It came up last night in discussion around The Bombardment, a film I have yet to watch but seems on par with Grave of the Fireflies. Both tragedies center on children experiencing the cruel devastation of World War II.
Someone at dinner observed that arbitrary mistakes can cause immense suffering. Like the accidental bombing of a shelter full of kids.
I offered the question, when should accountability come into play?
This concept predates the United States, going back to 1774 at least, with Napoleon and Goethe: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect."
Ultimately, we came away from our dialogue with three components: intent, harm, and accountability.
These are orthogonal, conceivably uncorrelated. This means we might have anything from 0% – 100% of each. For example:
- One might intend to help someone, but end up harming them. This is unfortunate.
- One might intend to hurt someone, but end up helping them. This is hilarious.
- Or one can be held accountable for something one didn't do, thus not having any attributable intent nor harm. This is false imprisonment.
It's very useful to separate outcomes from motivations. To take a pause, to breathe, to reflect...
And understand—especially when we are crusading to hang someone—who here is truly acting in service of evil?
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Thanks to Anosha Rahim and Richie Cartwright for all the ideas inspiring this post and for reviewing an initial draft.