sophiaserpentia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophiaserpentia) wrote2006-02-02 03:38 pm
sophiaserpentia) wrote2006-02-02 03:38 pm
social accountability vs. privilege-entitlement
To what extent are we accountable to society for our decisions and actions? This is a question i've been wrestling with.
At the outset, i'm inclined to say we are not accountable at all. At heart i am an individual with free will, and not only is it my right but it is my duty to act in accord with my will.
Well, save that i shouldn't hurt anybody or steal from them and stuff like that.
However, accepting that kind of ethics means that to some extent i *do* feel accountable to society.
Suppose then i accept the bounds of not doing unto someone what i don't want done to me. (And i don't want to hear the 'what if you're a masochist' canard, because as a masochist i do not want to be hurt or harmed nonconsentually, and that is exactly how i plan to treat others.) Is that good enough? Can i do whatever i want, so long as i'm not harming anybody?
Well, the first difficulty there is what constitutes harm. Suppose i never harm a hair on anyone's head, but i am a slumlord and operate a sweatshop. Suppose i never harm a hair on anyone's head, and do not employ anyone exploitatively, but i *do* buy things which were made in a sweatshop. Where does accountability stop? Does it stop with knowledge and awareness?
But that is not the real difficulty. The problem i'm really wrestling with comes from the idea of entitlement.
Suppose someone offers me something, time, money, a gift, a favor, whatever. The offer comes at some expense to themself. Am i obligated to consider the cost to them before i accept the gift? Before you answer, factor in the reality that an offer may not be made as freely as it seems to be.
My first thoughts about this stem from the discussions we had last month about Silverstein's book The Giving Tree. I tried to imagine how we could express that the boy was acting unethically in accepting the tree's later offers, the offers that led to the tree's own diminishment. The answer i came up with reinforced the utilitarian ethic i've been playing with: the maximization of personal empowerment.
The way it cashes out, this ethic would require us to consider what the costs are of taking anything that we feel free to take.
It is an ethical restriction that many people will find naturally revolting. It flies directly in the face of the American way, which is to assume that any profit we can imagine is ours for the taking, that any frontier we want to cross is ours for the crossing, that any countryside we want to drive our SUV through is ours for the driving through.
It flies directly in the face of capitalist and libertarian ways of thinking.
It flies directly in the face of male privilege, too. What i have found is that many men accept the benefits of women's collective sacrifices without even being aware that the sacrifices are made. Then they wonder why women become so resentful of them. If however every man had to consider the cost to a woman in his life of the chores she does for him, for example, we come a step closer to breaking the cycles of male privilege.
It requires us to accept a burden that many of us have been trained to avoid taking, and yet, unless we take it on, we continue to benefit from awareness-censored layers of privilege.
At the outset, i'm inclined to say we are not accountable at all. At heart i am an individual with free will, and not only is it my right but it is my duty to act in accord with my will.
Well, save that i shouldn't hurt anybody or steal from them and stuff like that.
However, accepting that kind of ethics means that to some extent i *do* feel accountable to society.
Suppose then i accept the bounds of not doing unto someone what i don't want done to me. (And i don't want to hear the 'what if you're a masochist' canard, because as a masochist i do not want to be hurt or harmed nonconsentually, and that is exactly how i plan to treat others.) Is that good enough? Can i do whatever i want, so long as i'm not harming anybody?
Well, the first difficulty there is what constitutes harm. Suppose i never harm a hair on anyone's head, but i am a slumlord and operate a sweatshop. Suppose i never harm a hair on anyone's head, and do not employ anyone exploitatively, but i *do* buy things which were made in a sweatshop. Where does accountability stop? Does it stop with knowledge and awareness?
But that is not the real difficulty. The problem i'm really wrestling with comes from the idea of entitlement.
Suppose someone offers me something, time, money, a gift, a favor, whatever. The offer comes at some expense to themself. Am i obligated to consider the cost to them before i accept the gift? Before you answer, factor in the reality that an offer may not be made as freely as it seems to be.
My first thoughts about this stem from the discussions we had last month about Silverstein's book The Giving Tree. I tried to imagine how we could express that the boy was acting unethically in accepting the tree's later offers, the offers that led to the tree's own diminishment. The answer i came up with reinforced the utilitarian ethic i've been playing with: the maximization of personal empowerment.
The way it cashes out, this ethic would require us to consider what the costs are of taking anything that we feel free to take.
It is an ethical restriction that many people will find naturally revolting. It flies directly in the face of the American way, which is to assume that any profit we can imagine is ours for the taking, that any frontier we want to cross is ours for the crossing, that any countryside we want to drive our SUV through is ours for the driving through.
It flies directly in the face of capitalist and libertarian ways of thinking.
It flies directly in the face of male privilege, too. What i have found is that many men accept the benefits of women's collective sacrifices without even being aware that the sacrifices are made. Then they wonder why women become so resentful of them. If however every man had to consider the cost to a woman in his life of the chores she does for him, for example, we come a step closer to breaking the cycles of male privilege.
It requires us to accept a burden that many of us have been trained to avoid taking, and yet, unless we take it on, we continue to benefit from awareness-censored layers of privilege.