How is this my fault?

[Snao Cone]

Posting, Posting, and Shitposting

 

In general this type of thinking isn't constructive and it's not healthy (and a little too self-absorbed), but when I see suffering or conflict it's where a part of my brain goes. Do you get thoughts like this? What are ways of balancing it so we don't feel an unfair amount of guilt, but still acknowledge the injustice with a drive to correct it? 

 

If we could create a more healthy mindset towards problems across our culture, where pointing out injustices doesn't get interpreted as accusation or blame, what would be different?

 

Do we focus too much on individual fault?

[Guest Invisible Pumpkin]

 

 

Spoiler

* couldn't delete the Spoiler on me phone 😑

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Invisible Pumpkin

[daveb]

I just try to be the best version of myself.  

Within the limits of human frailty and imperfection, of course.

[Tetus]

Guilt is a worthless concept and should be destroyed.

 

At the end of the day, guilt is irrelevant to almost every problem. If my house burns down, it doesn't actually matter why it burned down, I still don't have a place to live. If a child is starving, it doesn't matter to the child if they are starving because their parents are lazy or if they are starving because there is a system of oppression in place that systematically impoverishes people like them - they are just as hungry either way.

 

The reason to understand the causes of a problem are not so we can know who to blame (a process that doesn't actually accomplish anything), but so we know how to prevent the problem. If we don't want kids to go hungry, and it turns out that kids go hungry because of systemic oppression of minority groups over the last few centuries, we should correct those systems and do what we can to help the people that were disadvantaged. Who should bear the costs of this process? Well, the people who can bear the cost - which likely will be the people who were advantaged by the systemic injustice. Not because they are to blame, but literally because they are the ones who benefited, and thus have had access to the opportunities and resources that were unjustly denied to the others.

 

The problem is that people get it into their heads that we're not accountable to basic principles of fairness if we didn't intend to be unfair. This is obviously a ridiculous stance, one which even small children can intuitively understand is outrageous:

 

Let's imagine that it is snack time at school, and the teacher hands out juice boxes to the kids. They have one juice box for each kids. The kids are a little rowdy and disorganized, and in their milling about, the frazzled teacher accidentally hands out juice to a few of the kids twice, leaving a few kids without juice. The double juice kids see that other kids near them got two juices, and think that nothing is wrong. When the juiceless kids ask where their juice is, the teacher is suddenly confused, and only after taking stock of the room do they realize what had happened.

 

The double juice kids didn't do anything wrong: they benefited from an unfair process, but they weren't intending to do so. Still, though, they should be the ones to give up their extra juice. It's not important or even desirable that they feel guilty or bad about the mistake, just that they are willing to acknowledge the unfairness and contribute to restitution.

 

But what if they are not willing to acknowledge the problem or contribute? What if, upon this issue being pointed out, one of the kids folds their arms and says, "Nuh uh, it's not my fault that you didn't get any juice, why should I have to give up the juice I was given?" Well, NOW the kid is being a brat, and NOW they are actively contributing to the existence of the unjust state of affairs by clinging to the benefits they gained as a result of the systemic issue. Importantly, though, they aren't being blamed for the initial problem: they're being blamed for the new problem, because they are directly and currently the cause.

 

What if a kid looks around and sees other double-juicers refusing to redistribute their juice and says, "Well, me giving up my juice won't give everyone who doesn't have juice the juice they need, and meanwhile it is really unfair to ask me to give up my juice when other kids are keeping two juices!"? Well, they are still refusing to solve the problem while taking advantage of the benefits they got as a result, so this is just the same thing with extra steps.

 

What if, after refusing to give up their extra juice, the kid with two juices is not invited to play with the other kids at recess, and then starts to complain loudly about how unfair it is for them to be treated badly when they did nothing wrong?

 

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, my new book Juicenomics will be on shelves this fall.

[Epitaph]

13 hours ago, Epic Tetus said:

Guilt is a worthless concept and should be destroyed.

 

At the end of the day, guilt is irrelevant to almost every problem. If my house burns down, it doesn't actually matter why it burned down, I still don't have a place to live. If a child is starving, it doesn't matter to the child if they are starving because their parents are lazy or if they are starving because there is a system of oppression in place that systematically impoverishes people like them - they are just as hungry either way.

 

The reason to understand the causes of a problem are not so we can know who to blame (a process that doesn't actually accomplish anything), but so we know how to prevent the problem. If we don't want kids to go hungry, and it turns out that kids go hungry because of systemic oppression of minority groups over the last few centuries, we should correct those systems and do what we can to help the people that were disadvantaged. Who should bear the costs of this process? Well, the people who can bear the cost - which likely will be the people who were advantaged by the systemic injustice. Not because they are to blame, but literally because they are the ones who benefited, and thus have had access to the opportunities and resources that were unjustly denied to the others.

 

The problem is that people get it into their heads that we're not accountable to basic principles of fairness if we didn't intend to be unfair. This is obviously a ridiculous stance, one which even small children can intuitively understand is outrageous:

 

Let's imagine that it is snack time at school, and the teacher hands out juice boxes to the kids. They have one juice box for each kids. The kids are a little rowdy and disorganized, and in their milling about, the frazzled teacher accidentally hands out juice to a few of the kids twice, leaving a few kids without juice. The double juice kids see that other kids near them got two juices, and think that nothing is wrong. When the juiceless kids ask where their juice is, the teacher is suddenly confused, and only after taking stock of the room do they realize what had happened.

 

The double juice kids didn't do anything wrong: they benefited from an unfair process, but they weren't intending to do so. Still, though, they should be the ones to give up their extra juice. It's not important or even desirable that they feel guilty or bad about the mistake, just that they are willing to acknowledge the unfairness and contribute to restitution.

 

But what if they are not willing to acknowledge the problem or contribute? What if, upon this issue being pointed out, one of the kids folds their arms and says, "Nuh uh, it's not my fault that you didn't get any juice, why should I have to give up the juice I was given?" Well, NOW the kid is being a brat, and NOW they are actively contributing to the existence of the unjust state of affairs by clinging to the benefits they gained as a result of the systemic issue. Importantly, though, they aren't being blamed for the initial problem: they're being blamed for the new problem, because they are directly and currently the cause.

 

What if a kid looks around and sees other double-juicers refusing to redistribute their juice and says, "Well, me giving up my juice won't give everyone who doesn't have juice the juice they need, and meanwhile it is really unfair to ask me to give up my juice when other kids are keeping two juices!"? Well, they are still refusing to solve the problem while taking advantage of the benefits they got as a result, so this is just the same thing with extra steps.

 

What if, after refusing to give up their extra juice, the kid with two juices is not invited to play with the other kids at recess, and then starts to complain loudly about how unfair it is for them to be treated badly when they did nothing wrong?

 

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, my new book Juicenomics will be on shelves this fall.

 

Have question, boss. Deleting the concept of guilt. Is this in the sense of feeling guilt when it's bestowed on you by other people, or self realizations of what you've done? Or does it contain both of these? May I argue a counterpoint? While guilt is often weaponized, its psychological nature is fluid based on the individual. Guilt is capable of destroying people, but inversely, in some cases allowing people to accomplish things that would not be possible otherwise without said guilt. For some people's lives, to put it mildly, guilt is or was the defining factor, the strongest motivator to make a decision or change.

 

True, "healthier" guilt comes when we deeply self reflect and realize how wrong we were about something. Something important. Whether or not it lingers is another matter. Ideally, guilt itself is a concept that has a proccess like grief. We need to pass through phases of it to reach the end, that being the resolution. Guilt is the manifestation of both our ability to learn, combined with our ability to feel and sympathize.

 

I'm of the mind that guilt comes in two flavors. What I listed above, and pettier, artificially created guilt done either by the constant berrating of humans to a mind, or a mind that developed habits and functions that sustain hollow guilt. Self flaggelation for no particular reason. Artificial guilt can be taught and inflicted.

[Sally]

14 hours ago, Epic Tetus said:

The problem is that people get it into their heads that we're not accountable to basic principles of fairness if we didn't intend to be unfair. This is obviously a ridiculous stance, one which even small children can intuitively understand is outrageous:

 

Yup.  

[Sally]

On 9/3/2022 at 2:23 PM, daveb said:

I just try to be the best version of myself.  

Within the limits of human frailty and imperfection, of course.

Who determines the best version of ourselves?  If we ourselves do, that's kind of loading the dice.

[Lysandre, the Star-Crossed]

On 9/3/2022 at 9:25 AM, Snao Cone said:

Posting, Posting, and Shitposting

 

In general this type of thinking isn't constructive and it's not healthy (and a little too self-absorbed), but when I see suffering or conflict it's where a part of my brain goes. Do you get thoughts like this? What are ways of balancing it so we don't feel an unfair amount of guilt, but still acknowledge the injustice with a drive to correct it? 

 

If we could create a more healthy mindset towards problems across our culture, where pointing out injustices doesn't get interpreted as accusation or blame, what would be different?

 

Do we focus too much on individual fault?

If anything I think at times we focus too little on individual fault. 

 

19 hours ago, Epic Tetus said:

The problem is that people get it into their heads that we're not accountable to basic principles of fairness if we didn't intend to be unfair. This is obviously a ridiculous stance, one which even small children can intuitively understand is outrageous:

Just to play devil's advocate here for a moment, because I think it's worth pondering...

 

Perhaps the issue here isn't that people believe themselves unaccountable to the principle of fairness, but rather that some people don't hold fairness to be a core principle?

 

 

[Tetus]

7 hours ago, E said:

 

Have question, boss. Deleting the concept of guilt. Is this in the sense of feeling guilt when it's bestowed on you by other people, or self realizations of what you've done? Or does it contain both of these? May I argue a counterpoint? While guilt is often weaponized, its psychological nature is fluid based on the individual. Guilt is capable of destroying people, but inversely, in some cases allowing people to accomplish things that would not be possible otherwise without said guilt. For some people's lives, to put it mildly, guilt is or was the defining factor, the strongest motivator to make a decision or change.

 

True, "healthier" guilt comes when we deeply self reflect and realize how wrong we were about something. Something important. Whether or not it lingers is another matter. Ideally, guilt itself is a concept that has a proccess like grief. We need to pass through phases of it to reach the end, that being the resolution. Guilt is the manifestation of both our ability to learn, combined with our ability to feel and sympathize.

 

I'm of the mind that guilt comes in two flavors. What I listed above, and pettier, artificially created guilt done either by the constant berrating of humans to a mind, or a mind that developed habits and functions that sustain hollow guilt. Self flaggelation for no particular reason. Artificial guilt can be taught and inflicted.

Sure, happy to concede the point. I’m talking about something a little more specific, which hopefully I expressed. That said, guilt itself is useless - there is no merit to feeling bad. Acknowledging responsibility and taking action are distinct things which have an actual positive impact. Insofar as some form of guilt drives someone to do something good, that’s fine, but the guilt itself isn’t desirable, and we should strive to do good things because they are worth doing in their own right, not to alleviate our guilt.

[Tetus]

1 hour ago, Lysandre, the Star-Crossed said:

If anything I think at times we focus too little on individual fault. 

Why?

 

Quote

Just to play devil's advocate here for a moment, because I think it's worth pondering...

 

Perhaps the issue here isn't that people believe themselves unaccountable to the principle of fairness, but rather that some people don't hold fairness to be a core principle?

Two points: 

 

First, they should. Shrug.

 

Second, I’d find this response more compelling if the most common line from these kind of people wasn’t them whining about how unfair it is to single them out when they personally did nothing malicious, or how it’s not fair to take money they earned and give it to people who didn’t earn it. Student loan forgiveness is deemed unfair to people who have paid off loans, etc. 

[daveb]

9 hours ago, Sally said:

Who determines the best version of ourselves?  If we ourselves do, that's kind of loading the dice.

I'm talking about things like ideals I try to live up to, behavior, but also personality. It comes from a lot of things - the society I was raised in, people I look up to, books I have read, my education in general, my own best tendencies (which I define as things that I feel good about, things that are good for others, etc.). There is a lot that goes into it. And yes, I have to be the final arbiter of it. How can anyone else be? I am responsible for me.

[Epitaph]

13 hours ago, Epic Tetus said:

Sure, happy to concede the point. I’m talking about something a little more specific, which hopefully I expressed. That said, guilt itself is useless - there is no merit to feeling bad. Acknowledging responsibility and taking action are distinct things which have an actual positive impact. Insofar as some form of guilt drives someone to do something good, that’s fine, but the guilt itself isn’t desirable, and we should strive to do good things because they are worth doing in their own right, not to alleviate our guilt.

 

I figured you were alluding to something more specific, pretty obvious that, but wanted to ask anyway. I think perhaps our perceptions of what guilt is differ. I've always disliked guilt myself, until I realized that the average person doesn't try to learn from their guilt, but they try alleviate it, making it a selfish escape attempt to save face. It was why I disliked it.

 

True guilt, I think, even if we learn from it, is a burden carried with us for all time. The point is not to alleviate the guilt, because it can't be alleviated. But it can be carried as a reminder of our wrongs. That we can slip and make errors. The pain comes from the true understanding of what we've done, and that true understanding haunts you, as you know that you can't change the past, but that you can alter the present and change the future. We should strive to do good things. But I don't think we should write off the good things that come from genuine guilt and understanding. Then again, maybe my perception of true guilt is limited only to me or the few individuals I've met that possesed it.

[daveb]

11 hours ago, daveb said:

I'm talking about things like ideals I try to live up to, behavior, but also personality. It comes from a lot of things - the society I was raised in, people I look up to, books I have read, my education in general, my own best tendencies (which I define as things that I feel good about, things that are good for others, etc.). There is a lot that goes into it. And yes, I have to be the final arbiter of it. How can anyone else be? I am responsible for me.

Oh, also things like skills, talents, hobbies, and things I enjoy doing, and want to get better at. As well as learning to be more patient, more able to enjoy the moment, to go with the flow, to accept things I can't do anything about, to change things I can do something about, etc.