BurnedOut
Your friendly neighborhood asshole
Accountability is looked upon as a mode of justice. It has other important function too - enforcement of societal domination upon the individual. Insofar individual freedom is concerned, accountability is an important precept, however, the extent to which it is enforced seems to be a confusing thing with no boundaries in any kind of society. The whole notion and enforcement of accountability seems to be valid to each person, however, I contest that accountability is rather a really idealistic notion. When I say 'enforcement', I say it in a context which involves bypassing one's conscience and being truly utilitarian about one's actions. I believe that usually, this is the case.
A person gauges his/her accountability on the basis of societal pressure. If the pressure consists of a few individuals, nobody really has much of a problem truly consulting one's conscience to rectify the situation, however, contrary to what we believe, it seems like the acceptance of accountability runs inversely proportional to the amount of social pressure that surmounts over time. Accountability then is a matter of utility for the individual who seeks to choose the easiest way out of the situation with the belief that she's just a human being and she cannot be expected to bear the wrath of the entire society. We tend to really develop a strong resistance to the group enforcement of accountability that makes us less and less conscionable towards our actions. I find this very interesting.
Why don't we like being accountable to a whole mass of people? I mean truly accountable rather than running a veiled pity party in the form of apologies to the masses.
If we involve a political microview of this situation, 'power' may emerge as a strong alternatives to above options. However, to compare a single individual to a multitude is incorrect because from a political perspective, we provide the individual the same value as the multitude. We all know, this is untrue to rationally accept in reality despite the tangle of eventualities polity provides as justification though empirically sound.
So what may be the real answer to this question? Is it the feeling of supremacy or is the feeling of fear of loss of power or is it shame? This is the question that is not often asked while proposing various models of justice which continue to take a macroview of the situation without actually stating how despite all the authority wielded by people at various societal hierarchies still continue to perceive themselves and others as individuals when it comes to accountability and injustice. Raison d'etre is a failed technique of brainwashing people into forgetting the real culprit. It seems to work because people understand that state apparatus is capable of making them disappear if they work individually. However, when the masses feel that they can overpower the state, the state faces the brunt of the masses and not the other way round.
It is true that hero worshipping and bigotry exists but the former and the latter are meaningless without consistently inflicting rituals and panegyrics upon the inducted. Rather than citing the power of the 'leaders' to influence the masses, this is more evidence that accountability is more feared than readily obtained.
We need to accept that the conventional concept of accountability needs to change
[More coming soon]
A person gauges his/her accountability on the basis of societal pressure. If the pressure consists of a few individuals, nobody really has much of a problem truly consulting one's conscience to rectify the situation, however, contrary to what we believe, it seems like the acceptance of accountability runs inversely proportional to the amount of social pressure that surmounts over time. Accountability then is a matter of utility for the individual who seeks to choose the easiest way out of the situation with the belief that she's just a human being and she cannot be expected to bear the wrath of the entire society. We tend to really develop a strong resistance to the group enforcement of accountability that makes us less and less conscionable towards our actions. I find this very interesting.
Why don't we like being accountable to a whole mass of people? I mean truly accountable rather than running a veiled pity party in the form of apologies to the masses.
- Maybe because we believe that we are only accountable to the people we have directly hurt by our actions rather than other masses who jump on the bandwagon in the name of morality only. For example: Mass murderers of history don't think that they are liable to any kind of guilt because they were doing it against something or for something.
- 'thing' is the repeated suffix. Perhaps the tendency to instantly abstract the implications of our actions is the immediate reaction to a mass blame.
- Denial? But this implies hidden guilt. However, this guilt is hidden justifiably due to fear of loss of liberty caused by the enforced accountability.
If we involve a political microview of this situation, 'power' may emerge as a strong alternatives to above options. However, to compare a single individual to a multitude is incorrect because from a political perspective, we provide the individual the same value as the multitude. We all know, this is untrue to rationally accept in reality despite the tangle of eventualities polity provides as justification though empirically sound.
So what may be the real answer to this question? Is it the feeling of supremacy or is the feeling of fear of loss of power or is it shame? This is the question that is not often asked while proposing various models of justice which continue to take a macroview of the situation without actually stating how despite all the authority wielded by people at various societal hierarchies still continue to perceive themselves and others as individuals when it comes to accountability and injustice. Raison d'etre is a failed technique of brainwashing people into forgetting the real culprit. It seems to work because people understand that state apparatus is capable of making them disappear if they work individually. However, when the masses feel that they can overpower the state, the state faces the brunt of the masses and not the other way round.
It is true that hero worshipping and bigotry exists but the former and the latter are meaningless without consistently inflicting rituals and panegyrics upon the inducted. Rather than citing the power of the 'leaders' to influence the masses, this is more evidence that accountability is more feared than readily obtained.
We need to accept that the conventional concept of accountability needs to change
[More coming soon]