The US is 300 million strong and counting. Sure, the indiscretions of George W. Bush led to the Iraq War, but there are 300 million people who could do something about it. Think about it this way, George W. Bush may have waged the war, but he did not fight it. Soldiers did the fighting. Workers made the guns, tanks, ships, and planes. Voting citizens placed politicians in office who voted for the war to have funding by tax dollars earned from tax paying citizens. Singers write songs which prop up notions of a nation which some soldiers fight for and regret after they do not receive aid for a lost limb or mind. Anyway you look at it; people everywhere have their own role in what goes on in the national stage of violence. Therefore, people have the responsibility to resolve their own roles in the violence around them.
We shape our realities devoid of personal responsibility for global problems with out words primarily. "The United States invaded Iraq." "The Soviet Union stopped Hitler." The major shortcoming of this kind of rhetoric is the displacement of blame from the everyday, private citizen to the leader or nation s/he represents.
Susanne Kappeler, Associate Professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Al-Akhawayn University, contends that the disproportionate focus on the power and responsibility of major actors obscures the average individual's responsibility in large-scale conflict (Kappeler 10-12). "Our insight that indeed we are not responsible for the decisions of a Serbian general or a Croation president tends to mislead us into thinking that therefore we have no responsibility at all, not even for forming our own judgment, and thus into underrating the responsibility we do have within our own sphere of action" (10).
[...] However, if group activity influences intimately individual activity, how much responsibility in terms of blame can we place on an individual acting in accordance with what everybody else does? Conversely, how much blame can we place on an individual who does not do something good? The term grey area applies well here since these questions have multifaceted answers dependent on particular situations. For example, if someone is about to get hit by a train, and a spectator does not even bother with a switch that's close by, that would be generally considered a more disagreeable course of inaction than say, a spectator not saving the victim if the switch had been too far away or if saving the victim would endanger the spectator's life. [...]
[...] We shape our realities devoid of personal responsibility for global problems with out words primarily. United States invaded Iraq.” Soviet Union stopped Hitler.” The major shortcoming of this kind of rhetoric is the displacement of blame from the everyday, private citizen to the leader or nation s/he represents. Susanne Kappeler, Associate Professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Al-Akhawayn University, contends that the disproportionate focus on the power and responsibility of major actors obscures the average individual's responsibility in large- scale conflict (Kappeler 10-12). [...]
[...] However, for so many who place responsibility squarely on the shoulders of government, this is not the case. Discussions amongst peers and family about issues of the day so often tend to be in macroscopic terms in the realms of both problems and solutions. If people start talking about local grassroots efforts to address large-scale problems, then maybe we're going somewhere. That being said, individual action should still be the focus while discussions about larger actors and factors should take place as ways to understand the environment and surroundings in which individual actions materialize. [...]
[...] Personal responsibility and peacemaking The US is 300 million strong and counting. Sure, the indiscretions of George W. Bush led to the Iraq War, but there are 300 million people who could do something about it. Think about it this way, George W. Bush may have waged the war, but he did not fight it. Soldiers did the fighting. Workers made the guns, tanks, ships, and planes. Voting citizens placed politicians in office who voted for the war to have funding by tax dollars earned from tax paying citizens. [...]
[...] Bradley C. Bobertz, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law, highlights some important ways people cut off dialogue about effective ways to face environmental problems. His main point is that people turn to laws which target the end results of pollution rather than discuss root issues like “global resource allocation and the sustainability of existing industrial, agricultural, and personal patterns of behavior” because one wants her own habits exposed to the same harsh light” (748). The effect of enacting environmental laws rather than investigate personal behavior is the release of guilt and avoidance of recognizing the fact that personal habits result in the effects that the laws seek to address (748). [...]
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