A few days ago a friend posted a graphic here on FB saying - TopicsExpress



          

A few days ago a friend posted a graphic here on FB saying something long the lines of All persons are 100% to blame for their own actions! No one and no thing else is ever to blame! That is a conventional, accepted viewpoint here in USA, and part of the platform of The Republican Party. But I had to take exception to it, because its simply not true. In general, humans are in-part responsible for their own actions, yes. But not to a 100% extent. Id say that on the average, each human is responsible for hir (his/her) own actions to about a 20% extent, and the remain. Why do I say that humans are NOT 100% to blame for their own actions, but only 20%? Let me clarify. The problems with the 100% notion is, it is based on several false assumptions, including (but not necessarily limited to) these 6: 1. That all persons are mentally and physically and neurally healthy. 2. That all person are middle or upper class and not struggling to survive. 3. That all persons are highly intelligent. 4. That all persons are well educated. 5. That all human behavior is determined by the decisions of the conscious mind, and that the unconscious mind either does not exist or has little effect on human behavior. 6. That all humans live in a environment where they are free to choose from a wide variety of options. But clearly, for most people, ALL SIX OF THESE ASSERTIONS ARE FALSE. That puts a huge damper on freedom of thought, freedom of choice, freedom of behavior. If freedom of choice is greatly restricted for most people (and IT IS), then it CANT POSSIBLY be true that each person is 100% to blame for his own behavior. Theyre PARTLY to blame, yes, but not 100%. In general, in todays modern corporate First World, Id say peoples actions are about 20% determined by their attempts to control their own behavior and 80% determined by external factors. This is similar to the question if person A commits a crime against person B, which is to blame, and to what extent? How should blame be apportioned between them? Most folks say, The criminal is 100% to blame, and the victim 0% to blame, always. But that is false. Why? Because when one person commits a crime against another, usually the victim was violating common safety rules. My car was stolen. I only left the keys in the ignition for about 20 minutes... I got raped. I didnt realize that if I dressed like a whore and went to a party at 3AM and got drunk and stoned Id get raped, who possibly could have thunk it? Crap like that. So no, on average, victims arent 0% to blame; more like 20%. In fact, in social situations, just about ANY time someone says something is 0% this or 100% that, those are false statements. Most real life straight situations are not nearly that straightforward. This topic reminds me of the following song, which presents some of the reasons why some people engage in actions which others find undesirable. And most of those reasons are external, not internal. Check it out: https://youtube/watch?v=wBgp5aDH23g
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 13:18:14 +0000

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