a society. It's something bigger than any one individual.
I'll also add that even the examples that you laid out are not true for many many people. Many elderly individuals must rely on others to keep themselves hygienic. Personal motivation is deeply connected to what's happening around you and what needs to be done. Being good at socializing requires someone other than you to help you see yourself and empathize with others.
The stuff I would say you are primarily responsible for are largely internal things:
I would also argue you have a right to conform to these conditions, but a caveat in which not everybody could, reasonably, and a duty on somebody else where if you can't do one of these yourself, it will ultimately become somebody else's responsibility to manage it for you. That said, some of these can be slacked on by a lazy individual: Not washing, punching people, doing belly flops of a hotel roof, but insofar as you decide to do these things, you're being irresponsible. If it arises from an incapability to make the right choice, somebody else would be responsible.
An issue I encounter: I have a tendency to behave asocially, or even antisocially, in certain situations, and am simply unable to communicate. Because I am otherwise mentally capable, I would say I have a responsibility to try to fix the problem, whatever reasonable approches that entails (therapy, talking to people I know, even warning the person I'm interacting with). If somebody has a severe anxiety condition, I'd contend they have a responsibility to stay away from triggers if they can avoid it, but also aren't responsible if one comes to them after taking reasonable precautions to avoid it.
A lot of conservative thought is framed around liberal philosophy, which is itself framed around arguments about the rights of the individual. The issue, however, is they only ever seem to have gotten the lessons about rights, and not the lessons about implications of rights. Every right is a claim, every claim has a duty (even if said duty can't be met) and every claim and or duty also has a responsibility. You have a right to walk around swinging your arms in a public space, but you have a duty (aka, responsibility) to avoid running into somebody else as you do so. You have a right to own guns (getting very American here, but stick with me), but you have a duty to ensure they are safely stored and maintained, and not used to cause harm. The moment these rights are regularly violated by others, we start seeing modifications to the laws surrounding them. People start running into each other swinging their arms? There'll be laws against that. People buy firearms for mass-shootings? You can't buy high-capacity magazines anymore, and guns useful for killing large swathes of people become outlawed. Total liberty is only for people capable of exercising it completely. The conservative mindset that pervades American conservative discourse, and the other countries it has infected, consistently ignores the fact that while people may tend to act in their own self-interest, they often do so without the philosophically required responsibility of considering the rights of the next person down the line, and the implications of the actions of people before them.
Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a foundation must-read when setting sails toward the distant archipelago of Free Will.
Of vital importance too is the concept of randomness as opposed to determinism and its variations like social determinism, genetic determinism or cognitive determinism to name but a few.
What happens when many determinisms interact with many randomnesses is the universe, of which we've just started exploring the outer shell aboard the vessel of systems dynamics.