If I know nothing can I be responsible for anything?
If I know nothing can I be responsible for anything?
Hogan's Heroes was an American television situation comedy that ran from 1965, to 1971. The show’s stage, a fictional account of Stalag 13, is situated in a German POW camp during the Second World War. The program featured Colonel Klink as the commandant of the camp and Hogan as the leader of the prisoners; Sergeant Schultz was the somewhat loveable and ever bumbling individual who was in charge of the prisoners. The prisoners were a crew of American and Allied prisoners who assisted Hogan in running a Special Operations group from the camp.
The prisoners were continually concocting a brew of shenanigans designed to fool Klink. Schultz seemed to constantly stumble upon these prisoner designs as they were being prepared and to immediately turn his back, cover his eyes, and say “I know nothing”; so as to position him self as ignorant and thus blameless for anything that might happen.
Sergeant Schultz constantly sought to have the excuse of ignorance of everything going on so that Colonel Klink would not send him to the Russian front should some of the prisoners escape.
I think that many American citizens follow the logic of Sergeant Schultz; they cultivate and embrace a veil of ignorance to protect them selves from having to accept responsibility for anything that might happen.
in very few ideologies is ignorance enough to vindicate one of all responsibility.
Certainly knowingly and deliberately doing something bears more responsibility than not knowing what to do, or doing something in ignorance of the consequences, however, unless we delve into the idiotic extremes of relativism, not knowing is not the same as not being responsible.
The law, in fact, is built around this premise. The standard for knowing is if a reasonable person should have been able to know, and ignorance of the law is not a valid legal defense.
If you know nothing, then you're either a newborn with an undeveloped brain, or you're dead. So no, you're not responsible.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
We humans remain ignorant because we want to be ignorant. To be ignorant is to consider one's self to be blameless for whatever happens. We are fearful of freedom. We think that freedom is a state of irresponsibility and ignorance shields us from responsibility.
I do not think that this is in our genes but it is a result of the society that we have created.
I think that we can create a better society and we must start by becoming self-actualizing self-learners and Critical Thinking independent fair-minded citizens.
Nicely phrased. It's childish thinking, eg, "I can do whatever I want" and "But I didn't mean to..."
Ignorance is a lower-energy state (less to be aware of = less attentional energy), so I think there is some genetic influence. But society does foster, to one degree or another, dependence. Capitalistically, this means dependence on products and services promising to improve quality of life so we don't have to make the effort ourselves. Eg, you wanna lose weight? Why take responsibility for what you put in your mouth when a diet pill or electric ab machine will do the work for you (or so it is hoped).
This looks like a job for Paradigm Shift Man.
__________________
Shinier than a speeding bullet.
Gender: Male Location: Living my life, fighting my war.
I actually agree with this statement, but good luck getting anyone to actually work toward that goal. Not to mention there would have to be an over-haul of various educational policies to allow this to take place, thanks to standardised testing being held in such high regard America, atleast, has become a nation of test takers and are loosing our independant thinkers.
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Aug 8th, 2009 06:14 PM
