What it means to truly take responsibility
“Out of respect for my family, who’ve been through a lot, and actually, out of respect for myself, because I’ve been through a lot, I’m just not going there.” - Matt Hancock, former UK Health Secretary
Taking responsibility is not a linear process. Too often it is characterised as a simple concept. But in reality, aknowledging responsibility is nuanced, and works in multiple directions. And that makes it a difficult part of everyday existence, but a vital one.
To explore what I mean, I want to touch on a piece of social commentary from the UK this week.
More than two years on from the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, many ramifications are still sifting through social and political discourse. While every country had their own cast of central figures at the heart of their response, a prominent one in the UK was that of Matt Hancock.
He served as the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from July 2018 to June 2021. In this role, Hancock was responsible for overseeing the National Health Service (NHS) and formulating policies related to healthcare and public health - including the COVID response.
According to the BBC, “He was forced to resign as health secretary in June 2021 when CCTV images of him kissing his aide Gina Coladangelo, with whom he was having an affair, in his office were published by a tabloid newspaper.” This was an egregious transgression of the COVID rules at the time, the ones he had helped to bring into effect. Sniffs of scandal would continue to dog the man, from scrutiny over his handling of the pandemic, to decisions to discharge elderly patients from hospitals into care homes, to the awarding of COVID-related contracts under allegedly murky circumstances.
But this is not a political discussion. People are free to feel differently about the veracity of the above sequence of events.
This is an analysis of the idea of responsibility. Let’s move on to his response to these events.
Matt Hancock, appearing on The News Agents Podcast
In a recent interview on a popular politically themed podcast, The News Agents2, when pressed about his adulterous act caught on camera, Hancock responded in this way:
“Out of respect for my family, who’ve been through a lot, and actually, out of respect for myself, because I’ve been through a lot, I’m just not going there.”
In a follow up episode, The News Agents themselves analysed this comment and said:
“… despite being at the centre of the biggest health crisis in a century, what is preoccupying Hancock most now, his reflex in that interview, is about how it affected him. How to some extent he has been a victim of all of the controversy around him.”
Hancock is taking responsibility for himself, and the impact on his family. And he is right to do so. Someone in his position, whether through their own making or not, will have suffered a large degree of public scrutiny and challenging mental thoughts and emotions. He deserves to be able to choose how to deal with those not insignificant challenges.
But unfortunately for Matt, responsibility is not linear. This situation is not simply about him.
Whilst, yes, we do indeed have a responsibility to ourselves, we also have a responsibility to others. It is multi-directional.
We do not get to simply choose actions throughout our lives that only benefit ourselves without consequence. By participating in a world where we may all benefit freely from the opportunities and resources that a society provides, we implicitly acknowledge that we have certain responsibilities towards that society in return.
We have responsibility to ourselves. AND we have responsibility to others.
There is much discussion in the world today about the ideas of ‘victimhood’. That too many people are willing to see themselves as victims, without taking agency for their role in their own lives, or those around them.
Being able to recognise that responsibility works in two directions, towards both yourself and others, is a fundamental part of breaking this mould. Developing the mental fortitude to hold both of these thoughts simultaneously in our minds is difficult, but necessary in any society that desires to value fairness.
Elbert Hubbard was an American 19th century author, and his prescient words from 150 years ago have never rung truer in this day and age:
“Freedom is the price of responsibility”
We are free to act as we wish, to say what we want. But we are not free from consequence. We are free3 to pursue lives that may lead to public success and notoriety, but with that comes the price of responsibility we have to those in that same populace.
In our own lives, we are free to pursue those things that we believe make us happy. We are free to pursue them in the belief that feeling happy, or content, is ultimately something we alone are responsible for. But at the same time, this freedom comes with a responsibility towards others in the opposite decision.
Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states, ‘To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction‘. And responsibility works in the same way.
That is why the act of taking responsibility is not a simple one. It is one that requires careful consideration to the directions of the act itself. Towards yourself, towards others, and where perhaps the limits of those directions end.
I believe most people don’t find themselves on the Hancock side of the responsibility law. In my experience, most people err on the side of trying to serve or please others, and have a greater need of identifying when they have a responsibility to themselves. That is a different kind of challenge, and one that brings its own consequences, albeit more personal and less public ones. In fact, it is very easily possible to extend our responsibilities beyond where they lie.
In these scenarios, it is important to realise where our responsibilities have their own limits.
Take the example of listening to a friend or partner who has just experienced a hurtful exchange at work. They have been unfairly blamed for mistakes on a project. They are feeling down on themselves, perhaps insecure of their abilities. Our responsibility may be to support them in listening to them, and providing comfort. But we are not responsible for the feelings they are experiencing, no matter how much it might pain ourselves to see them hurting. They alone are responsible for those feelings. Just as we are responsible for ours in that moment. We must decide on the limit of our own responsibilities both towards ourselves, and others.
It is in this light that I would challenge Matt Hancock, and anyone, to think more deeply about his responsibilities, and consider the multi-directional nature of the situations he finds himself in moving forward. It is possible to both uphold his responsibility to himself, and to the public. In fact, the freedoms of his country not only allow him to do so, but expect it of him. As it is with all of us.
I have often quoted from Viktor Frankl’s moving and powerful account of his experiences as a holocaust survivor in Nazi concentration camps, and he once again has impactful words to share on the ideas of freedom and responsibility, and their multi-faceted natures:
“Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness.
In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.
That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast”
With freedom, we are duty-bound to take responsibility - in all its directions.
To ourselves, and to others. And, in doing so, we may achieve our own freedom.
Or, as the wife of the US President during the Second World War puts it:
“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”