“He who takes responsibility has the authority” ~Great
Thinkers
The
most profound collision of worlds between child and parent arrives at the time
deemed for potty training; near about two years old. Up until then, it had been a pretty much
subtle, relentless, and mostly benign shaping to obedience for the child to
comply with the parents will. When punishment enters into the picture the
gloves come off, as it were, and from thereon in, no one can go back to the way
it was. The parent; older, wiser, and above all else, physically stronger,
exercises those superiority traits over the subordinate child as authority; without
so much as permission or agreement. Of course society ordains this arrangement
with religious and secular rituals and laws applying reason to whoever takes
responsibility for providing care is by that act, given authority to perform ALL tasks. Yet the truth of all that
boils down to justification for using force; be it guiding, shaping, or forcing the next generation on the way
to right
behavior, included is of course obeying whimsical desires of the one
possessing authority; in so doing, introduce wrong as its comparison.
Wrong
comes from Old English and originally meant, “unjust, awry.” Unlike the word
right whose Latin origin, rectus,
means base, which itself comes from the word reg, equating to movement in a straight line, extension. So it isn’t surprising, the first meanings of
the word right meant just that “straight, not bent, curved or crooked.” The original meaning of the word wrong on the
other hand, is based on the morality of a human action; namely “that which is
morally unjust, unfair, amiss, or improper; the negation of equity, goodness or
rectitude.” So in effect, society already had a clear idea of what it didn’t
want, with only later applying the opposite as a refinement for actions,
conduct, etc; in accordance with what is just, good, equitable, morally
fitting.
This may be the
very reason why wrong behavior gets instantaneous
punishment, (or as near to the offense as possible) and good behavior
‘deserves’ reward, (where it is quite evident it is not always rewarded.)
All
well and good of course, along with rather quite obvious; but here’s the rub.
We
human beings learn by experience. We
try, as it were, until we master the ability to accomplish the task at hand
without error or nearly-flawless. And
what that further suggest is that we are no-where-near perfect in execution
until we practice; that in and of itself means doing it wrong until errors are
eradicated. See the paradox? Wrong and
error are not inherently the same thing; but unfortunately are treated as
synonyms. Of course a nice idea for
justice to be served is the notion of intent, and I’m glad to report most
courts of law take intent into account when delving into the sticky mess of
guilty behavior and sentencing for offenses.
My pressing
concern circles on the idea that initiative and innovation are squash under the
psychologically driven instinct of survival; that is, avoid pain, then by
extension, punishment. When wrong prevails, chance takes a back seat. You can see it in authoritarian societies with
their appalling lack of progress. When the human condition is distilled into
one of avoiding punishment i.e. being accused, cited, or caught-being wrong;
the only sure strategy to avoiding institutional punishment is to do nothing;
or excel in dodging all societal moral constraints.
In such a way, one must either resign to
being less than an exploring-interest-driven human being whose purpose in life
is to mature towards excellence; or become an obedient, substandard performing
robot. Sadly, many governments in their
quest to obtain total control, would actually prefer to have more of the
latter. Dare resist the impulse to
collapse into the world of wrong; you owe it to yourself to bear the burden of
responsibility for your choices; which are yours and yours alone to exercise; with
or without permission.
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