Mediated action hides outcomes from the actors who commission it
Evidence
A few years ago John Lachs singled out the mediation of action (the phenomenon of one’s action being performed for one by someone else, by an intermediate person, who ‘stands between me and my action, making it impossible for me to experience it directly’) as one of the most salient and seminal features of modern society. There is a great distance between intentions and practical accomplishments, with the space between the two packed with a multitude of minute acts and inconsequential actors. The ‘middle man’ shields off the outcomes of action from the actors’ sight. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 98
Categorization
- DEFINE: Lachs’s ‘mediation of action’ concept: the middleman who stands between actor and action’s outcome. Key definitional building block.
- XREF: Mediated action is the structural precondition for state exclusionary policies later readings will interrogate. — connects to: Mediated acts belong to no one, freeing all players of responsibility — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 99; Modern social organization produces distance through mediated action and intermediaries — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 551; Secrecy and distance structurally prevent principals from monitoring agents. — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 50 (+3 more)
Related
- Modern social organization produces distance through mediated action and intermediaries (similarity 0.83)
- Long intermediary chains let people commit abhorrent acts without role awareness (similarity 0.79)
- Mediated acts belong to no one, freeing all players of responsibility (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Mediated acts belong to no one, freeing all players of responsibility
#expands(0.92) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 99 - Modern social organization produces distance through mediated action and intermediaries
#expands(0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 551 - Long intermediary chains let people commit abhorrent acts without role awareness
#exemplifies(0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 552 - Secrecy and distance structurally prevent principals from monitoring agents.
#expands(0.80) — Shapiro, Susan P., The Social Control of Impersonal Trust, 50