Judy,
When you use the term "responsibility" to whom is one responsible and according to which interpretations of ones actions and the consequences of those actions? The courts, for example, spend most of their time determining responsibility according to laws and procedures that most of us have no notion of.
As in Nate's example, were the indians who gave some settlers rights to use (since they had no concepts for absolute ownership) the island of Manhattan in exchange for beads, responsible for the fact that those settlers later massacred their relatives who felt they were excersing their rights?
Nothing that either Alfred, Diane or you have written so far shows me how you have anything but a very ideologically (ie, partial and determined unreflectively by prevailing power relations) bound notion when you talk about freedom. In particular, I'd like to know how you distinguish responsibillity from necessity and at what point anyone is responsible for the consequences of their actions; ie. how they could be responsible for consequences that were unforeseeable or even that they themselves could not see. What if someone said: "this will happen" but they had no reason to heed that persons advice. Are they responsible then? And with this, if we assume the abstract responsibility about which you all are talking, should we therefor not act since the consequences of our actions are always partially unforeseeable?
What if you don't get caught doing something whose consequences you yourself would not want to befall you yourself? To whom are you responsible then?
No, I really do think that this treatment of freedom and responsibility as flows from Alfreds first post is quite ideologically bound and no one here has yet examined its logical incosistency.
Also, no one has addressed the relation between freedom and power, implicit in what Nate has written, and about which I explicitly asked. Powers of gods?? What about powers of corporations and the Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad Supreme Court Decision of 1887 that gave personhood to corporations thereby making stockholders unanswerable for the consequences of what the corporations do.
But that was my first question: who are you saying one is responsible to? What is the relationship between freedom and power. And ultimately what is the evidence of freedom? Couldn't you just be deluded that you are choosing something freely, but in fact be totally determined in your actions? How would you possibly know the difference?
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Judy Diamondstone
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000 1:05 AM
Subject: Re: freedom & responsibility (2)
Diane asks:
>so, while i agree with you in terms of the how these are political
>activities (freedom-internalization-consciousness) in ways that make them
>kinda silly, like fictive idealisms,
>the idea of freedom and responsibility, and accountability, - something
>alfred also mentioned - suggest kinds of activity that respond to
>politics, rather than being manifestations of politics.
>does that make sense?
sure does. It seems that most postings converge on this point: that freedom (responsibility/accountability) isn't only an ideological effect but is integral (choice is integral) to symbol-using, and as symbol-users we'd do well to take responsibility for it, as Alfred said, so nicely -- we should hold ourselves accountable:
>>>>
>>>>
insofar as action that could have been known or reasonably suspected at the time of acting was instrumental in bringing about disaster or humanity.
<<<<
The INSOFAR is the bug, I'm afraid -- ours is not the freedom of the gods. It's so contingent on our capacity SEE ahead, see the effects yet to come -- wh. seems to me largely the capacity to listen to perspectives other than our own. The 'freedom' of the sociohistorically postioned -- it's blind otherwise. like we're destined to repeat to repeat ourselves, otherwise... >>>>
Playing Pollyanna (apply sing-song intonation)
Nate, thanks for those anecdotes! wonderful.
Judy
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