About the ethics discussion

Here are some general conclusions I’ve drawn from the discussion on responsibility, accountability, blame, and guilt:

1) Explaining one’s behavior should not be confused with making excuses. When someone explains what was going on at a particular time in life and how s/he perceived reality at that point in history, this does not necessarily mean the individual is making an excuse for what happened.

2) When someone perceives a situation as a matter of personal survival, the individual also perceives a limited range of options. In that case, the individual may not be entirely free to choose between good and evil. For example, if someone takes you captive and says, “I will break your arms if you do not tell me where the person I’m stalking can be found,”—neither choice is a good one.

3) Choosing the lesser evil or the greater good in a coersive or survival situation is a highly subjective matter, and one size does not fit all. In such a situation, the participants have varying degrees of power to choose freely or effect a positive outcome.

4) Blame and responsibility are not the same thing. Blame implies guilt for wrongdoing. Responsibility implies the willingness to change the things one has the power to change and to live with the consequences of one’s choices without making excuses. One can accept blame by saying, “I was wrong to do such-and-such while I was in the Family” without taking responsibility for what occurred. One can also accept blame without showing contrition, which means (among other things), clearly stating that “I’m sorry I did it or that I was a party to what occurred.” Finally, one can show contrition without taking responsibility for the power to effect change.

5) Accepting individual responsibility for a situation in which one was a passive or active party is a matter of conscience, personal values and beliefs, or ideological convictions. Willingness to accept some measure of collective responsibility for a social injustice to which one was a passive or active party also is a matter of conscience, personal values and beliefs, or ideological convictions. One size does not fit all.