Responsibility

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain  said "If you're out of a job, poor, or lost your home to foreclosure, maybe you should blame yourself."  Well, of course, the man has a point. After all, if we as free willed individuals cannot accept ultimate responsibilty for our lives, then who, or what, should? God? "Nature?".  Your choice. But one thing's for certain. It is we who experience the consequences of our actions, and it is we who can make choices and take action which makes our lives better. So we might as well take credit for everything that we are and do as people.

At the same time, we are all born into a world over which we have no control, which was formed far before our arrival. We are, in a sense, victims of the world, and the world's systems. We grow and do what we can in the existing systems,but perhaps some of us don't think the existing systems are in the best interest of the human species, and should be changed or abolished. There's nothing wrong in doing this. And if you think the existing systems of the world have affected you, which they indeed have, you are not abdicating responsibility for yourself, you are simply asserting that the world effects you, and everybody else, negatively, in some of its systems, and that these should be changed.

So when candidate Cain says "your life is your fault", its not like he's saying anything original, or profound. But he is leaving out one important part: we all affect each other's lives.