"I Didn't Mean to Hurt You"
Society
| February 21, 2005
| Tim
"How could you??" she screamed, crying and quaking with rage.
"How could you??!?"
She threw the pictures down on the table in front of him. How could he be so heartless? To betray her like this? After everything she'd done for him, every intimacy they'd shared, and all the years they'd spent together! And to be stupid enough to photograph the whole thing and keep the evidence in his desk, where she found it???
He had nothing to say. His face hung down, sullen.
"I never meant to hurt you," he finally offered, at last.
The excuse hung in the air, lamely.
She turned and ran from the room, a fresh wave of sobbing starting in her throat.
Somehow, we've gotten to the point where as a culture, we think of not intending evil as some kind of virtue. "I never meant to bankrupt my employer; I just kind of wanted the money for myself." "I didn't mean for you to have such a horrible childhood; but let's face it, I had more interesting things to do than spend my time with you." Of course, the second part of those sentences go unspoken.
Unless we're some sort of sociopath (and probably even then...) the problem is never that we mean to do evil. It's just that it wasn't very important for us to do good.
The husband who cheats on his wife doesn't do so with the goal of destroying her trust, self-image, and ripping her very soul to shreds. No, the tradeoff goes more like this: On one hand, I could get some action with that very hot-looking chick who seems to like me. On the other hand, I do the right thing and keep my marriage vows. And the first option wins, because the promise of hot passion wins out over virtue.
The person who signs up for some unethical MLM doesn't mean to hurt most the people they sign up. Instead, it just wasn't very important to figure out what the odds of success were for people they'd sponsor. They were too busy thinking about all the money they'd make.
The person who gossips about another doesn't mean for it to get back to them and hurt them. They just found it more pleasurable to share a juicy rumor than to hold the tongue in case they were wrong or somebody got hurt.
Several billion such compromises are made each day.
Ideally, we'd all do the right thing. But the most common form of evil is simply to care less about some moral rule than our selfish desires. And only sociopaths set out to deliberately hurt people or do evil -- or who knows, perhaps even they do not. The "I never meant to" excuse falls into category #2; our society's whole excuse for every misdeed is to point out that there are some worse people out there, hypothetically.
Yeah, that works: "Well, I may have brutally murdered 36 people, but let me point out to you that Hitler killed, what 6 million? I'm nowhere near that bad." "I may have stolen $12,000 from you, but aren't you grateful I didn't burn down your house as well?"
Sorry, finding someone worse than you doesn't make you good. Or me.
Again, it doesn't mean much that we didn't mean to do evil. The real problem is that we often don't mean to do good; "doing good" often loses big time to our desire to benefit ourselves.
It has been said that the greatest demise of the new generation won't be greed or hate or war, it won't be poverty or televion or pop culture. It is said that the greatest threat to society is apathy.
Nobody will mean for an entire continent to wither and perish, but nobody will have done anything about it.
Maybe it's just me, but people no longer seem to seek truth or justice. They don't look for a solution, only an explanation or excuse. Have a difficult child? Drug them with ritalin. It's not your fault that sugar they eat all day long is making them hyper, it's just their brain chemistry. Americans are over weight...clearly this is due to those evil fast food joints. It sickens me how McDonald's forces its french fries down the helpless mouths of innocent Americans. And those cuthroat car companies...always towing away the cars of the hard working middle class so they are forced to upgrade to a more expensive one.
How do we set ourselves straight if we don't even care to anymore?
They Do care but that other guys needs to fix it, i wouldnt call it apathy. no one wants to take responsibility for the mistakes they make and see. it is always somebody will fix it or that other guy doese that, i dont need to attitude. are whole society is getting way past apathy. i dont know a word to use to explain it even in politics it has come down to get a bigger gun. no one and i mean no one is taking a responsible attitude for friends family the avg joe on the street. some other guy/girl will fix it, well that other guy has vanished a long time ago.
Whoever who writes these articles talks alot of sense. I completely agree and i think that not meaning to do good is just the same as doing bad.
Can anyone think of an objective way to define and measure apathy? I'd like to keep a chart from year to year, of different age cohorts. The apathy index...
Can anyone think of an objective way to define and measure apathy?
Probably.
But why bother?
;-)
You know, with that logic, the only way to keep from hurting people is to stay stagnant and not do anything. In fact, "good" is such a relative term as in "what's good for me vs. what's good for all people" that not to hurt people is just as inevitable as not hurting people. If you want to go for the "what's good for others" approach, then you should just kill yourself to avoid any further damage, (with the exception of right after you die and the surrounding people who care about you within that generation dies). But, if you want to go for the "good for me" approach, then that involves responsibility to protect your assets. The greater the responsibility in exerting your profficiancy at something, the greater your control over your life will be (with the exceptions of other people doing what is good for them, breaking away from your domain of influence and you managing what is left.) Of course, a responsible person would mind thier p's and q's just to maintain their own level of self-respect and means being honest at the beginning of the relationship with the other person about their sexual tendancies, and respecting the other person's rights to be with you or not according to what's best for them. Stand for something honestly, and you will never waver to have to oppologize. It will be more like "well what did you expect?" not "I'm sorry I hurt you."
Gary,
You know, with that logic, the only way to keep from hurting people is to stay stagnant and not do anything.
I think you're missing the point: I don't mean that people should do nothing. I'm just pointing out that naked self-interest can be expressed, and justified, as "not meaning to hurt" others.
My point is that people should try to good, not simply fail to try to do wrong. Nobody really tries to do wrong, anyway. We just don't want to do what's right.
In fact, "good" is such a relative term...
To you, apparently, it is. But when I say "good" I mean something different. I believe that there really is an objective good and bad, right and wrong, and that morality isn't just whatever I want it to be today.
You, apparently, don't. That's fine: we just disagree.
If you want to go for the "what's good for others" approach, then you should just kill yourself to avoid any further damage...
That's absurd. You seem to believe that each person's net contribution is negative. If that's so, then why have we seen a steadily rising standard of living?
Each individual, by working, provides things which benefit others. And people also give to charity. If a person who works to serve others and gives to charity kills him or herself, then the net contribution is a loss, not a gain.
Stand for something honestly, and you will never waver to have to oppologize.
I believe there were Nazis who took that approach. They were quite honest about their desire to forward the master race, and many of them never did apologize.
So that's your philosophy? That anything at all is good to stand for, just as long as you're "honest" about it?
I think that's insane. Again, this is why I *don't* belive "goodness" is just relative: If it was, the Nazis who honestly stood up for the "master race" would be just as good as Christian who hid the Jews from them.
Gary your approach of doing right to others is very wrong. Killing your self to advoid any more damage.What would make you think of doing that?? The best thing to do for you and others is thinking of the right thing and actually do it. Not just benifit your self.
Some of the people who post on here are either computer illiterate or they just really can't form their words into an arguement.
Anyway I totally agree with you Tim, passion, for a lot of people takes the place of "right and wrong" and whats "Good or Bad".
Now I don't know if you'd agree, but I have noticed that the new generations of today to hold to such morals as my parents and even grandparents did, (manners, appropriate behavior, up holding the moral good for society). Not everyone in these new generations
has forgotten the virtues of the past, but I think apathy has found a niche' ever growing niche' in society today and its pretty scarey.
By the way where did you get the first exerpt from, I'm curious to know?
wow I just looked at what I just posted and I retract my first statement haha.
You know what I mean
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It has been said that the greatest demise of the new generation won't be greed or hate or war, it won't be poverty or televion or pop culture. It is said that the greatest threat to society is apathy.
Nobody will mean for an entire continent to wither and perish, but nobody will have done anything about it.
Maybe it's just me, but people no longer seem to seek truth or justice. They don't look for a solution, only an explanation or excuse. Have a difficult child? Drug them with ritalin. It's not your fault that sugar they eat all day long is making them hyper, it's just their brain chemistry. Americans are over weight...clearly this is due to those evil fast food joints. It sickens me how McDonald's forces its french fries down the helpless mouths of innocent Americans. And those cuthroat car companies...always towing away the cars of the hard working middle class so they are forced to upgrade to a more expensive one.
How do we set ourselves straight if we don't even care to anymore?
Posted by: In the Middle on July 5, 2005 06:19 PM