Depersonalization of responsibility
Visualization of narrower problems
Name(s):
Contextual excuses for inertia
Creative self-victimization
Shifting of blame
Sophisticated assumptions of innocence
Avoidance of personal responsibility
Victim culture
Reinforcement of self-image as a victim of circumstances
Cultivation of victimhood
Compensation neurosis
Nature
The complexity and magnitude of world problems can appear overwhelming and beyond the capability of any one person or collection of people to change. Unable to face the confusion of chaos or impotence, people can retreat behind fatalistic or intellectual arguments, such as: "The government should take the responsibility", or "What's the point, it's out of control anyway", or "I'm powerless to do anything".
Claim
1. People increasingly develop, and cultivate, the inability to accept reasonable responsibility for the products or services they choose to acquire and any actions relating to them. Resentment of pain and loss following from irresponsibility is then also cultivated. Good fortune is assumed to be a right and there is the expectation that the individual will be compensated for any burden, no matter how it was incurred or suffered.
2. The rhetoric of victimhood is to be found: in ultra-radical feminism through which sexual intercourse is reframed as rape; in campus speech codes that constrain free expression to reflect supposed sensitivity of minorities; and in the widespread indulgence in claims of child abuse.
3. Since no one can legitimately claim not to have suffered some psychological trauma, it becomes harder and harder to hold anyone responsible for anything.
Counter-claim
In certain cultures it is acceptable, even expected, that the individual sublimate themselves to their life circumstances, status and society. Criticism may be condoned, but independent action is not, and often viewed as antisocial.
Narrower
Aggravates
Criminals [in 3 loops]
Deliberate ignorance [in 3 loops]
Execution of unethical orders [in 5 loops]
Fragmented social responsibility [in 35 loops]
Limited community responsibility of adults [in 10 loops]
Commercial disregard of social responsibility [in 6 loops]
Aggravated by
Strategy(ies)
Reference(s)
Type
(F) Fuzzy exceptional problems