vacuum
27th February 2013, 10:43 PM
Responsibility is the ability to respond to one's environment. It's the fundamental requirement for survival. If you can't respond you die.
As such, abdicating responsibility is equivalent to trusting someone else to ensure your survival. Sometimes this is required, for example, in society we have a group responsibility which causes us to organize and perform different functions. For example, for your body to function, each organ has a specific responsibility and relies on other organs to each perform their responsibilities. The result is a body which as a whole can adapt to it's environment, but any individual part can't do so in isolation.
Issues arise when all of the responsibility is concentrated to just a select group of people while others enjoy no responsibility. This is an unstable social situation. The group will not survive if it continues for too long.
Responding to one's environment means taking in all stimuli (information) and forming a rational response. Throughout much of history, this was a pretty simple task. Farms needed to be worked, children needed to be reared, and criminals needed to be dealt with. Survival was dependent on material needs, and it was obvious if someone was shirking their responsibility to provide for themselves and their family.
Today, in the 21st century, our environment has radically changed. We have big machines to grow our food, cheap products, and construction materials and tools to make cheap housing as well. The vast majority of the population doesn't need to struggle for basic needs. Our biggest problem is avoiding excessive consumption which creates artificial scarcity.
How do we then distribute responsibility evenly to ensure social stability and group survival? What does non-material-based responsibility even look like?
The answer is that today's environment is now primarily one of knowledge, information, and truth. It is now both the most dangerous and most beneficial substance. It is the basis of our technology to keep us fed, as well as ideologies which cause us to go to war. Instead of working the farm, the new form of responsibility is reading books, articles, papers, history, everything. Only a few of us are out there working the fields in the 21st century (reading/thinking), while the vast majority are letting others do that for them. It's just that we can't as easily see them sitting in the shade anymore.
In the 21st century, the new commodity is certainty. The masses are certain -- it's easy on the intellect, emotions, low stress, and irresponsible. Scientists, philosophers, rulers, and "conspiracy theorists" are bearing all the uncertainty. They are taking all the responsibility for discovering and vetting the truth, choosing the course for the future, and staying awake at night with neurons firing away, trying to solve the world's problems.
This is an unstable situation, because the masses are highly polarized and violent, for the certainty in their conflicting beliefs will only tear the world apart. In order for us to survive, the burden of uncertainty must not fall on the shoulders of the few, but rather be equally distributed among everyone. Everyone must come to their own conclusions about things. Everyone must think critically. Everyone must ask questions. Everyone will need to get to the point to where they admit that they truly don't know and must find the answers for themselves. No longer can we afford to simply let some "smarter person" make all our decisions for us. Everyone must be diligent in the search for truth. There are too many net consumers of certainty and too few net producers of certainty. (Net certainty is produced by trying to eradicate one's personal uncertainty.)
This is what personal responsibility looks like in the 21st century. We'll need to each start contributing if we wish to survive for another million years as we have in the past survived by physically hunting and farming.
As such, abdicating responsibility is equivalent to trusting someone else to ensure your survival. Sometimes this is required, for example, in society we have a group responsibility which causes us to organize and perform different functions. For example, for your body to function, each organ has a specific responsibility and relies on other organs to each perform their responsibilities. The result is a body which as a whole can adapt to it's environment, but any individual part can't do so in isolation.
Issues arise when all of the responsibility is concentrated to just a select group of people while others enjoy no responsibility. This is an unstable social situation. The group will not survive if it continues for too long.
Responding to one's environment means taking in all stimuli (information) and forming a rational response. Throughout much of history, this was a pretty simple task. Farms needed to be worked, children needed to be reared, and criminals needed to be dealt with. Survival was dependent on material needs, and it was obvious if someone was shirking their responsibility to provide for themselves and their family.
Today, in the 21st century, our environment has radically changed. We have big machines to grow our food, cheap products, and construction materials and tools to make cheap housing as well. The vast majority of the population doesn't need to struggle for basic needs. Our biggest problem is avoiding excessive consumption which creates artificial scarcity.
How do we then distribute responsibility evenly to ensure social stability and group survival? What does non-material-based responsibility even look like?
The answer is that today's environment is now primarily one of knowledge, information, and truth. It is now both the most dangerous and most beneficial substance. It is the basis of our technology to keep us fed, as well as ideologies which cause us to go to war. Instead of working the farm, the new form of responsibility is reading books, articles, papers, history, everything. Only a few of us are out there working the fields in the 21st century (reading/thinking), while the vast majority are letting others do that for them. It's just that we can't as easily see them sitting in the shade anymore.
In the 21st century, the new commodity is certainty. The masses are certain -- it's easy on the intellect, emotions, low stress, and irresponsible. Scientists, philosophers, rulers, and "conspiracy theorists" are bearing all the uncertainty. They are taking all the responsibility for discovering and vetting the truth, choosing the course for the future, and staying awake at night with neurons firing away, trying to solve the world's problems.
This is an unstable situation, because the masses are highly polarized and violent, for the certainty in their conflicting beliefs will only tear the world apart. In order for us to survive, the burden of uncertainty must not fall on the shoulders of the few, but rather be equally distributed among everyone. Everyone must come to their own conclusions about things. Everyone must think critically. Everyone must ask questions. Everyone will need to get to the point to where they admit that they truly don't know and must find the answers for themselves. No longer can we afford to simply let some "smarter person" make all our decisions for us. Everyone must be diligent in the search for truth. There are too many net consumers of certainty and too few net producers of certainty. (Net certainty is produced by trying to eradicate one's personal uncertainty.)
This is what personal responsibility looks like in the 21st century. We'll need to each start contributing if we wish to survive for another million years as we have in the past survived by physically hunting and farming.