Last night, I was chatting with my wife before bed. I was awarded a nice scholarship when I started college, and she was wondering if I'd put that off until the last moment like I had with everything else in high school (actual quote: "If I'd known you in high school, I wouldn't have married you"). Turns out that I'd filled the application out on the afternoon of the deadline and hoofed it over to the Honors College (then located in Carmichael), turning it in just before five that evening. When she heard that, she was surprised, but not shocked — it was, after all, in character for me at the time. But she commented, "I can't believe you'd play dice with your future."
That got me thinking about us college students in general. We're out of high school, on our own; for each one of us, our future is in our own hands. We are responsible for it. I feel this pretty acutely, perhaps more than most, since I'm bearing the burden not just for my future, but also for my wife's and child's. But what is responsibility? Merriam-Webster says it's "The state of being responsible." Really helpful. If you peruse the definition, you just go in a circle, but several other helpful phrases pop up: accountability for, cause or agent of, able to answer for.
This suggests that "responsibility for X", whatever "X" is, involves being answerable for the state of X, being the cause or agent of X, or perhaps being accountable for X. The second is maybe not so helpful, since we're not talking about causes (e.g., compare "a hurricane is responsible for New Orleans' current state" to "President Bush failed his responsibility for making sure FEMA was ready for hurricanes"). The other two seem to involve expectations. That seems key. Let's see if we can synthesize this into a coherent, non-circular definition. A person is responsible for X in the eyes of some external observer when that observer expects him to ensure some future state of X.
It's worth mentioning that the external observer ends up being differently conceived for different people (which is why I didn't specify it). A fundamentalist might think of the external observer as God, e.g., I will be accountable to God for my actions as a person, citizen, father and husband at the judgment, whereas a humanist might think of the external observer as society, e.g., social expectations nudge me toward certain roles as a father, citizen, person and husband with disapprobation as punishment for non conformation.
In any case, regardless of the ultimate source of the expectations, they manifest themselves as the expectations of the people around us in several different ways. First, through social norms and mores. Second, through laws. The first is pretty easy: As above, different social groups will have different expectations — and hence, members will have different responsibilities. For instance, Muslims are responsible for ensuring prayer at the appointed five times per day, whereas non-Muslims are not. Some groups hold their members to lower standards of responsibility than others; if I were an Evangelical, I'd be expected to maintain a certain standard of conduct that is not expected by (perhaps) some fraternities.
That we can set the second is a luxury of living in a democratic society. We can note different sets of responsibilities by looking from country to country. For example, in some Muslim countries, women are responsible for making sure that men cannot be tempted by their bodies. In European countries, the rich are expected to contribute proportionally more to the government than in the United States.
Finally, there is one other source of responsibility: one's own convictions. I believe that I need to do everything I can to ensure the functioning of democracy in this country, so in particular I vote. My father works all day and often all night to make sure that his business functions because he thinks it's his responsibility to do so.
What is responsibility? It's how your expectations guide your behavior — so the next time you have an important task, take a moment and think through how you expect yourself to behave. Is it really responsible to play dice with your future?
Neil Coleman is a senior math, physics and economics major and writes ‘The Bogeyman' for the Daily News. His views do not necessarily agree with those of the newspaper.
Write to Neil at necoleman@bsu.edu.
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