Control without accepting responsibility

Control without responsibility- a modern concept

Causing, then blame others

There does appear to be a growing tendency, in every aspect of life, from personal and social interactions to national governance. It is normal for organisations to control people and events but refuse to accept the responsibility that should go with control. This can be observed in sports where player A provokes retaliation from person B and then demands that B be punished. They do not expect punishment as they believe they are innocent; they are refusing to even acknowledge that the retaliation was a consequence of their own actions.

The military and security services all round the world had adopted the term “collateral damage” as a way of avoiding responsibility for actions they took, which damaged civilians and property in addition to their legitimate targets. While it has to be accepted that terrorists hide behind innocent people, in an effort to avoid being attacked by their enemies; it is also the responsibility of those who control the attacking force, to safeguard the innocent. No one has ever claimed that life is “fair” or easy.

This wish to control without accepting responsibility, can be observed in personal relationships, one party constantly makes their partner wait for them, then explodes in rage if they are asked to wait. One half of a partnership is constantly criticising everything about their partner yet becomes so very hurt if they are criticised in the slightest way. This exerts control over the partner, consciously or not, it is a form of control without responsibility. The oft criticised partner learns not to even hint at disagreement with the other, yet finds that if things go wrong, they are blamed, because they did not prevent the wrong action or decision being made. This can reach almost absurd levels such as a person refusing to do something, then, when finding this refusal was a mistake, they claim the other should have overruled them, made them do it.

At the time of writing this- January 2023- there is a long drawn out and ongoing media feast about the British royal family. One member and his wife, are earning obscene amounts of money by publicly claiming some sort of wrong doing by the rest of his family; although so far no actual evidence of any such wrong doing has been verified by independent investigation. What is noticeable is that whenever the family make any sort of retaliatory move, the couple claim it is more wrongdoing. Again, causing a situation then claiming the obvious reaction against their actions, is wrong. They deny responsibility for the reactions they knowingly cause.

Governments and commercial concerns are increasingly expecting their “customers” to do more of the work they actually get paid to do, for example filling forms in on-line by the customer, instead of by the staff, then claiming any and all errors are due to the customers mistakes when filling in the form. Service providers who advertise fixed price contracts but then exploit well disguised small print which allows them to increase the price, odd there are never any hidden clauses that allow the consumer to walk away from a fixed term contract. Getting the customer to do tasks that are the responsibility of the provider, is a way of making the customer responsible, yet the provider is in control. The old notion of the ”buck stops here” being on the desk of the boss, has long gone. In present day Britain (November 2022) much media indignation was being claimed because ultra-cheap temporary labour is unavailable to do routine mundane tasks. Government policies are being blamed, yet the producer is totally responsible. This situation is not a sudden occurrence. The producers should never have expected to be able to hire ultra-cheap labour for one month a year and leave the taxpayers to care for and support this same labour force, for the next 11 months. The producers should have invested in less labour-intensive production methods. They have control of their enterprise but refuse to accept responsibility for their failure to manage it properly.

Another example of this trend is blaming a sales advisor if the customer makes a wrong choice. The salesperson tries to explain the technology to a prospective customer, who does not make the effort to learn and understand. They make a choice based on the fact their friend has the same gadget from the same manufacturer. They buy the gadget then find they lack the knowledge to utilise all aspects of the device and could have bought a cheaper one, they could understand and use. They blame the sales advisor and claim “wrong selling.” This is not wrong selling; this is controlling the purchase then refusing to accept responsibility for the consequences.