The Phantom Responsibility Principle
True power resides not in authority claimed, but in accountability accepted. Systems that diffuse responsibility create the illusion of function whilst obscuring the human element beneath. We construct elaborate frameworks that disconnect actions from consequences, creating zones where no individual bears the weight of decision. The gatekeepers we encounter—helpless to assist despite their proximity to our problems—are merely manifestations of this design.
When accountability is structurally impossible, freedom becomes theoretical. The architecture that distributes responsibility until it vanishes entirely is not an unfortunate accident but a deliberate feature. For in its absence, we gain the perfect defence: process itself becomes the agent of action, whilst humans become its mere instruments.
The greatest tyranny is not the oppression that acknowledges itself, but the helplessness that presents as procedure—the shrug that says, "I would if I could, but the system won't allow it." Yet paradoxically, when true crises emerge, these same rigid structures are discarded, revealing that human judgement was always the essential element—merely one we chose to suppress.