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The concept of accountability needs to change

BurnedOut

Your friendly neighborhood asshole
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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.

  1. 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.
  2. 'thing' is the repeated suffix. Perhaps the tendency to instantly abstract the implications of our actions is the immediate reaction to a mass blame.
  3. 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]
 

Black Rose

An unbreakable bond
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If everyone is pointing the finger at you you feel small. The mob is against you.

 

Cognisant

cackling in the trenches
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In theory design via a committee should result in designs that are better (or at least better vetted) than any one committee member could achieve on their own, by virtue of a pooling of experience, knowledge, wisdom and general good judgement.

In practice committees are fucking terrible. Everyone has their own idea of what the design should be, nobody's willing to change their mind and in the end the committee will agree on the average of what every committee member hates the least.
committee.gif


A lynch mob is justice by committee with the added detriment that the committee members are all volunteers, the larger the mob is the more power it has, and the largest mobs are those with the lowest barriers to entry, thus in mob rule the highest "moral" authority goes to the lowest common denominator.
 

scorpiomover

The little professor
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Rights are things we are entitled to, like having the right to use the things you own, or having the right to go on the dodgems because you bought a ticket.

Responsibility means the person who has to do whatever someone else is entitled to, e.g. the the person who runs the dodgems.

Wherever you have a right, something you are entitled to, you have to have someone whose responsibility is to fulfil those those rights, who will make sure that you get those rights fulfilled because it is his job. Without that person, there's no-one to make sure that you get your rights fulfilled.

There are no rights that are enforced and fulfilled without someone to enforce and fulfil their corresponding responsibilities.

Today, people focus on demanding their rights.

Responsibilities are assumed.

So people are running around saying they should be entitled to A, B and C, but when it comes to whoever should actually do A, B, C, they say it's someone else's job.
 
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