That sounds really profound, except it isn't. That assertion is another way of justifying or rationalizing learned helplessness.
It is true that there are a lot of things that suck, that few people with access to resources really empathize with those in scarcity trap. Thing is, people are not as helpless as they like to think they are.
Actually that is a perverse effect of being poor in a consumer driven society, and it is even worse in a society that value Freedom so highly like the US.
Because being poor is a complete absence of freedom. If you want to get out of it, you need to follow extremely rigorous lifestyle (like the one published by MacDonald) for decades, with each mistake costing you years of saving.
That is doable in the country side, but in urbanised area where you are bombarded 24/7 with adds, tempted by very easy credit, surrounded by toxic peers in a society that hates you ? If you think it is, then consider that you also start with a 13 IQ handicap().
Picture that as trying to be on a very strict diet while working drunk in your favourite sweet factory, with everybody around you gorging themselves, even those that shouldn't.
I'm noting my observation of a social and economic phenomenon, not justifying that approach or expounding a principle we should live by.
There are many incentives to being irresponsible today, and learning about being responsible with resources involves having some non-volatile resources with which to be responsible to start. When you grow up surrounded by scarcity and a general attitude of helplessness and irresponsibility, it's really hard to develop a responsible approach to life. As a culture, I think we tend to encourage continued irresponsibility. It seems to me that in the world we've created, just a little responsibility doesn't pay--to get off to a viable start, one really needs a critical mass of responsibility, which is difficult to acquire on your own with no resources.
People are not as helpless as they think they are, but they have little way of knowing it without the benefit of having already had the experience of having resources and responsibility.
Responsibility is usually a concept that is emotionally tied with blame and punishment. That's how most people talk about responsibility.
However, if you are reacting to past associations with rewards and punishments, you are not being response-able. Being responsible doesn't mean, "I am going to be a responsible adult," as in, "I am fulfilling this socially-conditioned image of an 'adult'." Responsibility means being able to make choices (whether they are informed, or not, wise or foolish, it does not matter; there is no such thing as a "responsible choice"), then accepting all the consequences of each choice. It's only when you accept what is, is, are you able to respond with more choices and actions. People tend to want to make choices, yet avoid accepting the unexpected or undesirable outcomes of those choice. By avoiding or deluding themselves into thinking the undesirable did not happen, they compound avoidance with more avoidance until they are paralyzed, unable to act. They are unable to respond.
Sometimes, to avoid a trap, you have to let things go. You let go of what seems to be urgent, accept the consequence of letting go of the urgent, in order to make room to climb out of the trap. Or to use a more concrete metaphor: if your foot is caught in a bear trap, and the bear is coming after you, and you don't want to be eaten, then chop off your foot. (That or just sit down and die with dignity).
Yes. It sucks. Yes, it will hurt. Yes, you might still die of infections, bleeding out, or get chased down by the bear. Or maybe the bear gets distracted by the newly chopped-off foot and you're able to hobble away. What is, is. You choose, you accept.
So most people who think of themselves as responsible adults are not actually responsible. They are simply re-enacting behaviors and emotional patterns of a child with a parent; the parental figure often being society and other authority figures. This re-enactment happens whether someone grows up in an environment of scarcity or abundance. In face of situations that really suck, these folk regress into the helpless child, hoping someone else will make the hard choices for them or magically make things better. Or lament that, they've done all the right things, it's not fair that things suck.
People who think of "responsibility" this way tends to use paternalistic language -- something, I think, that your word usage suggests.
Yes, the common notion of "responsibility" you criticize is what I was responding to and talking about: the rule-based, considered-in-advance, "responsible choice" idea that having children in certain situations is "irresponsible". You are saying that that definition isn't really responsibility at all, and while I'd have to think about it some more to be sure, I think I agree.
Many people use the term in the prescriptivist fashion you critize, which makes it hard to respond to those ideas without using the term. I'm not sure what else one could call it. Prescribed responsibility? Whatever you call it, it's really easy for those with many resources to make rules of "responsibility" that make little sense to those who have no resources, and then to criticize those without the resources for being "irresponsible". That was what I meant with my original comment--it's easy to be "responsible" in the making-sure-things-go-well sense when you have enough resources to pay your way out of bad choices. Responsibility in the sense of accepting-the-consequences-of-your-actions-and-moving-on-from-there certainly has a different formulation that isn't dependent on having resources.
Thanks for your comments--I think there really are two separate ideas of "responsibility" being discussed, which I'd never really thought about much before. The two shouldn't be conflated, but I think they are all the time. When I first wrote my original comment, I wasn't quite convinced about the idea myself, but I thought it was interesting enough to put forward as an idea. You've helped me unravel which part of it doesn't quite seem right and which part rings true.
By the way, it was in my teenage years that I first encountered the idea of respond-ability. This was first introduced implicitly by reading nearly all of Robert A. Heinlein's novels. I think I came across the formal concept in Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
However, it wasn't until in the past couple years that I understood "acceptance" (and that understanding is not acceptance). That required practicing a specific form of mindfulness meditation, called Vipassana, or insight meditation. All of Vipassana is simply accepting the sensations, emotions, and thoughts as they arise ... and pass. Usually, there are comfortable and comforting sensations, emotions, and thoughts that we don't want to let go of, and ugly stuff we don't want to experience. Acceptance is acceptance, whether stuff comes up or passes on. Usually, people's fundamental, existential misery kicks in and they run away from Vipassana. Your mileage may vary.
Fair enough. It is difficult to make a distinction of the two terms if we don't have another term. I had started writing about how difficult it was to find a term to substitute the common-usage of responsibility. Then a possibility popped up.
The rules-based, considered-in-advanced "responsible choice" is more akin to expectations and standards. That is, one's outwardly measurable behavior can be observed and held up against a standard. This is the typical way a child is socialized.
The other, responsibility in the sense of accepting-the-consequences-of-your-actions-and-moving-on-from-there falls more along the lines of, "with great responsibility comes great power." It's really the language of power (and as a side-effect, freedom and resources). It's choice after stripping away the social expectations.
I have discovered (and experienced) a way to teach a child how to make choices, accept its consequences, and move from there. It requires a teacher who has been initiated in this. When the child makes a choice, the teacher engages in a conversation to probe the motivations. Is the choice really Choice, or are there some underlying hidden agendas. (For example, the child might be thinking, "If I do this, then Dad will be proud of me, and I will feel accepted."). It's only when these hidden agendas are stripped away from the child, then the teacher points out that this is Choice. "Ok. You chose this. Here is what you do."
The teacher then shows a little bit of the practice to accomplish it, and then sits there with the student and let the child do it. (Not read a book, not watch Netflix, not go away and leave the child to it; the presence of mind of the teacher witnessing is actually very important). It is very important that the teacher never hold the child's hands. If you've stripped away all the hidden agendas and motivations, then if you hold their hand, they are not really accepting the consequences of Choice. You're not accepting their Choice. It is, however, OK, to answer questions, to correct incorrect attempts after the fact (typical newbie mistakes like, forcing things, or going too fast, and sometimes demonstrating something once the child has tried it first).
It's even ok if the child feels overwhelmed by the Choice. That's actually an awesome initiation. The typical response is to seek an adult figure to do it for them. This is where the teacher maintains discipline: the child has to do it for himself. Reminders that, "you chose this" often helps. Usually, the child is not really struggling with the challenges of task or skill, but rather, struggling with inner aversions and inability to accept the suffering that comes with the work.
However, when the child gains some achievement in the task, he knows for sure that it wasn't because people did it for him. He knows it wasn't because someone else expected it of him. He knows it resulted from his effort. He knows to his bone, he chose to do something and he did it himself. External praise isn't required. (What's the point? You know you accomplished it, the presence of praise from the outside is irrelevant). Often though, continued discipline to have the child keep practicing is needed. (Once is not enough, that's why it is called "practice"). Usually, as the skills mature, and as the child matures, the child grows into adulthood with the capability of disciplining himself.
If it sounds intense and a lot of work, it is. It requires a lot of attention from the teacher. It's not scalable. In fact, this dynamic is closer to the older master-apprentice model of instruction (assuming the master didn't have his own hidden agendas).
What you end up with though, is someone who knows how to grow into tasks bigger than himself.
