14: Accountable People Don’t Exist (Only Accountable Actions Do)

Hey you, we know you, you’re that explicit-nature advocate! Thanks so much for stopping by! You’ll no doubt recall in an earlier post how we suspected that after learning what real accountability is comprised of your first thought was likely, “Before you two supermodels pick out your outfits for the Nobel Peace Prize, you such know that an accountable person is a complete and utter fiction…you hacks.” And just like before, you are absolutely right. (You’re mean and hurtful because you’re jealous, but you are right.);

Accountable people don’t exist, ever. Only accountable actions do.

..Sure, sure…Wait, what?

There’s no such thing as an accountable person. Only accountable actions.

..Ohhh, okay, got it…Wait, what?

Permit us to explain. It’s not that people don’t consistently and even overwhelmingly act with accountability, they do, all the time. But as for them being “accountable people”? By definition, there’s no such thing. Like, literally no such thing. So however tempting it may be to give people’s character this designation, such a designation isn’t real. Even with your sweet little nana, for instance, bless her heart. (Not the one wanted for racketeering, the other one.) It’s just that accountability, thankfully, doesn’t work like that.

You see, there’s literally no definition for the word accountable that refers to a human trait or characteristic. It doesn’t exist.

(And that’s a really important thing to know.) Just like Tostino’s isn’t a pizza roll, and Jiffy isn’t a peanut butter, Dermot Mulroney isn’t Dylan McDermott or Marmot Del Rio, despite what you think you know, accountable is never a trait, it’s only ever a requirement or an expectation.

To illustrate this, let’s first look what part of speech accountability is. It’s a noun, not an adjective. Which is to say it is a thing, not an attribute. On the other hand, accountable is indeed an adjective, but notice what it refers to;

Accountable (adj); (of a person, organization, or institution) required or expected to justify actions or decisions; responsible.

As you can see, accountable describes not a person’s character, but a situation or instance wherein a person is required or expected to answer or report to someone else. The difference can be quite subtle, as in the case of that doppelganger always crashing on accountability’s couch, responsible . For instance, your job no doubt entails being responsible to your boss, responsible for various things, and so on. But this does not mean that you’re responsible by nature. And where relationships are concerned, most everyone is accountable to their partner, but this does not mean everyone possesses an accountable character.

And while we’re at it, not only is accountable not a characteristic or trait, it’s not even a situation where one fulfills or satisfies such a requirement or expectation. In such a situation an “accountable person” may fail at being so spectacularly, as my career can attest to on countess occasions.

So what’s the takeaway here? Accountable isn’t a personal attribute or virtue, it’s merely a situation or expectation where one is regarded as obliged to answer for their actions to someone else.

So if you’ve been describing certain people your whole life as accountable, we’re sorry to have to tell you that you’ve not only been using the word incorrectly, you’ve also likely been interpreting accountability incorrectly as well.

“Nigel has a very accountable personality.” (Doesn’t exist. Nigel is scamming you. Down with Nigel.)

“Myrtle has a lot of accountability, so I trust her completely.” (Not a good idea. Myrtle the Turtle may have a slow hand, but she’s crafty.)

“Dewey justifies his actions and decisions to those who require him to be accountable.” (Totally acceptable, and would even be admirable, were Dewey not an assassin for the yakuza clan.)

“Flo has an impressive history of acting with accountability.” (No problem with Flo. Please untie Flo, Dewey.)

Neither Nigel, nor Myrtle, nor Dewey, nor Flo, are accountable people, oh fodee oh-do.

What’s the point of all this?

The point is to illustrate- drive home, really- that in order to truly assess one’s accountability, it’s their actions that will determine it, not what kind of person they appear to be or even are. One’s character, however sterling, is immaterial.

And this is actually a huge blessing that this is so.

Because where accountability is concerned, particularly relationship-accountability, it’s imperative that one look exclusively to an individual’s actions and behavior, NEVER to their perceived character, even if that person behaves accountably and is completely trusted. Short answer? It’s simply not how accountability works, and because the misnomer that accountability can ever be a trait happens to be precisely how toxic people deceive other people.

At first, this might sound deeply cynical, but the reason for it is simple; non-accountable people, toxic people, deceptive people, what have you, are all able to avoid genuine accountability by simply cultivating the image of it, then use this image of respectability to provide cover for any actions and behaviors, if discovered, that would suggest otherwise.

What do a bad police officer, bad priest, bad politician, bad mentor, bad partner all have in common? They all walk into a bar, yes. But they also all use the image of accountability to gain access to and to deceive the people they harm.

The way this works is rather simple; in order to achieve power and control over another person, a toxic individual must do what any person must do to become trusted; demonstrate actions and behavior which establish trustworthiness.

Let’s look at the steps in which people typically develop trust in another person;

1) A person observes their partner’s actions and behavior to determine if they’re trustworthy.

2) At such time as they are convinced of their partner’s trustworthiness and form a belief that this is so, they stop looking to that person’s actions and behavior for evidence of accountability and instead refer to their belief that such a person is trustworthy. We do this because it is simply more efficient to refer to our belief about someone rather than going through every single thing they’ve ever done to be considered trustworthy, every single time we’re about to place our trust in them. (Life doesn’t allow for this kind of time, so we refer to our belief instead. And in many cases, this works out completely fine.)

3) Should one’s partner’s actions and behavior continue to reflect that they’re trustworthy, a person maintains their belief that their partner is a trustworthy person, and continues to refer to their belief about them.

4) However, should one’s partner’s actions contradict the belief that they are trustworthy, a person will start to revert back to observing and assessing their partner’s actions and behavior again until such time as the belief of trustworthiness is restored, or they are shown that their partner actually cannot be trusted.

(Pro-tip: Toxic people do not want step four to ever happen.)

And just how do toxic people ensure step four never occurs? By insisting their partner refer exclusively to their “established” trustworthiness and not to their questionable actions or behavior. In order to accomplish this, the accountability-avoidant and toxic partner feigns shock and betrayal, outrage and anger, instilling guilt and shame in their partner for ever having questioned their integrity, thereby silencing once and for all any and all doubts which have been raised. This performance of outrage and disappointment effectively silences their partner, ensuring they never express such misgivings again.

Unfortunately, this outrage at still being observed and assessed despite having “established” their trustworthiness is how precisely deceptive people achieve power and control over their significant other.

(It’s literally one of the oldest cons in the world. Right after round-earth theory.)

Which brings us to the following point;

Relationship accountability is always, always, exclusively and entirely action and behavior-focused, never person-focused. That’s right. In an accountability-based relationship, actions and behavior are always what is assessed, always welcome to be assessed, never one’s established character.
(Not because it’s an arbitrary rule, just simply because it’s how accountability works.)

Shout it from the proverbial rooftops, accountability, by definition, only refers to a person’s actions and behavior, never to one’s character or traits.

(..Besides, it’s cleaner, clearer, and most importantly, we all behave better as a result.)

And just so we can drive one final nail into the reeking unholy coffin of potential unclarity, observing and assessing one’s partner exclusively through actions and behavior is neither an indication of distrust, nor is it an insult. (Yes, the person in question may be entirely trustworthy! We get it, they’re awesome, that’s not the point.)

Actions and behavior are just solely where one looks when one seeks to observe and assess accountability.