The Learning Curve Chronicles: Responsibility
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
In this monthly blog series, Circles USA Chief Learning Officer Kris Alexander shares insights on her learning journey, sources of inspiration, and what excites her about her work. The column offers a behind-the-scenes perspective on the learning curve that drives growth and progress at CUSA as we continually deepen and enhance our mission of building community to end poverty.
In last month’s blogpost, I discussed barn raising—the third way between bootstraps and benefits—as a model that supports both communal and personal responsibility for ending poverty.
This month, I want to dive into the idea of responsibility. It’s one of those words that can get very messy very quickly, because it means something different to almost everyone.
According to the Oxford dictionary, “responsibility” has over 10 meanings, some of which are:
the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.
to have a duty to work for or help someone who is in a position of authority over you.
the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something.
the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization.
a thing that one is required to do as part of a job, role, or legal obligation.
a moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of.
So when we use the word “responsibility,” we could be talking about leading… or following. About blame for a negative outcome… or accountability for creating a positive one. About acting independently…. or collaborating in a group. It’s no wonder that the word ruffles feathers and carries different meanings for different people.
This also means that when Circles USA and our national community of practice talk about bootstraps (personal responsibility), benefits (communal responsibility), and barnraising (both personal and communal responsibility) as the three primary belief systems around ending poverty, we are often using the same word to mean vastly different things.
Benefits, or communal responsibility, is often interpreted as responsibility for, or “the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. The argument quickly becomes: 'Individuals need to take personal responsibility for their life; it isn’t everyone else’s responsibility to take care of them.'
However, the meaning shifts when we understand communal responsibility as responsibility to one another; or “a moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of.” This understanding is closely aligned with Martin Luther King Jr.’s idea of a Beloved Community. In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” he says, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Communal responsibility is not about controlling or “dealing” with someone, but rather recognizing our interconnectedness. We are creating communities together where we have a mutual responsibility to come together in respect.
Bootstraps, conversely, reflects “the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization.” This is the American Dream: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
However, bootstraps also relates to “responsibility”through another definition, “to have a duty to work for or help someone who is in a position of authority over you.” This suggests that if we just work hard enough within the existing systems, even unjust ones, success will eventually follow for all. This meaning of bootstraps is also inherently paternalistic. It assumes that people in positions of power know what is best for everyone, with little regard for the individual needs and desires of others—especially those outside of the status quo.
When we discuss barn raising, we are weaving together a more cohesive understanding of responsibility. Three of the many definitions are combined:
“a moral obligation to behave correctly toward or in respect of”;
“the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something”; and
“the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization.”
We are not responsible for one another in a hierarchical sense, but we are responsible to one another as an interconnected community. When someone is unable to “act independently and make decisions for themselves” (a necessity to thrive) because of outside circumstances, we are accountable as a community to remove those barriers and uplift that individual. We all have a moral responsibility to “behave correctly toward or in respect of” one another. In doing so, we all retain agency, dignity, and the ability to make choices that support our individual ability to thrive.
All of this returns us to the way that Circles is building community to end poverty. We recognize that individuals and families have the power to take responsibility for their lives and upward mobility. At the same time, we also recognize that leaving poverty behind permanently doesn’t happen in isolation.
So we build these incredible chapters and communities across lines of difference. We learn from, and with, one another. We hold one another and ourselves accountable. We recognize the dignity and worth of every person and practice respect. We raise our barns together.
In this way, responsibility shifts from a hierarchical duty of control to a shared recognition of our web of mutuality, the single garment of destiny. When we come together in community to raise one family’s barn, the entire community benefits. And when the community benefits, so does each individual within it.
Together, we are building community not only to end poverty, but to ensure that every person has access to opportunities that support their ability to thrive.
Read more from Kris on her monthly Circles USA blog, The Learning Curve Chronicles:
Building Community to End Poverty for 25+ Years
