|
|
|
|
|
|
by marginalia_nu
961 days ago
|
|
|
I find this mindset debilitating. Every person on earth, the very people who might accomplish real change, they are all individuals. Yet every one of them can deflect responsibility onto collectives, collectives that in turn consiting of individuals who can do the same, resulting in inaction and indifference. Someone else is always to blame, someone else is always more responsible, and that someone else isn't even a human being, it's a corporation, a political faction, an ideological movement. None of those entities are of course ever going to seize that responsibility, because there is no agency in any of them to do so. |
|
|
The problem you mention in the second paragraph is sometimes called "diffusion of responsibility" [0]. A related concept about the difficulties of individual and group action is "belling the cat" [1]. You may be familiar with these, I'm just throwing them out there in case anyone reading is also interested in this topic.
Framing in terms of agency, I guess I'd say I agree with you that each agent has a responsibility or an obligation to take action. But it's not clear to me how to ensure that the actions build on each other rather than canceling each other out in the aggregate. It may take a strong person with a sense of duty to get things started but eventually they will need help.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling_the_Cat