Richard Carfax-Foster, a fellow survivor of the 4th class of the Royal Military College, Duntroon, emailed me with a lovely example of displaced responsibility he came across. Excerpt follows:
A gambling addict who claims she had to flee Victoria's pokies is taking legal action against her boss for refusing a transfer interstate. Suzanne Maree McDougall lost $400,000 on poker machines and sold all her assets including properties, shares and a car before escaping to Perth, a tribunal heard yesterday. The sales representative said she desperately needed refuge from the pokies-infested hotels, pubs and clubs in her job area. Ms McDougall, 45, was seduced by flashing lights outside gaming venues and gripped by an unstoppable urge to gamble.
Full story here.
Richard points out that if she is successful, a great range of possibilities open up. I for one will suggest to Richard that we become the nucleus of a class action against the Australian Government for exposing us to both personal weapons (7.62mm SLRs) and the tender mercies of Peter Cosgrove. The amount of self-restraint I had to exercise under such circumstances was almost too much to bear... and may have turned me into a complete bastard (if I hadn't already been a complete bastard beforehand).
Displaced responsibility is akin to a fallacy we have coined at Humbug! - burden of solution.
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