This comment by EnterNight on the post Intent vs Impact: Why Your Intentions Don’t Really Matter
Perhaps it wasn’t the *intent* of the article, but what this says to me is “Your actions will all have consequences, and you’ll just have to deal with it. But please don’t let that stop you from doing things, you’ll just be punished for stuff you totally didn’t mean to do. Just take your lumps like a good little sheep now.”
Sorry, but if this is a real value system, it’s probably better to be a shut-in and just never leave the house–though even then, you’re probably still pissing someone off, so no matter what, you lose.
But at least then, you won’t have to step on the toes of someone whose eyes flash with indignant rage at you as though they haven’t done the same thing themselves a few hundred times. You won’t have to risk innocently throwing proverbial Frisbees into the air, only to accidentally hit people who have trouble with the concept of “accident” despite the fact that they’ve probably made a few hundred thousand mistakes themselves, and yet still somehow cling to some notion that they have a “right” to be indignant at you.
No one has an inherent “right” to rage when someone hurts us. What we have is a survival instinct to maim or kill the person/animal that just harmed us. There’s nothing “right” about this–it’s just pure reptilian brain logic same as fight-or-flight. It came about not because that’s how humans are “meant” to act, but because early primates that acted on that rage–whether it was right or wrong after the fact–had a better chance of surviving to pass on their genes than the primates who didn’t.
We’re no more entitled to lash out and/or hold a grudge than the person who apologizes to us is entitled to our forgiveness. Rage should always be reconsidered and De-escalated as quickly as possible, and forgiveness should never be taken for granted.
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Question of the Day:
What is the proper balance between Intent and Impact? Should good intentions mitigate our reaction to bad behavior?
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