A Tale of Two Religions
Modern Western theology can be seen as the opposition of two secular religions: Radical Responsibility and Radical Irresponsibility. I call them religions, because they require faith. Just like Christianity promises the believer eternal life after death, so do these religions promise their followers something of equal value — mastery over your own fate, or absolution from responsibility, respectively.
These are powerful incentives to convert, but they are illusory. Both are essentially flawed. They both contain some truth however, and there’s a lesson to be learned from them.
In this piece, I’ll explore both, point to the error at the core of each, and through the example of addiction and the current Social Dilemma, will show how both are inadequate in forming a healthy society — at least, on their own.
Radical Responsibility
“I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
In my early 20s, I was enamored with libertarianism. If asked who was responsible for my well-being, I would’ve answered “Me, and me alone.” No one else owed me a thing. Whatever well-being I got was mine to procure for myself.
Not every libertarian will necessarily feel the same way, but it’s an inevitable and logical conclusion of the Individualist’s promise — mastery over our fates. For an atheist or an agnostic, it’s an almost unparalleled proposition (we’ll meet its equal soon enough). It allows the believer to attribute to himself whatever success he has met in his life. Little wonder, then, that libertarians are disproportionately highly educated males — a group with a massive historical head start in life.
This head start, however, will not be acknowledged by the individualist. Who’d want to lose the intoxicating feeling of ownership over one’s destiny? This is where I’d usually mention the hardships I had overcome in my own life. “See?” I’d say, “if I could do it, so can everyone else.” There was no recognition on my part of the fact that whatever intellect and industriousness I possess are hardly mine to claim. Randian Individualism shows its cracks once the free will illusion is conceded, but there’s no need to go that far to acknowledge that neither your genes nor upbringing, the two factors responsible for your IQ, are in your control. How then, can you claim that the successes you’ve secured are entirely of your own design?
Which brings me to the individualist’s views on addiction. The responsibility lays entirely with the addict, according to him. “I’m not addicted,” he will say, “because I choose not to partake, or else am able to withstand the pull once I do. I’m responsible for not being an addict, just as the addict ought to be responsible for being one. I am impervious to external pressures. My will is my own. Drugs, alcohol, or technology have no power over me. I am invulnerable to the lure of addiction, and whoever isn’t is weak of will.”
Any genetic or psychological predilections for addiction will go unacknowledged by the individualist, and no sympathy (and certainly no empathy!) will be shown to the “weak” who fall under the spell of drugs (or algorithms) designed to influence and control them.
If you commit wholeheartedly to Radical Responsibility, you deny the role of luck. That’s where this ideology fails.
Radical Irresponsibility
What I call here Radical Irresponsibility is an amalgamation of several schools of thought. First, we pick up Marx’s power struggle, always identifying the oppressors and the oppressed. Next, we add a healthy dose of postmodernism: there’s no objective truth or reality, and so subjective experiences are the entire basis of our worldview. Finally, we mix in Identity Politics and Intersectionality, bringing the person’s inborn identity to the fore. Together, these ideas lead to a new (and inevitable) hierarchy, where the individual is always at the bottom.
The Left (broadly defined) has been playing the exact same trick for 250 years. Step 1: you divide the world into the strong and the weak, the haves and the have nots, the powerful and the powerless. Step 2: you put the entirety of the blame for the misfortunes of the latter at the feet of the former. Step 3: you demand retribution from the first to the second, usually in the form of a government attempting to improve the lives of the “weak” by severely limiting the freedoms of the “strong”.
While Radical Responsibility promises the believer godlike powers over one’s destiny, Radical Irresponsibility promises an equally powerful religious artifact: absolution. Release from guilt and accountability through oppression. As the victim, you bear no responsibility for your own well-being. Your current situation is entirely due to forces that are out of your control. “They” are to blame.
And so, the addict plays no active part in his addiction. Like a ship at sea, his destiny is controlled by others. It’s the tech giants, the social media platforms, the AI algorithms, the IDW, the Man. Whoever it is, it’s certainly not me.
If you commit wholeheartedly to Radical Irresponsibility, you succumb to nihilism. That’s where this ideology fails.
Both Are Wrong
Both Marx and Rand got it wrong, as far as I’m concerned. Blaming everyone else for your situation is counter-productive; yes, in some metaphysical sense you bear no responsibility for your state, but so does everyone else. Being oblivious to the part that luck plays in human life is just ignorant.
So what are we to do?
As much as we can on our own, while recognizing that not everything is under our direct control. To take technology as an example: yes, you can delete your FB account. No, you can’t avoid using the Internet altogether. Yes, you can use DuckDuckGo instead of Google. No, you’re not undermining Google’s hegemony as long as it’s the default search engine in every browser that counts. Yes, you can be more vigilant with what you spread or read online. No, you can’t fact check every single story that comes your way. Yes, you can avoid giving in to your kids’ demands for a smartphone till they’re older. No, you can’t hermetically isolate them online. The list goes on.
And the same exercise can be performed for every other topic.
Both Are Right
The two religions are opposites, so if both are wrong, that means that both are also right, at least in part. We would do well to recognize the beneficial ideas of each. On their own, each religion is too flawed to create a healthy society, but together they might just be enough to make half decent humans out of us.
Individualism teaches us the merits of taking responsibility. Even if in some cosmic sense we shouldn’t take credit for what we have, we still ought to take responsibility for what we do. Isn’t that paradoxical? Perhaps. But I think that there’s a fine line which we can and should walk. Take it too far, and you loose empathy for those less fortunate. But discard it, and you risk discarding love, for yourself as well as for others, except as for children and beasts. Acting as though responsibility is a real thing, is the only path I know to recognizing the good qualities in ourselves as in others.
In the meanwhile, postmodernism and intersectionality show us that the lens of responsibility is inadequate to judge others (or indeed, ourselves). The individualists would be wise to recognize that luck plays a big (some would say decisive) part in shaping our lives. So, a person who’s down on her luck is not less worthy of our empathy. It could’ve been us.
This article was originally published on my blog.
