This reveals in exemplary fashion the ethical significance of the system concept : one can do something and continue doing it without having to take personal responsibility for it. It is as if one were acting while being personally absent. One act physically, without acting morally or politically. The generalized other – the system- acts within the through oneself : this is the slave morality of civilization, in which people act personally and socially as if they were subject to the natural fate, the ‘ law of gravitation’ or the system. This is the way the’ hot potato ‘ is passed in the face of the threatening ecological disaster.