Responsibility and Accountability

[elfs]

What's the difference between esteem and respect? The dictionary gives it precisely:

esteem

a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something

respect

a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

I won't even bother to highlight the difference in the text.

It's been one of those things that bothers me when we talk about self-esteem versus self-respect. Criminals frequently score high on self-esteem, after all.

So here's another one: What's the different between accountablity and responsibility? Well, the definitions:

accountability

The obligation to account for one's activities and to disclose the results

responsibility

The obligation to perform or complete a task

. Again, I'm not going to bother highlighting the difference in the text.

When I hear people talk about "accountability in government," I tend to cringe. Not because I don't think we should have it, but because I think it should be the second thing we talk about. Yet I never hear people talk about "responsibility in governance," never hear issues of whether or not we trust people to do their jobs responsibly. Whenever someone issues a statement about "accountability," they're starting from a position of faithlessness and mistrust.

Comments

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Accountability is much more important because the human species has a tendency NOT to complete what they have chosen/agreed/promised to. In fact, no human being has ever had a 100% track record for doing so his/her entire lifetime. Which means, by definition, every human being, at some point in their life, will NOT have completed something they said they would.

So it's much more important to be ACCOUNTABLE to this, because then one sees what needs to be completed. And can hopefully complete it.

If we push ONLY responsibility, we push a fairy tale.

(Though, ideally, it would be best to try to achieve both, 100% accountability is much more realistic.)