Headlines capture our attention. Famous people who’ve sinned, gory deaths, sinister government departments, or blame being placed at the feet of respected organisations. Last Thursday I was caught by the headline, “Cherish died after St. John delay.” It says everything and nothing, it’s true and it’s not true. It depends on what your first reading was. For me, it was saying that St. Johns was in some way accountable.
As a society it feels like we have developed a “hair trigger” when it comes to apportioning blame at the feet of organisations under that banner of public accountability. In fact “accountability” has become a notable feature of 21st century political culture. We are told, usually on the News, that we cannot do without it. In common usage, accountability has toppled justice as the pre-eminent virtue of all institutions.
Yet is accountability really that virtuous? Does accountability make our choices “right” in the same way that justice makes our choices “just” or that courage makes them “courageous”? I wonder wether accountability is really a vice masquerading as a virtue; an adjective that retards the best of human nature and simultaneously poisons society?
The origin of ‘accountability’ is in finance. Accounting was once telling the story of what has been done with money entrusted to a person or group. An auditor would certify that the story was true and fair. However, accountability has grown to become the application of complex and arbitrary rules to evaluate the “actions” of individuals and organisations. It is no longer about telling what has happened to a particular sum of money, it has become the language in which a people are described and evaluated.
Accountability is not about money so much as power: “you have these powers – tell us what you did with them, because we have power over you”. Ironically it’s a form of bullying.
So what’s the difference between responsibility and accountability?
In a particular action, I might be responsible. However, when asked, “To whom I am accountable” the answer is “no one”. Indeed I can feel responsible for something that has gone wrong simply because I did nothing to prevent it, yet there may not be an organisation or institution to assign that responsibility to me. I just know it’s mine.
The process of accountability may, on occasion, lead us to truth. Yet accountability has a number of ugly children: moral cowardice when hiding behind procedures we know in our hearts to be wrong; deception in presenting an account of our actions that we know will be acceptable by those who hold power over us but which is utterly ambiguous to the matter in hand; and above all the pursuit of “my” power rather than the betterment of our society or the greater glory of God.
Accountability is an unsatisfactory imitation of a real virtue. The virtue it pretends to be and in doing so subverts, is responsibility. Accountable might sound good, but it achieves little. Owning responsibility creates a culture that understands justice, knows forgiveness and draws on the best of our humanity. It’s the way we were created to be.
Digby Wilkinson 2009