#responsibilization

“Consumers are now expected to address a wide variety of social issues through their individual consumption choices (e.g., global warming, income inequality) whereas in the past these issues would have been addressed structurally by governments, as part of a broader movement of individualization.”

Instead of saying that everyone - i.e. every one - is responsible for climate change, we all have to do our bit, it would be better to say that no-one is, and that's the very problem. The cause of eco-catastrophe is an impersonal structure which, even though it is capable of producing all manner of effects, is precisely not a subject capable of exercising responsibility. The required subject - a collective subject - does not exist, yet the crisis, like all the other global crises we're now facing, demands that it be constructed.

As a sociologist, it’s easy for me to see how that blame is deeply misplaced — how women should be blaming our government for failing to stop the spread of the virus, for failing to pay people to stay home, for failing to provide an adequate social support system with affordable childcare, affordable healthcare, and sufficient financial protections for people who can’t make ends meet…how women should be blaming their employers for putting profits before people, for setting unrealistic expectations, and for failing to provide the support that workers need…how women should, in many cases, be blaming their own spouses or partners for prioritizing their own careers, for not doing enough at home, and for denying the science about COVID-19. In the U.S., most of us aren’t taught to use our sociological imaginations. We’re not taught to think about social problems as structural problems. We’re not taught to see the forces that operate beyond our control – forces like capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy. And we’re not taught to see how those forces create many of the challenges we face in our lives and constrain our ability to make choices that could help us overcome those challenges. Instead, we — especially women and people from other systematically marginalized groups — are taught to self-help-book our way out of structural problems. To believe that all our problems would go away if only we were to strictly follow some seventeen-step plan.