Relational Responsibility: Resources for Sustainable Dialogue

by Sheila McNamee

The tradition of individual responsibility where individuals deliberate, morally evaluate, and then decide on a course of action is dear to the heart of Western ethical and legal codes and informs many contemporary practices of therapy, education, and organizational life. It also typically isolates, alienates, and ultimately invites the eradication of the otherùa step toward non-meaning. A vast range of current thinking places this view of the independently responsible individual in strong question. In Relational Responsibility, the authors attempt to transform the concept of responsibility in such a way that the relational process replaces the individual as the central concern. This volume invites practices that replace alienation and isolation with meaning-building dialogue. It is structured in a way that demonstrates their ideas. In Part I, McNamee and Gergen examine relational responsibility followed by their analysis of a challenging case study involving the issue of child sexual abuse. Part II contains responses from scholars and practitioners from the fields of communication, psychology, therapy, and organizational development that extend the original dialogue set out by McNamee and Gergen. Part III is a rejoinder to Part II in redirecting and augmenting the original conception and practice of relational responsibility. Relational Responsibility touches on a number of different disciplines, including communication theory, sociology, social theory, interpersonal and group communication, conflict management, and child abuse.

248 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 1998

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was supposed to write a review on this back in 2001, and got sidetracked because I was trying to graduate from my master's program. For the record, I'll say that the text can be difficult, but Gergen's ideas are interesting. He is one of the brand of postmodernists that don't believe that "anything goes"--not a relativist. Instead, he tries to argue for a postmodern ethics based on relationships--how the connection between people demands responsibility toward and for one another. So rather than being based on moral absolutes that are free from context, he proposes (like Levinas, Slife, Bauman, Warner, and some of my other favorite philisophical/ethical writers) an ethics that is based on relationships.

I appreciate the distinction (between absolutist ethics and relational ethics) because I think that it can be easily adapted to refect the unique LDS understanding of morality. Let me set up the context first. I feel that there is a strong moralistic faction in the LDS community that seems to believe that there are "eternal principles" that are absolute, exist independent of God--even exist above God (I've heard my own mother say that God is God because He follows eternal principles, not the other way around)--and that we, like God, have an eternal destiny that is dependent on how well we learn to live by these "eternal principles."

But I perceive that there is also a lot in the Gospel that suggests that a "relational ethics" (which Gergen and others describe) is more appropriate for our unique LDS understanding of God and truth, rather than an absolutist ethics.

For example, we follow Jesus not because He points us to the truth, but because He actually IS "the way, the truth, and the life." If we want to know what is true for us, we don't need to consult abstract principles (i.e., "what would 'honesty' dictate," or "what would 'responsibility' suggest is the right path?"). Instead, we can actually go to the Truth-giver and find out from Him what is true and right--that is a very relationally-contexted idea of truth, and very different from the relativism and absolutism that are battling it out for dominance in contemporary Christianity.

If "eternal principles" are the highest truth out there, then we should be worshipping them, rather than God. It's just another form of idolatry.

But if we have an LDS understanding of truth (truth that is constantly being revealed, not just static in an unchangeable canon), which is impossible to separate from our unique epistemology (revelation: we believe that we can receive direct answers to prayer, that we can be lead daily--and even hourly--by the Spirit, that God is always mindful of us and interested in directing us, and we aspire to having a prayer in our heart at all times--essentially a two-way open line of communication), then I believe that it is not "eternal principles" that we look to for guidance or inspiration, but a living, responding, relationally-connected Father in Heaven (and the Son and Spirit that are indistinguishable from Him in every meaningful aspect except that of being separate personages).

I'd rather find Jesus in a Sunday School lesson than "eternal principles" any day--Jesus saves, not abstract ideas. And it's when I'm most connected to Him that I behave most ethically--not when I'm doing my darndest to follow "correct principles."