Liberal ideology and the "moment of accountability"

I haven't posted on this blog in three years, a byproduct of being the owner/manager/only-one-who-gives-a-shit of a small, but robust painting business for the last 7 years. By way of introduction, be warned that I am known to be a bit fanatical in my philosophical views on life, freedom, and happiness, and my right to the aforementioned, but will happily back up my ideas with hours and weeks of reasoned, rational discourse.

I have enormously strong opinions, backed by thousands of hours of developed critical thinking, and I love nothing more than to engage in a rational debate about the merits of my ideas on the only proper way to live and interact with other free-thinking individuals. (that's you)


I am constantly thinking about why it is that my life's philosophy is so far removed from mainstream liberal ideology. I amuse my free thinking hours reviewing the differences between the way I live and view life, and the way others who differ from me do, and occasionally will come up with what I feel are nuggets of opinion that seem to highlight and explain those differences.


The not-quite-revelation I had regarding the difference between conservative and liberal thought sparked as follows: When examining an event, one main identifying focus that describes an event is accountability. Accountability is a short way of describing to what, or to whom might the blame, or credit, for a particular event or situation be attributed?

Whenever an event or situation occurs that is or seems undesirable, we should like to understand why it happened so that it may be avoided in the future. A big part of understanding why, is to answer the question of accountability. In this way, the assignment of accountability for an event becomes the driving factor in the action taken following that event.


Regarding accountability, it occurred to me that liberals and conservatives (yes, labels are cumbersome, but also succinct) substantially differ in their approach to accountability, namely in what I have dubbed "the moment of accountability."

The moment of accountability deals with the rather fatalistic idea that all moments lead to successive moments, in a chain of events that might be described as destiny or perhaps, inevitability. e.g. You have to get into a car before you can have an accident, and if you hadn't gotten in the car, the accident would never have happened.

I am of the opinion that a defining characteristic of conservative thought is that it seems to hold close that accountability is (mostly) immediate, that if it happened and you did it, you are accountable. I also think that on the flip side of the coin, a defining characteristic of liberal thought is that accountability is rather not immediate, that there are underlying social factors that are typically responsible for outcomes much more so than what is immediately apparent.

As an example, if I take a gun and shoot a man, by conservative thought processes, I am immediately responsible for that action, and thus immediately accountable for his death. On the opposite hand, liberal thought acknowledges that I played a major role in his death, but starts to look elsewhere for the possibly true accountability. Why did I have a gun? Who allowed the gun to be present? Who sold me the gun? Who made the gun? Who made the bullets? What events in my background led me to believe that shooting another was acceptable or just, and more importantly, who or what is responsible for my having been raised in such an obviously disadvantaged situation?


Now you may think that this is an intellectually desirable way to look at the event to examine all of the possible causes in order to possibly identify some unknown culprits of accountability and then to be able to address the issue with a higher degree of accuracy. However, there is, it appears to me, a fatal flaw in this approach, which is this. When you do identify the accountable party, is it logic, convenience, or agenda that motivates your finding?

Allow me to explain with a simple analogy:
An event occurs wherein I accidentally knock over a glass of milk. In the world of conservative thought, I had the accident, and am thus accountable for the spilling of the milk. Simple, yes?

However, in the world of liberal thought, I might not be accountable at all! Why was the milk there, so precariously perched that it was inevitable that it be spilled? Who put it there? Who owned the glass of milk and irresponsibly placed it thus? Moreover, who made the milk? Who made the glass? Whose table is it? Who called the telephone and caused my arm to move? Why is milk even legal if it can be so easily spilled? There are literally infinite possibilities as to who or what is ultimately accountable for the culminating event of the spilled milk.


I am sure that by this point, those of you who self-identify as liberals are shaking your heads with the wonder of how stupid I am and what a simple analogy and no way would you lay accountability on anyone but the actual spiller of the milk. However, let me finally tie in my point to what I believe is an analogous explanation that most will see a level of truth in.


If you allow for the placement of accountability elsewhere but the "moment of accountability," you can effectively place "the blame" anywhere in time, because of the fatalistic nature of the chain of events. What is scary about this to me, is that not only can you lay the accountability in the chain of past events, (look to the previous example - who sold me the gun?) you can also lay accountability in the future, for arguably necessary steps that were not taken!

In this way, a liberal thinker might account a crime to a criminal's unfortunate childhood or circumstance, or to a failure of society to provide them with opportunity, thus relieving the criminal of the responsibility of a directly committed crime, while at the same time, holding a corporation or wealthy individual which has committed no direct crime, directly accountable for the same crime simply by having not done more to prevent such a disadvantaged circumstance, or worse, having actually caused it because of their greed! And if that seems farfetched, pick up a newspaper, and read the opinion pages. Often you will find these aligning viewpoints not only in the same paper, but in the same column.


In a world where you may place accountability as you see fit, according to what you may believe is just or righteous, accountability loses meaning. It becomes simply a tool, a highly political tool for highlighting an issue that you or anyone else in a position of public power, politician, media outlet, activist, or otherwise, feel needs attention.


And because accountability can "reasonably" be attributed anywhere in time based on a fatalistic chain of events, no one is ever proven wrong, and guilt is assigned based on the strongest elicited emotional response. Scary.


If you are still following this post, you probably have trouble falling asleep. However, since you have come this far - I crave rational disagreement, and would love for you to post a comment.