By: Linda Sapadin
Question: Who is responsible for that? The easy answer: Kids who can't stop stuffing themselves with fast food, pizza and sugar and who don't move their butts off the couch to do anything physical. Fact: Andrea Yates drowns her five children. Question: Who is responsible for that? The easy answer: Guilty as charged. Even if Andrea Yates is a paranoid schizophrenic, she knew the difference between right and wrong. Fact: Pedophile priests have been molesting children for years. Question: Who is responsible for that? The easy answer: The "abominable" priests who abused their power and position to prey upon those who trusted them. Easy answers are not incorrect. Indeed, they are correct, clear, obvious, simple and unmistakably accurate. The problem is that they are just not the complete answer. Easy answers ignore the complexity, intricacy and entanglement of complex forces that greatly contribute to the end result. If we are looking to find the complex answer to who is responsible, it helps to look at the word "responsibility" in a literal way. Not who is liable but who has the "ability to respond?" Who could actually have done something to make the outcome of the above situations different? When we think in this more expansive way, we note that behavior is not only rooted in the individual (who, of course, has the ultimate responsibility) but also in the environment in which one lives. We notice, too, that if the environment is changed, then it's a good chance that the individual's actions will change as well. For example, would so many people be in so much debt if credit card companies themselves acted responsibly, offering credit only to those people who really qualify for it? Would so many folks be over their heads in debt if corporations did not constantly orient their advertisements to "you deserve it" and "live life to the fullest"? In regard to overweight kids, we might imagine a scenario in which schools, as well as parents, offered healthy and tasty food as an alternative to easy and convenient junk food. Or, let's really push the envelope and imagine what would happen if fast food restaurants acted responsibly by advertising the downside of their greasy, fatty foods, simultaneously offering attractive alternative meals. Now what about Andrea Yates. Just imagine, if instead of seeking to get rich by threatening to sue Andrea's doctors, her husband acted responsibly before the tragedy. Think of the many actions he could have taken that might have led to a different outcome. When a parent is unstable, abusive, paranoid, overwhelmed or neglectful, it makes all the difference in the world if the other parent (or another family member) acts in a responsible way. In addition to family obligations, we also need to look at society's responsibility. What would be a responsible way for society to treat those who are psychotic? It's a complex situation that involves money, insurance, civil rights, involuntary commitment and forced treatment. We need to look at those issues. And what shall we say about the situation with the pedophile priests? How different would things have been if the church's hierarchy had acted responsibly instead of covering up the crimes and moving abusive priests from parish to parish? And now that so much is out in the open, would it be responsible to rethink celibacy, attitudes toward human sexuality, and the training, education and monitoring of priests? What a mess all these complex answers are! No wonder it's easier to come up with simple answers. Complexity is burdensome, confusing, exhausting and just plain difficult. Damn! Easy answers are so much easier.
Linda Sapadin, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice who works with people in individual, couple and marital therapy. ©Copyright 2002
