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Penelope_Tree
Shamanic Panic



Registered: 07/31/09
Posts: 8,535
Loc: magic sugarcastle
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Accountability
#18770168 - 08/28/13 07:48 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Just some tenants off the top of my head:
Do What Thou Wilt
The Middle Path
Awareness and Compassion for All Beings
Laws governing Social Order
The Golden Rule
I know this is a broad topic, but I guess I'm interested in the different manifestations of accountability. Not so much being held accountable (like "bad karma," or "going to Hell," etc), but how the conceptualization informs the group.
Are we accountable for others' actions? If so, to what extent?
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full blown human
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LunarEclipse
Enlil's Official Story


Registered: 10/31/04
Posts: 21,407
Loc: Building 7
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I think it was a mistake to let these guys sing this.
Someone is going to pay.
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Do What Thou Wilt
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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lolwut
bad motherfucker


Registered: 08/14/10
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Last seen: 2 years, 8 months
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Heard this song for the first time in a while the other day and it's pretty soundsgoodman
-------------------- Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth, and taste...
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Tropism
ChasingTail


Registered: 09/12/09
Posts: 2,039
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Are we accountable for others' actions? If so, to what extent?
If you can be accountable for others' actions then it leads to assume you can be found unaccountable to some degree of your own actions. In which case the question here is really are we entirely accountable for our own actions? If so, to what extent?
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Penelope_Tree
Shamanic Panic



Registered: 07/31/09
Posts: 8,535
Loc: magic sugarcastle
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Re: Accountability [Re: Tropism]
#18773593 - 08/29/13 03:17 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Tropism said: If you can be accountable for others' actions then it leads to assume you can be found unaccountable to some degree of your own actions. In which case the question here is really are we entirely accountable for our own actions? If so, to what extent?
Nice response!!! I seem to think that up to a certain point, we are not - and it varies on a case by case basis, of course, with things like genetics and environmental factors playing a role.. For instance, I think it would be insane to say that a child of a certain age is responsible for her own actions... in fact, it seems that a certain level of emotional and intellectual development must be met before an individual can be held accountable for himself and that perhaps some experiences (or lack thereof) deprive the individual of said development.
However, I do think that it is a normal stage of development to reach a sense of agency, and that is when an individual can be held accountable. Just like the time it takes to develop the sense of agency may vary, though, I also think the degree to which it fully forms is also contingent on experience and environment.
So, in a sense, we have an obligation to hold our neighbors accountable for their actions just as we do for ourselves.
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full blown human
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Tropism
ChasingTail


Registered: 09/12/09
Posts: 2,039
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So, in a sense, we have an obligation to hold our neighbors accountable for their actions just as we do for ourselves.
This seems like a side-step to me, personally. Either we are entirely accountable for own actions and ours alone, or no one is truly accountable for their actions -all actions are a product of internal and external forces leaving accountability a human construct and nothing else.
The example that jumps to mind is of course an accident (severe or otherwise) wherein one is regretful of their actions, having not foreseen the consequences, and holds themselves fully accountable. ]i.e. accidentally shooting someone on a hunting expedition and suffer the consequences without resistance.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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So, in a sense, we have an obligation to hold our neighbors accountable for their actions just as we do for ourselves.
I pronounce everyone guilty as charged. On penalty of death and also the penalty of being laughed out of existence will not be excluded.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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viktor
psychotechnician



Registered: 11/03/10
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I wish we could laugh things out of existence. But maybe we can...
-------------------- "They consider me insane but I know that I am a hero living under the eyes of the gods."
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Penelope_Tree
Shamanic Panic



Registered: 07/31/09
Posts: 8,535
Loc: magic sugarcastle
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Quote:
Tropism said: So, in a sense, we have an obligation to hold our neighbors accountable for their actions just as we do for ourselves.
This seems like a side-step to me, personally. Either we are entirely accountable for own actions and ours alone, or no one is truly accountable for their actions -all actions are a product of internal and external forces, leaving accountability a human construct and nothing else.
Nah. That seems dismissive of the fact that we are part of the system. I mean, shit still happens and I don't think we may ever be entirely in full control (as your example shows), but to a certain extent we are accountable for ourselves and others. No man is an island.
Quote:
viktor said: I wish we could laugh things out of existence. But maybe we can...
I am trying harder to laugh at things more, most especially in conversation with people.. I think it helps to keep my ego from digging in its claws. It must be like a laughter meditation for me, though, because I am just forcing it for politeness' sake sometimes. 
Quote:
Icelander said: So, in a sense, we have an obligation to hold our neighbors accountable for their actions just as we do for ourselves.
I pronounce everyone guilty as charged. On penalty of death and also the penalty of being laughed out of existence will not be excluded. 
Don't we deserve to know what our charges are?!
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full blown human
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
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Loc: underbelly
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I think you can guess at the charges.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Tropism
ChasingTail


Registered: 09/12/09
Posts: 2,039
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Nah. That seems dismissive of the fact that we are part of the system. I mean, shit still happens and I don't think we may ever be entirely in full control (as your example shows), but to a certain extent we are accountable for ourselves and others. No man is an island.
Yeah I realize we're apart of a system, it was in one of the two options I gave you. If you want to write off accountability to being in the hands of outside influences what does the word even mean? What use does it have? I'm accountable, except for when I'm not? Do I simply pick and choose which actions I felt less in control of? It was my decision or it wasn't imo, having been influenced by an outside source does not negate that as everyone everywhere is influenced by outside sources. This much is assumed before applying accountability. Doesn't that make sense? Or maybe I'm just going crazy.
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Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
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Quote:
Penelope_Tree said:
Are we accountable for others' actions? If so, to what extent?
Do what thou wilt
Laws and morality are sandcastles
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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i think we are accountable for each others actions... and i also think accountability & responsibility go up with an individual's emotional maturity.
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
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Re: Accountability [Re: quinn]
#18794929 - 09/03/13 03:46 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
quinn said: i think we are accountable for each others actions... and i also think accountability and responsibility go up with an individual's emotional maturity.
Where and why does the arbitrary line appear?
I've never seen any evidence to suggest objective morality exists, or any sort of cosmic binding law. Frankly the belief in that concept suggests a very limited understanding of reality in my eyes
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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imo it appears through social interactions because of shared standards.
i would not say they are objective but relative from situation to situation, person to person, but are still real
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
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Re: Accountability [Re: quinn]
#18795112 - 09/03/13 04:20 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
quinn said: imo it appears through social interactions because of shared standards.
i would not say they are objective but relative from situation to situation, person to person, but are still real
Socially it exists, but that is subjective to our social system. I don't consider it anymore real than religion, people interact along certain conditions because of their religion but their religion is still a lie.
That's just my opinion
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DisoRDeR
motional



Registered: 08/29/02
Posts: 1,158
Loc: nonsensistan
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It doesn't make much sense to say we are responsible for another's actions unless the other's actions can be linked back as implications of our own. We all manifest progressively over the course of our maturation into creatures upon which personal responsibility is forced by our culture. In most places this means defining an age, somewhat arbitrarily but not without substantiation, beyond which there will be consequences for certain offenses against the culture and it's component people.
When one begins to recognize personal responsibility for their actions, they do so by acknowledging the implications of their actions upon their environment. The unveiling of causality extending from our actions will in some cases include an understanding of all people, oneself included, as a composite of impressions upon a mind due to circumstance.
With this unfolding understanding of our helpless entanglement, I think accountability for others' actions will naturally evolve in many cases. We have varying degrees of impact upon others depending on our relationship to them, their age, emotional state at the time of interaction, and other factors. But the entanglements of human minds is such that the actions of others which proceed from our own may not become apparent until sometime in the unpredictably distant future, if at all.
So, in the case those we have significant interactions with, and those we are responsible for such as children, a sense of interpersonal responsibility will naturally emerge. Some cultures have evolved to reflect this, as shame or commendation is brought upon a family or a community for the actions of one of it's members.
In the case of strangers, to accept responsibility for their actions is to shift somewhat away from identifying oneself as an absolute individual, and to recognize oneself as an emergent facet of culture alongside the other. With this perspective in mind and some understanding of the limitations of our will to bend our training to some proper course, feelings of responsibility for the other may emerge. The degree to which one feels responsibility will still scale somewhat to the level of shared culture for most people, such that the more drastically and further back in history your 'self' diverged from the other 'self' over there, the less likely you are to identify with it and feel responsible.
This is all changing a bit with modern communications, as our connectedness is changing from the tree structure which comes with physically local communication, to a web within which all nodes have the potential for direct connection. Still, the implications of many years of the tree persist, but I see them being slowly dissolved in the common web such that the broadly offensive behaviours cannot be concealed under cultural excuses.
Legally speaking, we can see the various governments of the world still struggling to find a balance between our social responsibility and individualism. Individual accountability is still necessary in the case of criminal offenses, but our social awareness has led to a general softening of consequences toward simply segregating the offenders and isolating the rest from their behaviour.
The tricky part is what we as a society do to dilute the 'tree' influences upon any individual and cultivate social mobility. Education, child protective services, health care, and other social programs force social responsibility upon sometimes unwilling participants. The democratic process of a good system of government can supposedly sustain a sliding window of acceptable taxation in which the redistribution of wealth reflects the will of a majority of people, or at least the will of the representatives they chose, without destabilizing the system by engendering mass revolt.
As individuals we are responsible for ourselves and somewhat so for those we interact with, cascading forward in time. But at each human node is the black box of the mind which we only marginally understand, and unless we can entirely map the inputs of our actions upon others to the outputs of their actions, then we can only shrug at the occasional appearance of monstrous humans, or work towards removing our ignorance of the mechanisms which create them.
So, wtf am I on about? It all boils down to do what thou wilt. The other tenants you've presented are emergent in a mind from that one, in my opinion, due to a confluence of (dare I say) positive forces upon the black (perhaps grey) box of human minds. This is reflected in the current state of varying degrees of partial social responsibility extending from the many branches of humanity's cultural trees, and in the face of resource, emotional, and intelligence limitations.
Yesterday I gave a beggar boy outside the bazaar a banana. Immediately afterwards three more kids swarmed me and I walked away eating my other banana. There is only so much that can be done at any moment, and we will all do as we've decided, been trained, or have the means to do.
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Quote:
Repertoire89 said: Socially it exists, but that is subjective to our social system. I don't consider it anymore real than religion, people interact along certain conditions because of their religion but their religion is still a lie.
That's just my opinion
i agree but being largely social animals it's hard to think of anything much realer..
i think it is harsh to state religion is a lie in the context you are discussing it, namely social organization. i dont think you can say there is a true or false way to socially organize people and it will always involve arbitrariness.
further to what i alluded to initially is the idea that as one matures emotionally you stop taking social rules at face value and begin to develop a morality which better aligns to yourself.
such a person must take on more responsibility in situations where others will simply conform.
and such a person can develop in any religion or society, as far as i can tell.
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Quote:
Icelander said: So, in a sense, we have an obligation to hold our neighbors accountable for their actions just as we do for ourselves.
I pronounce everyone guilty as charged. On penalty of death and also the penalty of being laughed out of existence will not be excluded. 

...
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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