Personal Responsibility and Paganism
Personal responsibility is an important tenant in any religion. Spiritually, it allows the soul to be cleansed when facing a deity who doesn't just absolve everything. In neo-paganism, personal responsibility is touted as some sort of "we're better than you" over monotheistic religions (despite only perversions of the tenants serving as the examples-- the phrase "Mea Culpa" means something rather important, after all), and often gets mixed up into twisted justifications of victim-blaming, victim-shaming, and all-'round being a douche to people who are trying to do the right thing.
What can suck about this personal responsibility thing is that it makes you accept the consequences of your actions. You will eventually have to own up to doing and saying stupid things, and it's entirely up to the individual on whether or not that's going to lead to personal growth and spiritual understanding. At least, that's the ideal.
Humans are rather stupid when it comes to these things. I know I've had my share of ignored lessons and childish clinging to old precedents.
See, personal responsibility is issues of consent. So long as you are capable of consent, you can be held accountable for your actions. Having that consent removed from you by acts of coercion, duress, assault, fraud, and a whole slew of things that litter the legal definitions removes the responsibility from the shoulders of the victim. People don't seem to get that. Instead, it's easier to blame the victim.
Because personal responsibility is not about other people, it is not the fault of a person who is groped or accosted (god, it's not my fault that skeevy guy on the bus thinks it's okay to hit on me every Sunday on my way to work-- I've never spoken to him before, nor have I ever initiated anything remotely friendlier than an "excuse me").
Yes, there are consequences. If you drink too much, you'll have to deal with the hangover. If you get drunk around strangers, you have to... deal with the hangover. Because anything that happens in an environment that is advertised and expected to be safe (a convention with fans, for example) is not the fault of the victim. Should someone choose to take advantage of inebriated people, then they get to deal with the consequences. If it takes two years for the story to hit the rest of the community, then they still have to deal with the consequences of being seen as creepy, skeevy, and a potential threat.
Personal responsibility is not about getting into and getting out of situations you were coerced or led into under false pretences. It is however, about owning up to your behaviour.
See, victims don't have to apologize. They did nothing wrong. But the creeps who took advantage? Well, it's their responsibility to learn from it. Personal responsibility means realizing that throwing threats of legal recourse (unfounded and unattainable) around in a hissy fit, then "apologizing" by saying "I'm sorry that you weren't using terms I agree with" is all inherently wrong.
Personal responsibility means standing up, realizing that other people were affected by your mistakes, and you need to get it through your thick skull that it is not okay to throw a tantrum when you're called on it. It means apologizing, offering that "mea culpa," and taking the consequences to heart so the situation is never repeated.
This, of course, includes dealing with the personal responsibility of owning up to bad opinions posted in blogs, and twisted theology being presented as correct.
Pagan gods, as a rule, don't put up with our bullshit. They don't give us free passes because we make offerings and cast a circle. They don't sit back and let us learn things the easy way. They don't demand much from followers and dedicates other than being decent human beings and looking out for other human beings. Because, dear god, I do not want to explain to Osiris any sort of victim-blaming.
"Look, you shouldn't have gotten into the sarcophagus. It's not Set's fault you did. You should accept the consequences, and not be so judgmental about being cut into pieces and scattered."
What can suck about this personal responsibility thing is that it makes you accept the consequences of your actions. You will eventually have to own up to doing and saying stupid things, and it's entirely up to the individual on whether or not that's going to lead to personal growth and spiritual understanding. At least, that's the ideal.
Humans are rather stupid when it comes to these things. I know I've had my share of ignored lessons and childish clinging to old precedents.
See, personal responsibility is issues of consent. So long as you are capable of consent, you can be held accountable for your actions. Having that consent removed from you by acts of coercion, duress, assault, fraud, and a whole slew of things that litter the legal definitions removes the responsibility from the shoulders of the victim. People don't seem to get that. Instead, it's easier to blame the victim.
Because personal responsibility is not about other people, it is not the fault of a person who is groped or accosted (god, it's not my fault that skeevy guy on the bus thinks it's okay to hit on me every Sunday on my way to work-- I've never spoken to him before, nor have I ever initiated anything remotely friendlier than an "excuse me").
Yes, there are consequences. If you drink too much, you'll have to deal with the hangover. If you get drunk around strangers, you have to... deal with the hangover. Because anything that happens in an environment that is advertised and expected to be safe (a convention with fans, for example) is not the fault of the victim. Should someone choose to take advantage of inebriated people, then they get to deal with the consequences. If it takes two years for the story to hit the rest of the community, then they still have to deal with the consequences of being seen as creepy, skeevy, and a potential threat.
Personal responsibility is not about getting into and getting out of situations you were coerced or led into under false pretences. It is however, about owning up to your behaviour.
See, victims don't have to apologize. They did nothing wrong. But the creeps who took advantage? Well, it's their responsibility to learn from it. Personal responsibility means realizing that throwing threats of legal recourse (unfounded and unattainable) around in a hissy fit, then "apologizing" by saying "I'm sorry that you weren't using terms I agree with" is all inherently wrong.
Personal responsibility means standing up, realizing that other people were affected by your mistakes, and you need to get it through your thick skull that it is not okay to throw a tantrum when you're called on it. It means apologizing, offering that "mea culpa," and taking the consequences to heart so the situation is never repeated.
This, of course, includes dealing with the personal responsibility of owning up to bad opinions posted in blogs, and twisted theology being presented as correct.
Pagan gods, as a rule, don't put up with our bullshit. They don't give us free passes because we make offerings and cast a circle. They don't sit back and let us learn things the easy way. They don't demand much from followers and dedicates other than being decent human beings and looking out for other human beings. Because, dear god, I do not want to explain to Osiris any sort of victim-blaming.
"Look, you shouldn't have gotten into the sarcophagus. It's not Set's fault you did. You should accept the consequences, and not be so judgmental about being cut into pieces and scattered."