This is http://www.essayz.com/a9502273.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %INTEGRATIVE SENSE DUTY RESPONSIBILITY IMPOSSIBLE+950227 %COERCIVE VIOLENT CONTROL LINEAR PREDICTABLE CAUSE 950227 It helps no one and makes no sense to respect and/or maintain a sense of duty: 1. to try to achieve an impossible goal, 2. to control a process which we cannot control, 3. to prevent an effect which we cannot prevent. What we can regard with integrity as our duty depends upon our sense of what is possible and what is impossible for us to achieve, control or prevent. What we perceive to be possible for us to achieve, control or prevent depends greatly upon how honest we are being with ourselves and each other. If we are playing collusive games of mutual self deception we may perceive that it is possible for us to achieve, control or prevent much which in fact is impossible for us. Then we need to recognize that it is possible for us to seek to be honest and so seek to transcend our collusive games of mutual self deception. Dishonesty, collusions, addictions and codependent support of such patterns of behavior are disintegrative; they lead to personal and communal disintegration. We cannot know in any reliable way what is really possible and what is really impossible---if we are participants in dishonesty, collusions, addictions and/or codependent support of such patterns of behavior. It is thus a primary duty for us to seek to transcend our collusive games of mutual self deception. If it is impossible for us to achieve, control or prevent some "thing"---then it is our duty to regard that "thing" as impossible and so as beyond the range of our duty. What is possible for us depends in large part upon our ability to predict the consequences of our desires, emotions, attitudes, thoughts, decisions, and actions. If we cannot predict the consequences---we cannot analyze, decide and act in ways which will lead to "good" outcomes. If we we play collusive games of mutual self deception and believe that we can predict consequences, which we cannot truly predict---we are not being responsible because our dishonesty is leading us into personal and communal disintegration. We are playing collusive games of mutual self deception if we refuse to acknowledge the reflexive aspects of our analysis of: What is possible, and what is impossible for us? What is our duty, and what is not our duty because of our limitations? Reflexive processes are not as predictable as are non-reflexive processes---because we cannot know the essential aspects of reflexive processes with as much "accuracy" as we can know the essential aspects of non- reflexive processes. Our ability to predict and control a process depends upon how well we can know the essential aspects of the process. If we are embedded in the process we cannot "know" the essential aspects without bias. If we are are fully detached from the process we cannot know the essential aspects for lack of communication with the process. There is something like a Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle which must be operative and which puts limits upon how well we can know any process about which we are aware, and so there are limits to how well we can predict the outcomes of our involvement in the process. Thus we cannot be honestly sure about what will be the consequences of any initiatives we may take in regards to any process about which we are aware. We can be most sure about the probable consequences of our initiatives---when we are neither fully detached from a process nor entirely attached to a process. It is not our duty to be fully detached, nor is it our duty to be entirely attached to a process. The most responsible approach to a process is somewhere in between. What is responsible is to be responsive in open and honest ways about how we perceive reality through our experiences, and about why we decided to take the initiatives which we have taken. The essence of responsibility is not flawless predictions and control; but being openly and honestly responsive about our own experiences, perceptions, understandings, and initiatives. It is not control which should be sought, but respect for and the honoring of general guidelines which lead to both personal and communal integrity. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================