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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Responsibility is blame! (where negative things are concerned)
Message-ID: <1430@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 08:48:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1430
Posted: Tue Aug  6 08:48:08 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 04:37:35 EDT
References: <3424@cornell.UUCP> <1507@bbncca.ARPA> <1359@pyuxd.UUCP> <301@tove.UUCP>
Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week
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>>POSITIVELY BRILLIANT!!!!  It seems the thing that the "human potentialists"
>>forget is that they at one time didn't realize this incredible insight they
>>now have, that they *learned* it:  through circumstance, through therapy,
>>through an est weekend; and thus they have no right to call the other person
>>"responsible" for being in the same boat THEY were in before they gained this
>>valuable (and very powerful) insight.  

> Rich, you make the phrase 'call the other person "responsible"' sound
> like a dirty word!  We aren't talking about blaming another for how
> they handle that responsibility. [BRUCE ISRAEL]

I'll try this once more.  And then, I'll probably have to try it again.
	1.  When you say that people are responsible for all things in their
		lives, you are including ALL things:  positive, negative, etc.
	2.  Assigning responsibility to someone for a negative thing is the
		very definition of blame.
	3.  A person's personal problems may (just may) be thought of as a
		negative thing.
	4.  When you talk about a person who life is rife with problems being
		responsible for their situation, YOU ARE BLAMING THEM.
	5.  There is no statement #5.

>>The very fact that these other people
>>don't see this as an alternative (taking charge of one's preconceived
>>emotional reactions), for whatever reason (e.g., they have been so
>>indoctrinated with the preconceptions that they can see no other way), means
>>that exercising that alternative is not within the realms of possibility of
>>"choice" for them.

> I agree that many people don't see this is as an alternative, but I
> don't buy the statement that it isn't therefore a choice.

OK.  Answer this question:
	Which of these does not belong in this set?
	  a) apple    b) orange   c) grapefruit    d) cherry   e) grape

Your time's up.  The answer is f) bronze.  What's that you say, that
wasn't one of the choices? ...

>  I read the
> above statement as saying that they are a victim of the situation until
> some external event occurs that tells them that they have these choices.

You're right, Bruce, that's how YOU read it.  Did you see the word victim
anywhere in there at all?  No, that's your interpretation of the described
situation.  Choose the word victim if you like because it gives it a
judgmental quality (like the word "blame" that is avoided but still implied
in these notions).  But I thought the idea was to avoid engaging in such
labelling of things.

> It's not external (if it was, this discussion wouldn't be happening
> since the first time Julie said "we are responsible for our emotions",
> everyone would have said "Oh yeah, right." and that would have been the
> end of it).

Huh?  I don't understand what was said.

> One of my major rules for teaching
> is as follows:  Never tell a student anything that he can tell me
> instead (by doing some thinking).  What this ends up looking like is
> that I teach by using questions only!   Now the way that this
> relates to the discussion is that I can teach concepts like the above
> with ONLY questions, never directly imparting knowledge to the students.
> What this means is that it is possible to learn concepts like this
> without any external information, just thru questioning and reasoning,
> things that people can do by themselves.  And some people DO learn this
> from an EST (or other) weekend, and there is nothing wrong with that either.

This "questioning and reasoning" you offer them?  You're saying this is NOT
an external stimulus?  A new light by which they can look at things previously
unable to them?  It most certainly is, my friend.  (Unfortunately, a lot of
people learn very different things from an est weekend.)

> What is the relevence of the origin of learning these concepts;  does
> it make it any more or less true?  What it sounds to me like your first
> statement is saying is:
> How dare you tell me that I'm wrong for not automatically knowing this,
> when *YOU* had to go to EST to learn it!
> 
> I'm not blaming anyone for knowing or not knowing anything;  If I've
> come across that way I apologize.

When you hold them responsible for the current state of their lives, which
they feel is negative (that's why they're called "problems" [HUH?]), then
you are blaming them.  Thus the question above is a very reasonable thing
to ask, and something a lot of people seem unwilling to answer.
-- 
Popular consensus says that reality is based on popular consensus.
						Rich Rosen   pyuxd!rlr