Culture of resignation and culture of responsibility

(Baonghean) - In the article “Culture of resignation” (published in the “Let’s discuss” section of Nghe An newspaper on September 22, 2012), author Thach Quy analyzed: Vietnam has had a culture of resignation since the feudal period, but nowadays due to prejudice against resignation, people think that Vietnam does not have a culture of resignation. From that analysis, author Thach Quy affirmed: The culture of resignation needs to be promoted because it is not unfamiliar with the fine cultural traditions of the nation. This can be considered a progressive, non-prejudiced view of resignation, but historically there are issues that need further discussion.

Under the feudal system, the kings “abdicating the throne” and the mandarins “resigning their titles” belonged to the royal family and the “king-subject” relationship, which did not represent the binding relationship of civic responsibility. In today’s society, holding or resigning a position must first of all be associated with civic responsibility towards the State. In agencies and units, cases of requesting to withdraw from a position or being proposed to withdraw from a position are all handled by the State.

The problem here is that society does not understand resignation correctly. All reasons for resignation are attributed to one cause: dissatisfaction. There are officials who resign with a very legitimate reason of wanting to focus their time on professional research, but people still think that it is just an "excuse". From the above perspective, resignation has become unusual in the Vietnamese administrative system. Of course, there are individuals who resign due to dissatisfaction, and there are also officials who resign due to violations to avoid being disciplined, but that is only limited. The current normal reality is that some officials know that they are not capable of undertaking the assigned position, but if they resign, they will be assessed as having poor capacity and qualities or an unstable ideological stance.

Author Thach Quy has given a very correct viewpoint on the culture of resignation. On the collective side, resignation must be considered a normal thing in administrative activities, and must know how to honor officials who resign legitimately for the benefit of the collective. On the individual side, it must be determined that resigning or holding a position is for the common good, not for personal benefit. That is the general concept, but in reality, not all officials in any position can easily resign, because when resigning, of course, that official will also lose personal rights.

Therefore, in the end, whether to resign or not depends on the sense of responsibility. Knowing that one is not capable of completing the assigned tasks, but if one is truly responsible and knows how to put the collective interest above personal interest, then one will resign easily. But if one puts personal interest above collective interest, then resignation is unlikely to happen. Building a culture of resignation must be based on a culture of responsibility, or in other words, a culture of resignation is a manifestation of a culture of responsibility. Only with a culture of responsibility can there be a culture of resignation. Without a culture of responsibility, resignation is only a forced situation and not a cultural behavior.

Tran Hong Co