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%RESPONSIBILITY SHAME GUILT POWER RELATIONSHIP 990721
Much is said by a community about itself by how the
community goes about assigning responsibility, blame,
shame and guilt for improper relationships. Often
assignments focus upon only one of the persons who was
involved --- even though the relationship could not have
existed without the willful involvement of more than one
person. Usually assignments are based upon the belief
that there was unbalanced power in the creation and/or
continuation of the relationship(s). In such instances
outsiders may fail to recognize that in relationships the
participants often have many different kinds of power, as
well as different amounts of power. There may be two,
three, four or more different kinds of power; but
observers may focus upon only one kind of power according
to a simplified conception of the nature of the
relationship. The nature of the outsiders' conception of
the relationship is born out of their assumptions and
their manners of approaching the relationship.
Often outsiders think of relationships in terms of
"what one person did to another person". Such terms may
point to an aspect of some relationships. Yet other
relationships may be violated and their real integrity
destroyed -- by outsiders approaching the relationships in
such terms. The people who approach integrative
relationships in such terms may be guilty of a more
serious "crime" --- than are any of the participants in
the alleged "crime". Who should properly have the power
to determine the kinds and amounts of responsibility,
guilt and shame are assigned to different people? On the
basis of what kinds of knowledge and of what degrees of
reliability? Do outsiders have the power to acquire such
knowledge? According to what conception of the nature of
objectionable relationships? Who is to be empowered to be
in control of such conceptions of the natures of
relationships that are the focus of accusations of
impropriety?
These questions suggest that often communities say
more about themselves by how they deal with allegations of
impropriety in human relationships --- than they say about
the natures of such relationships or about the many
different kinds of powers wielded by the many participants
who have affected the relationships. Often "outsiders"
who are watching the developments of and within such
relationships --- play determinative roles in the
developments, while acting as if they had nothing to do
with how the relationships began and developed. All
human relationships develop within communal contexts ---
which do much to shape the natures and courses of the
developments within and around "improper" relationships.
Who can be well informed and objective in determining
where the responsibility, blame, guilt and shame should be
placed in regards to such relationships? Those least
involved in them, or those most involved in them?
Ideally, in occasions of improper personal
relationships it should be a person "who is without sin"
who "casts the first stone". Who then should first make
the allegations of impropriety? Who should structure the
judicial process? Who should be the lawyer for the
defense? The lawyer for the plaintiff? Who should
"arrest" the person(s) who are alleged to be guilty? Who
should have "standing" to be the plaintiff(s)? Who should
sit in the jury? Should any one person play more than one
of these roles? Should close relatives of each other
play more than one of these roles? Usually none of this
is as simple --- as think the people who eagerly appoint
themselves to public service in one or more of these
roles. Such self-appointed public servants rarely do as
much good as they or others think that they do.
There are many stories of relationships which have
been the focus of much attention: Jesus and Mary, Anthony
and Cleopatra, Cinderella and The Prince, Romeo and
Juliet, Bill and Monica, etc. Who is to say --- who can
properly say --- who has been guilty of what? Among the
focal characters? Among those who have focused much
attention upon such characters? Who is qualified to say,
and for what reasons are they qualified?
(c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in
www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty
(On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)
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