----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
Whatever view is used to ground doctrines of responsibility, that word is the vilest in the english language. Almost without exception it is only used when the only possible result can be the user expressing superiority to the person to whom it is applied. And it _never_ leads to desirable action: it either implicitly condemns such action or justifies some form of quietism. E.g., Human nature is responsible for the ills of the world so why should I do anything. The Left is responsible for the right's strength so why should I bother to work to build the left. Of course a supreme use of responsibility as a mode of control is in reference to abortion: she is responsible for becoming pregnant so why should she be able to abort the thing just so she can go to the prom? (Which, of course, is a perfectly good reason for aborting the thing.)
Carrol
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Take this rhetorical strategy to it's limits and no one was responsible for the Holocaust or the conquest of North America, the Rape[s] of Nanking or Abu Ghraib or [insert horrible human tragedy here]......Of course, if we're just neurochemical automata, why give a fuck about politics and the like at all?