The Responsibility of Freedom-Wolfgang Heuer

01-09-2012

“The vicarious responsibility for things we have not done, this taking upon ourselves the consequences for things we are entirely innocent of, is the price we pay for the fact that we live our lives not by ourselves but among our fellow men, and that the faculty of action, which, after all, is the political faculty par excellence, can be actualized only as one of the many and manifold forces of human community.”

 -Hannah Arendt , Amor Mundi: Explorations in the Faith and Thought of Hannah Arendt

The concepts of guilt and responsibility are often confused. Who is to be considered guilty in a political system that systematically violates human rights or intends to annihilate whole groups or entire peoples? Is it the perpetrators, the helpers, the bystanders or the whole population? “Only those who gave the orders” assert the helpers and bystanders. “Only the whole population” asserts the later born.  In the first instance, we see an attempt to absolve oneself of complicity; in the second, to find a blanket cause. But where all are guilty nobody is guilty, declared Arendt, because this opinion obliterates any juridical distinction between perpetrators and non-perpetrators.

The confusion of guilt and responsibility is the result of a liberal equalization that talks about responsibility only in the case of guilt and maintains that only he who bears responsibility can become guilty.

Arendt instead distinguishes between juridical and moral guilt and a general responsibility for our actions. Literally, we all are always ‘answering’ questions posed by everyday life: how to judge a case, how to act under certain conditions?

Arendt replaces an old image by a new one. In opposition to what neoliberals of all persuasions claim today, our social and political sphere is not yet the place of egoistic individuals caring only for their own well being who primarily regard others as objects of their actions. Rather Arendt sees them as citizens filling in a political space with a net of relationships. These citizens do not wait to take responsible some day for their common world. Rather they make a free decision to consider the consequences of their actions for theirs neighbors, colleagues, partners or employees. She asserts it is not the human subject in the singular which must stand at the beginning of all our thoughts but rather the plurality of men and women in a shared world.

“Freedom” therefore, must be considered jointly with “responsibility”. Freedom, according to Arendt, is neither the free will of the subject nor based on its sovereignty. Rather freedom exists only in the space between those who are acting and suffering and those who are doing the judging. Therefore, we are responsible not just for ourselves but for our common world and what our common world has become. As John F. Kennedy famously said:

“In a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, ‘holds office’; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities.”

Responsibility understood in this way is much more than to respect the law. This idea underlies the UN Global Compact established in 2000 creating a global movement to encourage social responsibility in a deregulated world-economy. More than 3.000 companies and NGOs as well as states have joined this movement. It aims at protecting human rights, establishing good labor conditions, respecting the environment and preventing corruption. All members are asked to do more than only to respect the law. By taking social responsibility companies are starting to become corporate citizens and members of civil society.

Under this perspective the irresponsibility of the main actors of the housing crisis in 2008 as described in detail by Michael Lewis in his book (The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (New York 2010)) appears as even more scandalous. It is why standards of social responsibility for financial institutions and commercial actions at the stock exchanges are more necessary than ever.

But Arendt’s notion of taking upon ourselves the consequences for things we are entirely innocent of has a further aspect. As citizens of a political community we are all responsible for the actions of its members. This does not only apply to the question of which government and politics we prefer but also to our responsibility as consumers. Do we concede the temptation to buy cheap clothes fabricated in sweatshops or not, do we invest our money in dubious papers with high interest rates or not? To take such responsibility is the starting point of the republican tradition and of citizens’ power.

-Wolfgang Heuer