Wednesday, November 5, 2014

... on Responsability (Neither a Virtue, Nor - at least not totally - in the Bible)

Fr Mahan: God Expects Us to Be Responsible
franciscanfriars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swb8PmJKlIM

I
I am not sure the word is very well chosen.

Could not find 'responsabilibus' in verses.

Show all words that start with 'r' or 're' or 'res'

Show all words that start with 'R' or 'Re' or 'Res'


I had already used up the forms of the singular and the other forms of the plural.

Douay-Rheims Bible Online site, Latin Vulgate, search="responsabilibus"
http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/s?t=0&q=responsabilibus&b=lvb

So, the word is not in St Jerome's Vulgate, nor in DRB [see below - however, an earlier search I recall as giving "am I responsable for my brother?" in the mouth of Cain]. What about St Thomas?

  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilis site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabili site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabile site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilem site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabiles site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilium site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilibus site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).

    Those seven are the only phonetically and orthographically distinct forms of the word right?

    Oh, forgot neuter plural (N/A/V):

  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilia site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).

    Now for noun:

  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilitas site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilitatis site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilitati site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilitatem site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilitate site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilitates site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilitatum site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).
  • Aucun document ne correspond aux termes de recherche spécifiés (responsabilitatibus site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/).

  • BUT, do we find all the words used by St Thomas this search?

    Let us take the word "movetur" alternative spelling "mouetur" (certainly present in Prima Via "nihil mouetur nisi ab alio motum")

    Yes, indeed:

  • movetur site:www.corpusthomisticum.org/
    Environ 387 résultats (0,31 secondes)


II
For English, there is only one form:

Could not find 'responsable' in verses.

Show all words that start with 'r' or 're' or 'res'

Show all words that start with 'R' or 'Re' or 'Res'


Douay-Rheims Bible Online site, Douay Rheims Bible, search=responsable
http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/s?t=0&q=responsable&b=drb 

Same form, alternative spelling:

Could not find 'responsible' in verses.

Show all words that start with 'r' or 're' or 'res'

Show all words that start with 'R' or 'Re' or 'Res'


III 2:09
the virtue of responsibility is an important one ...

The Bible passage you gave rather makes clear that the virtues of Charity to God and Neighbour or the one virtue of double charity, is "important."

Wonder if the word important is in the Bible [see previous]? The word "necessary" is. Now, everything which is necessary, a word which is really in the Bible, is in the sense we understand it important, but:

  • are all important things necessary?

  • is a non-necessary "important" thing really any more "important" than another non-necessary thing? Or are we completely free to make our own priorities among things that are not necessary?


On the wandering through the Desert, it was necessary to collect mannah for the day, and on fridays for the day and the following day (no collection was allowed on sabbath). But since this was easy to do in very much less time than a day's labour, as I suppose, it was also necessary they had time for things not necessary.

So, what were they doing that time? Some were no doubt giving notes to Moses about what happened behind his back so he could write all of Exodus-Deuteronomy, except last chapter of the latter. And if two notes contradicted each other, Moses was inerrantly inspired to take the right one, exactly as in his choices as to documents involved in his final redaction of Genesis. But certainly not all of them or even very many. Apart from this work, necessary as such, but necessary only for a few to be actually doing if it was to be done, they were free to chose. And do not pretend they mended clothes, at the most they made new clothes for those born, since clothes and sandals were not worn out during the wandering.

So, what were they doing? They were in fact free to do, most of the time, what they wanted, and it is not written they had a fixed set of priorities as to what was most "important" among the things not necessary.

So, virtue of "responsibility" is "important" but still not found in the Bible. Neither is the word "important":

Could not find 'important' in verses.


Douay-Rheims Bible Online site, Douay Rheims Bible, search=important
http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/s?t=0&q=important&b=drb

Can as well check on "responsabilia" ...

Could not find 'responsabilia' in verses.


Douay-Rheims Bible Online site, Latin Vulgate Bible, search=responsabilia
http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/s?t=0&q=responsabilia&b=lvb

IV 2:25 etc
"show that you are responsible, show up on time"

You mean "show that you are a faithful employee [servant], show up when your employer expects it" I suppose?

Note that this is indeed, not important but necessary for an employee. As he is a kind of servant. BUT this is not a paradigm for virtues of those not employees. Virtues of those not servants.

Obviously, if someone has trouble showing up on time every morning, this does not mean he is, even according to the most common modern understanding of "responsability" an "irresponsible person", it means it is "responsible" of him to seek positions where showing up in the morning is either easier (living closer to where you show up or showing up closer to where you live) or not a requirement (working late if you live alone and have no one waiting for you and if also you enjoy flex-time is a solution).

[Or being self employed, without customers expecting you to show up at the bakeries' opening hours]

And if one is still in a position to be a disappointment about showing up, there is also the virtue of modesty. A Lithuanian lesson had already had its first half (me waiting outside so as not to disturb) and the professor would have been happier about my "atsiprašau" (excuse me) if I could have told her in perfect Lithuanian "I missed the bus".

I was of course talking about the most common understanding, there are sectarian and Puritan understandings of the word too - and that is really where the word comes from.

V 2:56
"how many irresponsable people there are in a work place"

Could not find 'irresponsabilibus' in verses. - Will you trust me I searched the other forms and even this one without a link?

But "how many irresponsable people there are in a work place" is a problem with any large workplace, because it is so collective. Work places don't have to be very collective. St Joseph, his sons from previous marriage or his nephews, Jesus ... a carpenter's shop where probably everyone knew exactly what to do and most of the time did it. Take instead the huge factories where log after log is rid of branches and cut up in planks ... we have such in Sweden, no doubt Canada has them galore as well. The noise means it is irresponsible to take out your earplugs. Hearing orders means it is irresponsible to have the earplugs in. Men are so plentiful, if you are the least bit lazy, you know if you wait a few seconds more, someone else is bound to do it while you take the next task in a slower way. If men taking this attitude get fired easily, there will certainly be lots of men PUSHING to do their part and a bit more, and that will also result in carelessness and very damaging, lifedamaging or mortal accidents.

VI 2:34
"do what you are supposed to do"

As long as it is within personal capacity (as showing up on time is not always within mine) and consistent with the law of God, sure, that is part of what being a faithful servant means.

"don't complain, don't make excuses"

You are resuming part of US culture here. While complaining is annoying anywhere (unless voicing the complaint of many), there are really different attitudes to making excuses if they are true and not damning on one's capacity. Making up untrue excuses is of course against the virtue of veracitas.



VII 3:03
"how being responsible will distinguish you from the herd"

I have not tried working where they cut up timber. I have tried working where they pick strawberries. Part of my slowness was simply slowness - I do my fastest and am still behind. But part of it was also being careful not to pick green berries. I was "distinguished from the herd" - and my employer, with one exceptional privileged mission (picking for the family) was not exactly treating me better than the rest for it.

Meanwhile, the "herd" was pushed into picking faster, some were covering green berries with nice red ones to get it done, and one day we were told the shops had complained and sent the strawberries back for a second sorting.

This we were supposed to do without getting pay tickets* for it ... because "we" had been picking irresponsibly.

This resulted in my feeling I was morally better (more honest in commutative justice) than my employer, and I wanted no more to be under him. I tried to start my pilgrimage to Santiago, which I had already decided, in order to get close to a girl I had met there. I could not get out of Denmark yet, or even of Zealand. People thinking I must have been an alcoholic for forsaking my work without pay were simply not hospitable enough. I was getting back to the pay (in the hope aslo to see the girl, but she was already gone) with a severe stomach flue. Only after getting back, getting the pay and still staying around in the barracks a few days while trying to get better, was I thrown out of the barracks and started my pilgrimage to Santiago.

* pay tickets = given per strawberry boxes and later exchanged for cash pay, with employer counting them.

VIII 3:25
"if you can be trusted in small things"

Now that is about trustworthiness, not directly about responsibility as US culture understands it.

"then you will later be trusted with greater responsibility/responsibilities"

Positions, yes. Responsibility - which is here a different matter than the modern name of a modern virtue - was according to Douay Rheims not the word he used for it. Here you use "responsibility" to mean a position - something that requires trustworthiness, rather than this virtue itself.

IX 3:58
as to the talents, initiative is a better word [and so is confidence] than "responsibility" for what the faithful servants had showed. It is not in all positions that initiative is expected from one. And it may be expected from one from the side God who knows as well as oneself what one can do and cannot do, even if not from one from the side of others.

X 4:42
We are united with Jesus Who "takes responsibility for our sins" ... here you mean pays our debt.

XI 4:59
"to pay the ransom for our irresponsibility" ... you mean for our sins.

Sin and "irresponsibility" are not synonymous.

XII 5:22
"that we might be made able to take on"

Yes.

"the responsabilities that He gives us."

You mean the duties and good works to fulfil and the sins to avoid.

As said, though responsability is an understandable word for it, even I think used by Chesterton in context of polemising against Calvinism/Determinism which leaves no person responsible for anything, I am not sure it is the best one.

XIII
While I was trying the first time to write above comment, I was hampered as I think by a librarian acting on behalf of a shrink who is pulling such strings behind the curtains in order to "responsabilise" me, as if a) using the internet as I do and seeking the carreer as a writer that I do seek were "irresponsible" and as if b) this supposed irresponsability were a bad thing.

First problem on screen: back to history of youtube watching.

Back to video, second problem on screen, video goes full screen.

An irritating first problem which also interrupted the first time I tried to write it, after I had written most of it. Can be arranged if someone is abusing computer admin privileges. Alas. Could theoretically be an accident, I think not.

XIV
Why do I not think it was an accident?

There is a person I sometimes see in the cafeteria of the library. I sometimes catch him chatting with some single person in ways suggesting he is his therapist. I saw him in the psychology shelves, close to the philosophy and theology ones. Now, this is my third session before a computer with the video. After first one, when posting lack of word "responsability" in Vulgate and DRB, I saw him look sharply at me in the cafeteria. It is not the first time he does so precisely after I write something displeasing to certain networks.

Between that sharp look and the above provocation, there was also another one, which could have interrupted my writing more completely, like I could have got thrown out for the reaction I gave on someone else's provocation.
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