Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site tove.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!tove!israel From: israel@tove.UUCP (Bruce Israel) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Responsibility is NOT blame! Message-ID: <301@tove.UUCP> Date: Sat, 3-Aug-85 17:13:54 EDT Article-I.D.: tove.301 Posted: Sat Aug 3 17:13:54 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 4-Aug-85 20:18:23 EDT References: <3424@cornell.UUCP> <1507@bbncca.ARPA> <1359@pyuxd.UUCP> Reply-To: israel@tove.UUCP (Bruce israel) Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD Lines: 76 In article <1359@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes: >Mike, > >POSITIVELY BRILLIANT!!!! It seems the thing that the "human potentialists" >forget is that they at one time didn't realize this incredible insight they >now have, that they *learned* it: through circumstance, through therapy, >through an est weekend; and thus they have no right to call the other person >"responsible" for being in the same boat THEY were in before they gained this >valuable (and very powerful) insight. Rich, you make the phrase 'call the other person "responsible"' sound like a dirty word! We aren't talking about blaming another for how they handle that responsibility. All I'm saying is statement of fact about the world. A person *IS* responsible for his emotions. NOT that they are responsible to me for how they handle them, just that they are responsible for them. However they happen to handle them, THAT is the way that they discharge their responsibility. Since the only one to whom they are responsible to for this is themselves, neither I nor anyone else have any right to tell them that they are wrong for feeling any particular way. >The very fact that these other people >don't see this as an alternative (taking charge of one's preconceived >emotional reactions), for whatever reason (e.g., they have been so >indoctrinated with the preconceptions that they can see no other way), means >that exercising that alternative is not within the realms of possibility of >"choice" for them. I agree that many people don't see this is as an alternative, but I don't buy the statement that it isn't therefore a choice. I read the above statement as saying that they are a victim of the situation until some external event occurs that tells them that they have these choices. It's not external (if it was, this discussion wouldn't be happening since the first time Julie said "we are responsible for our emotions", everyone would have said "Oh yeah, right." and that would have been the end of it). Let me relate this point to things in my life. I love to teach. It's one of my favorite activities. I've done it in a number of different areas, having taught AI and Comp. Sci. courses, having been a staff assistant on personal growth trainings, and I also teach karate at a karate club here at the university. One of my major rules for teaching is as follows: Never tell a student anything that he can tell me instead (by doing some thinking). What this ends up looking like is that I teach by using questions only! (Note that this doesn't work in teaching detailed stuff; I can't teach history with questions like "When should the vietnam war have started?" :-) Now the way that this relates to the discussion is that I can teach concepts like the above with ONLY questions, never directly imparting knowledge to the students. What this means is that it is possible to learn concepts like this without any external information, just thru questioning and reasoning, things that people can do by themselves. And some people DO learn this from an EST (or other) weekend, and there is nothing wrong with that either. What is the relevence of the origin of learning these concepts; does it make it any more or less true? What it sounds to me like your first statement is saying is: How dare you tell me that I'm wrong for not automatically knowing this, when *YOU* had to go to EST to learn it! I'm not blaming anyone for knowing or not knowing anything; If I've come across that way I apologize. >Until they get that same opportunity that the H-P's had to >learn this way of thinking and acting, they can hardly be held accountable. They are only accountable to themselves, not to anyone else, so it doesn't matter whether I want them to be accountable to me. -- Bruce Israel seismo!umcp-cs!israel (Usenet) israel@Maryland (Arpanet)