Difference. Responsibility. Response-ability. Responsibility is the ability to respond. It describes the obligation to respond if one/many have the abilities to. It also describes the obligation to look for (new) responses if one/many have the abilities. This becomes clearer in the German Verantwortung. Antwort = answer = response. Verantwortung is the obligation to find answers to (social) problems. It is connected to Schuld = fault/guilt, but Verantwortung and responsibility are not the same as Schuld and guilt. Acknowledging and reflecting on (macro- and microhistorical) Schuld/guilt can be an adequate Antwort/response, but the obligations of Verantwortung and responsibility go further and are more multiple than just that. As ethical concept-practices, messiness and discomfort is and will always be a part of their actualization in reality. Can one/many act out responsibility if one/many does not feel guilt? Depends on who is/are the actors in any given case. What types of responses are legitimate and desirable? Has to be negotiated between all involved and impacted parties. Where does the obligation to respond come from? There is no final or stable answer to this question. Since all the answers: geohistory, morality, possibility, ‘nature’, … are not final or stable.

But it (the obligation) is and must be there. At any given moment, it comes down to a cultivated attention to it and an (active) entering into the process of Verantwortung/responsibility in order to illicit change.