How Responsibility Prevents World Peace

Why we get what we really, really want—and then blame other people for it

Invest 20 minutes to understand the story of your life. And to build world peace.

Responsibility is a good thing, isn’t it?

At least, that always seemed so obvious to me that I never thought about it. We need responsible parents, responsible leaders and responsible politicians.

When something is not working in a company, responsibilities need to be defined more clearly. When people do not make an effort, they should finally take responsibility. And when something goes wrong in society, we look for those responsible.

The opposite would be irresponsibility. And surely no one could seriously want that.

By now, I believe that the way we think about responsibility is one of the reasons we fail to create peace.

That is a bold claim. I know.

It is not where we started, either. We simply wanted to understand what responsibility would look like in a healthy organisation. A small question of architecture. Almost a little boring.

Then, somewhere along the way, we took a wrong turn and suddenly found ourselves talking about world peace. Or perhaps, for the first time, we took the right one.

An innocent question

In companies, you constantly hear: “Responsibilities need to be clearly defined.”

What does that actually mean?

Usually, someone has a goal, a wish or a problem. Tasks emerge from it. These are distributed down a hierarchy. Each person receives a part and becomes responsible for completing it. Afterwards, someone checks whether everything has been done.

That sounds normal. It is the basic structure of almost every organisation. But it is also the basic structure of feudalism.

The will originates at the top. Orders travel downwards. Whoever receives an assignment owes its fulfilment and is held liable for any deviation.

Of course, a modern company is not a medieval kingdom. Even so, the family resemblance is hard to miss:

Executive board, division head, department head, team lead, employees.

Today, the people at the bottom are more often allowed to decide for themselves how to fulfil someone else’s will. We call that empowerment. When they treat someone else’s assignment as if it were their own, we call it ownership. And when they organise themselves so that less direction is needed from above, we call it self-organisation.

All of this is friendlier than an open chain of command. But the direction often remains the same. Responsibility internalises the chain of command. The boss no longer needs to stand beside me. I already carry their expectant gaze within me.

This is not stupid

At this point, it is easy to fall into the next old trap and start looking for someone to blame. The evil managers. The patriarchy. Capitalism. Old white men. Or whichever group currently fits our explanation of the world.

But this architecture was not built because people were stupid. It was built in a world experienced as dangerous.

When resources are scarce, mistakes can be fatal and people do not trust one another, control is a sensible survival strategy. Someone decides. Someone executes. Someone monitors. And when something goes wrong, it must quickly become clear who is liable.

Responsibility is a coping architecture. It does not resolve fear. It organises life around it.

It is like the ultra-power-saving mode on a smartphone. When the battery is nearly empty, functions are switched off. Beauty, play, surprise and free agency no longer matter. The only thing that matters is keeping the system running somehow.

In survival mode, functioning is a success.

It becomes a problem only when we forget that we are living in ultra-power-saving mode. Then we keep optimizing which app is still allowed to run—and mistake that for life. But that’s the path to becoming a zombie. And that’s the most exciting decision we’ll ever make: to stay alive or become a zombie?

Responsibility begins with the problem

When we think in terms of responsibility, we usually begin with an unwanted state: Something is missing. Something is not working. Something must be done.

Then we look for a person to do it.

The person comes second. The problem comes first. Only then do we ask which person can be used to solve it.

We do this everywhere. In families, adults have an idea of what a child should become. The child must gradually take responsibility for conforming to that shape.

At school, what must be learned has already been decided. Students are responsible for absorbing the material and producing the expected results.

In companies, goals and tasks have already been defined. Employees are expected to take responsibility for delivering them.

And in society, we look for those responsible for poverty, crime, addiction, violence or climate damage.

When people resist, fail to function or become ill, we often increase the dose: more control, more rules, more pressure, more consequences and still more responsibility.

We treat the side effects of external control with more external control. It is a remarkably stable roundabout.

And then it became personal

Up to this point, it is wonderfully easy to talk about systems. That is comfortable, because a system does not look back at you.

At some point, however, I realised that I had built the same architecture in my own life. For a long time, I believed that my conscious mind was steering me. After all, I knew what I wanted. I had the information. I could analyse situations. I could even tell other people remarkably intelligent things about their patterns.

And yet, in my own life, I kept producing results that did not match my conscious goals at all.

Back then, I explained this through the other people. They had disappointed me. They had failed to grow. They had not understood what could have been possible. I had explained it all to them.

Essentially, I was waiting for a Disney ending. In the end, the other person suddenly understands everything. The music begins. The frog turns into a prince. The person whose visible programme has reliably hurt me recognises my significance at the last moment and becomes the person I had wanted to see in them from the beginning.

This happened surprisingly rarely.

And eventually, the uncomfortable question could no longer be avoided: Why did I choose people whose known programme would so reliably prevent my conscious goal?

We do not have just one goal

Let us take a completely unromantic example. My future depends on an important conversation. I absolutely must be on time. I do not have a car and need someone to drive me.

Of all people, I choose the person I have known for years and who has never once been punctual.

They arrive late. I miss the conversation. What happened?

My conscious goal was clear: I wanted to be on time. But the visible behavior of the system produced a different result: my familiar failure.

I can now say: It is the other person’s fault. They should have changed just this once. After all, they knew how important the appointment was.

That is not even entirely wrong. They made a commitment and then ran their familiar programme. But I made that programme a critical dependency for my wellbeing.

That was my architectural decision. The idea behind this is POSIWID: The Purpose Of a System Is What It Does.

The real purpose of a system is not revealed by its statement of intent. It is revealed by the result it reliably produces. This applies to people, too. Not as a moral judgement, but as a curious diagnosis:

What if my behaviour did not fail? What if it was highly successful—just in service of a goal I was not conscious of?

Our goal architecture

Apparently, we do not have just one goal, but an entire goal architecture.

At the top, clearly visible, is the official goal: I want to love. I want to live.
I want to be successful. I want to be connected.

Beneath it, there is often a protective goal: I must never be hurt like that again. I must not lose control. I have to be prepared. I must not make myself truly dependent.

And deeper still lies an operating goal: My world must remain familiar.
My self-image must remain intact. I need to keep knowing who I am and what people are like.

Perhaps that worldview says: I am not enough. I am too much. People leave me. Men are dangerous. Women use me. Closeness ends in pain. Anyone who truly sees me will reject me.

My conscious mind works on Goal 1. My entire protective system safeguards Goals 2 and 3.

And when these goals collide, the most beautiful one does not automatically win. Usually, the goal that feels like survival wins.

Why we choose the wrong people

This brings us to partner choice. We say we are looking for love, safety and connectedness. At the same time, we feel particularly drawn to people whose programme confirms our deeper story.

The emotionally unavailable person awakens longing. The unreliable person feels exciting. The controlling person initially creates a sense of stability. The person who does not truly see us seems mysterious. And someone who is available, caring and honest suddenly feels boring, too much or somehow suspicious.

From the outside, this is hard to understand. From the inside, it is perfectly logical. What is familiar feels safe, even when it hurts. What is alive feels dangerous when we do not know it.

One woman once described her choice of partners as “cutting for the soul.” It is harsh. But it captures something.

Sometimes, instead of using a razor blade, we use another person. We choose someone with a recognisable programme, tie our wellbeing to them and simultaneously hope that, for us of all people, they will abandon that programme.

When they do not, we receive two things: the familiar pain and proof of our worldview. Goals 2 and 3 have been fulfilled perfectly.

Only our official goal is lying on the floor again.

And suddenly men or women are to blame

At this point, the mutual hatred between the sexes that we are currently seeing on social media also fits into the story. People do not begin with hatred. They begin with hurt, disappointment and an enormous hunger for life.

They wanted to love and be loved. They wanted to be seen. They wanted, finally, to experience that they were enough.

Then they chose people who could serve their familiar protective goal. The man chooses women who confirm his belief that women will use him, control him or leave him for showing weakness.

The woman chooses men who confirm her belief that men are emotionally unavailable, dangerous or unreliable.

Both experience real hurt. Both can see the other person’s programme. Both hope for the Disney transformation. Both are convinced that they could be well if only the other person would finally change.

And both are disappointed when the person they selected remains exactly the person they selected.

Disappointment becomes blame. Blame becomes generalisation. It is no longer this man who hurt me. Men are like that. It is no longer this woman who used me. Women are like that.

Then we collect evidence. The internet helps. Within minutes, we can find a thousand stories that confirm our worldview. Each side points to the other’s violence and explains its own violence as an understandable reaction.

In the end, we compete over who has been hurt more and therefore has a greater right to hurt again. This is how a hunger for life becomes hatred.

Not because people did not want love. But because they could believe in it so little that they repeatedly needed people who would prove its opposite.

Thin ice

Of course, violence can also simply come from outside. People are attacked, abused, betrayed and hurt without having brought about those actions. Whoever crosses a boundary is the author of that violation.

We do not want to explain that away. But it is not the focus here. Even in those cases, however, there is still the question of what agency remains afterwards.

Several things can be true at the same time: Another person hurt me. My protective system was shaped by it. Later, I chose people, dependencies or situations in which my familiar world could be recreated.

And I used that repetition as proof that I had no other choice.

We do not need to build a new form of blame from this. Blame and shame merely send us back into ultra-power-saving mode. We protect our self-image, justify ourselves and fight the insight.

But excuses do not help either. If I am wet and hug you, you will get wet. It does not matter whether I was caught in the rain, pushed into the water or jumped in myself.

I am wet.

If I refuse to acknowledge that, I will make everyone who comes close to me wet. Perhaps I will then tell them that drying me off is their responsibility.

The Frame of Life does not ask who is to blame. It simply says: There are towels.

I can dry myself. I can ask for help. I can tell people beforehand that I am wet. Others are allowed to decline the hug. And together, we can look at why so many people are constantly left standing in the rain.

Where victim energy begins

For me, victim energy therefore does not begin only when something terrible happens to me. It begins when I architecturally make my wellbeing dependent on another person changing their programme: I can only be well if you finally understand me. I can only trust if you change. I can only begin to live once you feel remorse. I can only be on time if, just this once, you are reliable.

In doing so, I am not merely handing over a task. I am handing another person control over my inner state.

And then I wait. Sometimes for a very long time. Yet every person follows their own programme. The only programme I can directly examine and change is my own.

The alternative is not: I do not need anyone. That would merely be the next protective architecture.

The alternative is: I connect with you without making my wellbeing dependent on your transformation.

I see your programme. I believe its visible results. I am allowed to love you and still build my architecture around who you are today—not around who you are supposed to become in my Disney finale.

The good news

So far, this story has not been especially pleasant. We wanted to talk about responsibility and ended up with the possibility that we are far more actively involved in our unhappiness than we would like to believe.

But that is precisely where the good news lies.

If my behaviour helps produce the familiar world, I am not completely at its mercy. If I select people as building blocks for my repetition, I can learn to choose differently.

If my protective system places Goals 2 and 3 above my life goal, I can make this goal architecture visible.

Freedom does not begin with making the right decision. Freedom begins when more than one world becomes believable within us.

Because a theoretical alternative is not yet a real option. I can know everything about secure relationships and still feel attracted only to unsafe people. I can want connectedness and experience it as danger at the decisive moment.

Healing therefore does not simply mean: Just choose life.

Healing means experiencing life often enough, in doses small and safe enough, until it no longer feels more foreign than pain.

We expand the worldview. The zombie world does not disappear at once. But green land emerges beside it. First as a possibility, then as an experience and eventually as a realistic choice.

Everyone is allowed to choose their own unhappiness

This matters to me. We are not building a new world in which everyone has to be happy, connected and alive. That would be the same old violence in prettier words.

Everyone is allowed to keep functioning. Everyone is allowed to keep their protective patterns. Everyone is also allowed to choose their own unhappiness.

But it should be a real choice.

I need to be able to see the reward and the price of each option. I need to understand which goal my behaviour is actually serving. And I need at least one alternative that does not exist only on paper, but is emotionally and practically within reach.

If I then say: Yes, I want to keep the familiar safety, even if it costs me aliveness, that is a coherent decision.

I can be at peace with that.

It becomes difficult when my goal architecture demands two incompatible things at once: I want the familiar pain—but you are supposed to make it feel like love. I want to keep my protective world—but you are supposed to be alive within it. I want you exactly as you are, with your programme—but you are to blame when you follow it.

This incoherence creates suffering. In me and in everyone I use to sustain it.

Freedom therefore includes impact. I am allowed to choose my unhappiness. But I cannot quietly use other people as building blocks and then hold them responsible for the consequences.

What responsibility has to do with it

Now the circle closes. Our old way of thinking about responsibility is based on the same inner architecture. Someone wants a particular state. Other people are expected to produce it. If they fail to do so, they are held liable for the deviation.

In relationships, that means: You are responsible for making me feel loved.

In families: You are responsible for making me feel like a good mother or father.

In schools: You are responsible for making my lesson work.

In companies: You are responsible for achieving my goal.

In politics: This group is responsible for the fact that we are suffering.

And between states: You have to change so that we can feel safe.

This is how we try to build peace while constantly outsourcing responsibility for our condition.

On a small scale, we call it an argument. In companies, we call it a lack of ownership. Between social groups, we call it polarisation. Between states, it can become war.

The scale changes. The architecture remains remarkably similar.

What replaces responsibility

The alternative to responsibility is not irresponsibility. We reject responsibility as a concept of control and liability. But of course we still need agency, contribution, reliability, boundaries and repair.

Perhaps we need far more of them.

People do not want merely to consume. We want to have a presence in the world. We want to be seen. We want to experience that something comes into being through us that would not have existed without us.

We produce ideas, closeness, protection, beauty, clarity, food, humour, music, solutions and new possibilities.

Agency is not an irritating duty that people must be forced to perform. It is a basic human need.

When a person feels safe and connected, they want to express themselves. As soon as this agency enters into relationship with our shared life, it becomes contribution.

Then the direction of a system no longer begins with the problem: What needs to be done, and who is responsible for it?

It also begins with the person: Who is here? What does this person perceive? What wants to take shape in the world through them? How does it connect with our shared Purpose?

Encounter is production and consumption

Perhaps this is precisely what encounter is: the exchange of the production and consumption of our unique contributions. Seeing, hearing, understanding and touching one another.

I bring forth something that could only have emerged in exactly this form through me. You perceive it. It touches, nourishes, irritates or changes you. Your response comes back to me and, in turn, changes me.

Both produce. Both receive. Both remain subjects.

In the old system, one person produces what another has ordered. In a genuine encounter, no one fully knows beforehand what will emerge.

Perhaps this is why we want so urgently to be seen. A contribution that no one perceives does not reach the world. And a person whose agency is given no place for too long begins to disappear inside.

We become consumers, even though what we are truly hungry for is to contribute something. Then we try to satisfy that hunger with still more consumption. That, too, is coping.

A different architecture

A healthy family does not ask: How do I mould this child so that they will function later?

It asks: What surprise is arriving in our family with this person?

A healthy school does not ask: How do we make students responsible for the prescribed learning?

It asks: How can they participate in real life, discover their agency and experience that their contribution matters?

A healthy company does not begin by asking: Who is responsible for this outcome?

It asks: What do we want to bring about in the world together? What do our different people perceive? What contributions emerge from that? And what conditions do they need in order to have an impact?

A healthy society does not only ask: Who is responsible for violence, addiction, poverty and crime?

It asks: What goal architecture within our system reliably produces these outcomes? What injuries are we passing on? And what alternative can the people affected actually experience?

Not everyone has to give the same answer. But no one should remain trapped in a world simply because they have never experienced another one.

What we need to learn

The Frame of Life, the frame of aliveness, is not positive thinking. It requires concrete skills.

We need to learn to notice our inner state before it takes over our behaviour. We need to distinguish familiarity from safety. We need to recognise which people and situations we select as critical dependencies for our wellbeing. We need to take the effects of a programme seriously without hating the person for it. We need to learn to tolerate positive closeness without devaluing, testing or destroying it. We need to be able to set boundaries, leave, grieve and repair.

And we need to recognize the moment when we have become wet and are about to embrace the next person.

The capacity for peace is not a beautiful attitude. It is the ability to process hurt and tension without automatically passing them on through control, shame, withdrawal or violence.

Perhaps world peace begins right here

We invented responsibility because we could not trust one another.

Then we built systems that control, shame and make people dependent on one another. These systems produce resistance, withdrawal and hurt. We then treat those reactions as proof that people cannot function without control.

So we need even more responsibility. Even more pressure. Even more people to blame.

And around the roundabout we go once again.

Perhaps world peace does not begin with another grand appeal for everyone to finally take responsibility.

It begins in a small moment. I notice that I am hurt. I notice that I am looking for another person to restore my familiar world.

I see their programme and my own. And I do not pass the hurt on. Not because I am a better person, but because I now know a second possibility.

This is the Frame of Life: What happened to me explains my protective movements. It does not determine which world I continue to build today.

We do not have to force people into this world. Our Purpose can only be to make it something they can experience. Safely, concretely and often enough that people can truly choose.

And perhaps the decisive question for families, schools, companies and entire societies is therefore no longer: Is everything getting done?

But: What world does our behaviour reliably produce—and is it really the world we want to build together?