TOPIC: ISSUE93 - "The concept of 'individual responsibility' is a necessary fiction. Although societies must hold individuals accountable for their own actions, people's behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making." WORDS: 482 TIME: 00:45:00 The speaker asserts that individual responsibility is nothing more than an illusion and that it is outer forces rather than people's willingness that determines people's behavior. I think the statement reasonable in part. While society has great influences on people, they are still capable of making choices and be responsible for their decisions. Admittedly, our behavior is affected by the circumstances. We have tendency to conform to our society, even without having any idea why we do so. An illustrating case is that when Christmas comes, people all around the world will "celebrate", such as greeting, going on a trip, and, of course, shopping. Do people in Asia who believe in Buddhism really appreciate the spirit of the religious holiday? I do not think so. However, they do like those in the West do. In addition, people born in different areas seem to have different destiny. An African boy can hardly have higher achievement than a normal individual in the U.S., even though the former is far more brilliant then the latter. Nonetheless, there are many counterexamples to the statement of the speaker, showing that we have freedom to choose and be responsible for the decision regardless how others see it. What revolution means is that one does something absolutely different from that of the people of his time and drives the society forward. In the field of business, new ideas and approaches merges everyday. The purpose of the businessmen is not to conform to the existing circumstances, but to create what was never thought before. What is more, by reading autobiography, we know there are many people born in poor family or countries and finally reached great achievements. One of the most famous cases will be Wang, the excellent baseball player in MLB. The way I see it, the society will be a mess if the individual responsibility does not exist in reality as the speaker claims. People should be responsible for their behavior only when they can make choices. If there is no such thing as individual duty, people who commit crimes or cause harms to the society cannot be blamed. Anyone can claim that he does not make mistakes out of his own will, but because others made him so. Imagine what it would be like if a beggar steals bread in the bakery, and when he is caught, he denies that he should be punished; rather, he argues that it is the society that should account for his poor status, which forces him to steal. Similarly, killing and robbing could be reasonable, if individual responsibility were nothing more than a necessary fiction. In conclusion, it is acceptable to say that our behavior is partially effected by forces not of our own making. Since history has shown that people can choose and account for what they do, to make the society stable, we should not view the individual duty as merely illusion. ※ 编辑: philJamy 来自: 118.166.248.128 (08/09 12:02)