Collective Responsibility?

[razor343]

What's your opinion on it?

Me personally, I hate it, getting flak for something you haven't done, and your teacher/parent/superior knows it.

I am aware that it's supposed to be a lesson to the people who acted stupid, and it's supposed to show them that their idiocy doesn't just make them suffer, but don't you think that eventually the people who've done nothing wrong, will be more inclined to act like pricks because they've had enough of it, or because they think that whether or not they act good doesn't matter because they're getting screwed over anyway?

 

[Reptiloid]

Holding someone "innocent" responsible for another's actions is completely ridiculous. I don't know what's more scary, that someone invented this ass-backwards concept to begin with, or that it seems to be catching on and used more frequently.

 

[TrollOgerElf]

.... and that principle *blank* is why i set her car on fire.

i have a rule if you're going to be punished with no escape EARN IT
EARN IT HARD

 

[AnnaIME]

On one hand: collective punishment is wrong. On the other hand...

From the "teacher/parent" listing, I'm guessing that you are still in school. A lot of the bad things that happen in schools only happen because there is a sort of peer attitude that lets these things happen. For instance: If enough of the kids in a class show that bullying is unacceptable, then the few people who are inclined to bully become less likely to act on their inclination. It's the same at jobs: if a majority of the workers feel it's OK to steal office supplies, then it's more likely that office supplies will be stolen.

Collective responsibility is... complicated.
Collective punishment is still wrong.

And then there are the times when the collective punishment isn't a punishment, but a consequence. Some kids at my son's school vandalised the school. The principal had to take the money meant for new books to pay for the repairs. My son, fourth grade, got "punished" for something done by a few kids in junior high. Not fair, but unavoidable.

Is this the context you mean?

 

[Frotality]

i think your mean collective guilt... as opposed to individual responsibility. let me just check my collection of interesting quotes...

"Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility."
-Thomas Szasz

QED; it extends far beyond the "no one wants to confess to setting the fire alarm off? fine, detention for EVERYONE then!" i believe your referencing. what exactly it extends to, im too lazy at the moment to tax my brain with remembering, but some famous psychiatrist has a quote about it, so thats something.

unrelated, but in that collection is a lightheartedly misogynistic joke that had me ROFLing for real...if your interested.

 

[x0ny]

It's unfair, but no one said life is fair. People who run businesses have to deal with this problem you describe daily. I work in a take away, and we always get blamed if we get someone's order wrong, it's never the customer's fault for not paying attention when we repeat their order, and we always have to compensate.

 

[Cazza]

When people blame a collective for something. It's because that person or group is to lazy or don't have the resources to find the few people in that collective responsible. The few people who are responsible normally are jerks and don't care that others are being punished for what they did. In fact many enjoy watching others get in trouble for something they didn't do.

I myself when blamed in a collective when I wasn't at fault step up and take responsibility for the groups actions. I have only done it a few times (only a few times it has happened). Both the collective and the authority know I'm not really the person they were looking for but because they blame everyone they have to take that I take responsibility for what ever action was done to get everyone in this situation. The collective then is released. I don't get punished.

Everyone thinks highly of me for stepping up. In my situations it was clear I wasn't to bame I get thanked for taking responibility. It ends the situation and everyone doesn't need to suffer longer then they would otherwise. It's a bit of a risk but I judge the situations as they come.

True some people might get bitter and begin acting like a prick. It depends on the person. People in the collective not at blame need to take life as it comes. Life isn't fair. Hopefully they will get through it.

 

[Betancore]

You mean like the whole class getting detention because one person talks? I think that's pretty ridiculous. It may have been because I was always the kid paying attention because I didn't like getting into trouble, so I resented it when other people got me into trouble and I had to suffer along with the rest of them for something I didn't do.

 

[Cazza]

People believe that sounds more like collective punishment. I believe the collective responsibility was to stop who ever was doing the act. Using the talking in class example of over. It was the collective responsibility to stop that one person talking because no one did everyone is just as responsible for the act.

If the teacher is using that logic then.

Collective responsibility and collective punishment are really the same thing.

 

[Zaik]

It's an effective team training tool if you allow everyone to have their way with the retard when you're done punishing them all.

Even if you don't, it's a super advanced guilt trip on them. Sometimes they don't get it, but in that case everyone else learns to not let the retard have any responsibility and he gets shoved off into a corner while the real people work.