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    %PATERNAL RESPONSIBLE RESPONSIVENESS FOR OTHERS 880420

     The essence of responsibility is being responsive  to
others;  being in dialogue,  conversation,   communicating
with them in their concerns.

     It is absurd to try to be responsive on the behalf of
others,  to assume the duty to speak for them.   To assume
the responsibility of speaking on the behalf of others  is
paternalistic and dishonest.  Responsible people are  open
and honest about themselves. They do not try to manipulate
and  be in control of the behavior and  communications  of
other people.

     When  a community asks its members to try to  control
each other it undermines healthy responsibility.    People
can  not succeed in trying to control each  other.    When
threat  of  punishment  is  made for  failure  to  control
others,   the    inevitable  consequence  is   dishonesty,
secrecy,   misleading signals,  and disintegration;   then
people  cannot   be themselves   with  integrity.     Then
people feel it  is   not safe  to  be responsive regarding
what they have done  and have  not  done;   it is not safe
to be responsible in  the sense of being responsive.

     When  a  community demands that its  members  try  to
control  each other,  it assumes that mutual  manipulation
of people  is  desirable.     The stage is set for  trying
to  coerce  those    healthy    people  who    fail     to
be manipulative;      they are threatened with   coercions
for  failing    to    conform   to    manipulative    life
styles.

     Manipulative   people   cannot   safely  be  involved
in  intimate  relationships which are responsible  in  the
sense  of   being  responsive;     they cannot  be  secure
in  the freedom to  be vulnerable.

     Manipulative  communities  lack  unity  and  are  not
healthy;    they  are  not  real  communities;   they  are
superficial  collections   of  people  who  do  not   know
what   real responsibility is,  and cannot  be  responsive
to each other.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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