girl-aflame's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hypothesis Of Involuntary Inconsideration The fuzzy animals you are about to hear about are real. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. *laughs* Richard wanted me to put that blurb in. An interesting idea is going through my head. I am pondering whether it is enough to be innocent of an action just because you don't do it on purpose, or whether not realizing you're doing something is another kind of crime in itself. It isn't the same as never hearing about a particular law and breaking it, especially if that particular law is something not directly related to morality (however you might see that; in this case it would have to be Aristotle's human essence argument, because guilt over violating someone's right to life by murdering them is obviously more ingrained into the human mind than guilt over jaywalking, if you had never heard of traffic laws). Anyway, if you were never aware of a law that was mostly precautionary, the crime would largely rest in breaking the law, not in not realizing you had broken the law. But what I am wondering is whether the idea of not realizing you break certain moral laws is impossible, if those moral laws are the obvious kind that people's very minds guard them against. I suppose everyone's conscience and mind are different. And I suppose that many of what we see as inborn guilts and innocences are actual societal cultivation. My theory here isn't as lofty as it sounds. Let me give an example. For as long as I was perceptive enough to notice, Richard has adored Sarah. I really couldn't figure it out, not for the longest time. He seemed so cynical, he seemed like one of my kind of people, I didn't know what he saw in her kind of people. Sarah is bright, happy, her personality lights up a room when she enters it. I guess even we dark people need a little light in our lives, though, because Richard has definitely been drawn to her for a very long time. But she really doesn't deserve his adoration. Sarah is a wonderful person, but she overlooks Richard. Involuntarily, she undervalues him. She doesn't return his calls when she says she's going to, he barely hears from her unless she needs something from him, and she doesn't make time for him in her schedule, although he has made time for her on many occasions. It isn't that Sarah doesn't like Richard as a friend; it isn't even that he likes her as more than that and she's trying to send the signal that isn't what she wants. It's none of that. It is that he appreciates her and she doesn't appreciate him. Her reasons for not appreciating him aren't purposeful. She likes Richard; if you ask her what she thinks of him, her opinion will be very favorable. I have talked to her before, told her that Richard adores her; she knows, she says, and it makes her feel bad because she can't give him back that same adoration. But that's not what Richard really wants; what he just wants from Sarah is some of her time, some of her attention. He would never ask for all of it, or even the majority of it. One reason why she overlooks him so is because she has SOOO many other people clamoring for her attention, especially boys. He just gets pushed to the backburner. But he's worth more than that, and she just doesn't realize it. Out of simple not thinking, she hurts him. He's talked to me about it before and we have both agreed that Sarah is not a bad person. She wouldn't do that to him on purpose, and that excuses a person's actions to a degree. She just does it because she doesn't realize any better. But I'm beginning to wonder if she shouldn't realize any better, her and girls like her. Richard isn't the only boy I know in a similar situation, and in those situations we have also agreed that it excuses the girl to an extent because her neglect is accidental, or circumstantial, and certainly not malicious and purposeful. But is it another kind of malice not to realize what you're doing to someone? If you aren't really stopping to think, and more than that - stopping to feel - before you make a decision, aren't you accountable not for the knowledge that you don't have, but for the knowledge you refuse to accept? I would love to make blind decisions. I would love not to feel the conflicting emotions that I feel. It would make choosing between people so much easier. But I can't do things unfeelingly. At least, I couldn't used to. I see it happening a little to me and I wonder where it's going to take me, who it will make me, but maybe that's a story for another entry. My point here is that there is also blame in, after a while of doing the same thing again and again, not realizing what you're doing. Especially when you are perfectly capable of realizing what you're doing, and in some instances, to make A vs. B decisions you are going to have to purposefully block out some knowledge. Maybe it never dawned on Sarah that she was only using Richard in some cases, to just talk to him when she needed him, because she really wasn't trying to use him, so she had nothing to feel guilty for, so to speak. But you have to wonder that when it's so obvious that's what she's doing, how could she, time and time again, not see it? To be that routinely obtuse, you would think it would take a certain degree of self-denial, or that it would be in her nature to do things like that, to use people and not see the harm in doing it. If that last thing is the case, then she can't be excused for doing it without intention, she is doubly guilty of doing it, for doing it as something that comes naturally. I don't know, just a thought. It just upsets me to see people that I care about treated like dirt, whether the people doing it mean to or not. I love Sarah myself; I think she's beautiful and radient, and not only externally, although she certainly is. But Richard, and the other people I know in similar boats, deserve much better than that. And the people treating them that way need to open their eyes and see what's going on, not only for the people getting hurt's sake, but for their own sake. You can't walk through life like that, what sort of legacy would you be leaving? 5:07 p.m. - Sunday, Nov. 09, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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