"Personal Responsibility" bullshit.

[Rageaholic]

I'm getting real tired of hearing about "personal responsibility". Okay, it's not a bad idea in theory, but shit happens. Life can deal you a bad hand, and people have difference tolerance levels of what they can handle at once. There are a million different things that are out of our control so it's not always an issue of personal responsibility. But there are always those perfect people who get on their moral high horse about how so and so should have been more responsible or else he wouldn't have been ended up unemployed and in debt. After all, that would never happen to them because they're perfect! And if anything bad does happen to someone, they probably did something to deserve it.

[BlaqueKatt]

After all, that would never happen to them because they're perfect! And if anything bad does happen to someone, they probably did something to deserve it.

It's called "Fundamental Attribution Error"-and it's actually a form of logical fallacy


The fundamental attribution error, also called the correspondence bias, describes the tendency for observer’s to attribute other people’s behavior to internal or dispositional factors and to downplay situational causes


also explained more humorously at cracked

[Kheldarson]

I dunno. I think it's overplayed sometimes but on the other...Simple fact is, it's not being taught anymore to an extent.

Case in point: My sixth grade class. I gave them a small research project. Write a one to two page paper on a Greco-Roman god or goddess. Very basic information and they were given a month. I took them to the library. I provided books. It didn't have to be typed, just legible.

Out of 100 students how many turned it in on time? 40. Of those that didn't turn it in, how many turned it in late? 5.

The rest took the zero. Which I then was required to change to a 60 percent after extending the deadline again.

So they had a month and a half of school time, plus three weeks of holiday time to write a paper (of which a few simply plagiarized). And over half the class couldn't get it done. And the questions were things like give me the name and attributes of your god or goddess. So sometimes, yes, personal responsibility has to be taken because then you get people who don't think there are any consequences because there never have been.

[KellyHabersham]

So sometimes, yes, personal responsibility has to be taken because then you get people who don't think there are any consequences because there never have been.

Agreed on this......my daughter's father comes to mind because he seems to have grown up thinking without having to face the consequences of any poor choices he might make.

[Rageaholic]

BK: There's that and the just world hypothesis. Both put the blame on the victim even when it's not their fault. A more subtle version I've noticed is to assume that the person could have done something to prevent the incident. Saying "you should have done this" is not very helpful after the fact. That's why I always get angry at being told "you should have thought about that before!". It's only rubbing it in that I screwed up.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

When I bring up personal responsibility, I am referring to things that the person can control. The mother and father suing the manufacturer of the gun that killed their child when the parents who purchased the gun couldn't be arsed to secure the weapon...

Personal responsibility or lack thereof.

The person suing Samsung for making a tablet PC that they could not put down and walked into traffic.

Personal responsibility or lack thereof.

The person fired from my place of employment because he came to work drunk off of his ass suing the company because "They fired ma ass 'cuz dey hate [racial slur redacted]!"

Personal responsibility or lack thereof.

So there are cases when you can and almost have to look at the people and ask them where the personal responsibility went.

I do agree that pointing the blame on someone because they are unemployed when the reality is that the company decided to fire everyone and move to India is not right. There are many things that occur to people that are far from being the fault of the person in question. And I never point fingers at them or at people in situations that are honestly beyond their control.

But there are people who do stupid things, try to say that it was the fault of someone blameless of what happened to shirk...

Their personal responsibility.

[HYHYBT]

I had no idea "drunkard" was a race.

[MrsEclipse]

I had no idea "drunkard" was a race.

They have the most fun NAADP meetings.

[gremcint]

The rest took the zero. Which I then was required to change to a 60 percent after extending the deadline again.

And that right there is why they didn't do it.