[lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky on Responsibility

Tayssir John Gabbour tayssir.john at googlemail.com
Tue Nov 21 02:46:38 PST 2006


On 11/21/06, ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
: w.r.t on-going debate, there are some differences between
> responsibility as Chomsky is talking about here and responsibility as
> used by me, but I think there are much more significant similarities.

For what it's worth, I recall an ethical argument by him at the ZNet forum along the lines of (too difficult to search now):

You share responsibility for an action's predictable consequences, in the proportion you're able to participate in its decisionmaking. Since the US is somewhere between dictatorship and true democracy, US citizens share some responsibility, particularly the more privileged ones.

However, if this abstract argument is sound, I don't take it to imply that anyone here is supposed to feel differently, change their actions or slit their wrists. Certainly, a "responsible person" is someone who has responsibilities, and acts with integrity in relation to them.

Tayssir



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