I don't know about their obligation. I think, when you're struck, you're not really obliged to stop and calculate how intentional it appears to have been and appropriately moderate your expression of pain.
I'm not saying you're obliged to beat your breasts and tear your hair, but when you hurt someone accidentally, you don't question whether they have a right to be hurt, you say "Oh, I'm sorry, that was accidental, I'll try to be more careful." If you offer an honest apology for what you've done, and someone still wants to berate you, that's probably out of line, but it's still likely less hurtful to you to hear it than to another person, to have real pain shrugged off. I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here - I'm not talking about holding anything against anybody, I'm just saying people have a right to say "Ow, that hurts" and get a response that acknowledges the hurt. Beyond that, it's all contextual, but that much is a given.
Maybe it's the Recovering Catholic in me, but one concept that stuck with me from early religion classes was fault vs responsibility. I'm responsible for the consequences of my actions. I have an ability and a duty to respond to the results of what I have done. I may not be the root cause of that outcome, because very little beyond yourself is entirely in your control, I may not be at fault for that situation, I may not have planned the outcome, I may not be in full control of the factors that create it, but I am responsible for my particular part in it.
I tend to use an analogy not unlike akiko's - If I step on someone's toe, it's not up to the person with a broken toe to go "Oh, he doesn't know that people just like him stomped my foot till my toes broke, I shall smile and ask him to be more careful so he doesn't feel too bad about it." They have every right to yell ow, and curse a bit, and get a sincere apology, and if they need to vent a little more after that, it doesn't cost me nearly as much as my accidental injury cost them. I certainly don't have the right to say "Oh, jeez, I only stepped on your toe, stop being a baby!" or get offended, or demand an explanation for why it should hurt so much. If they push it to legal action, or if they start accusing me of malice aforethought, I have a right to defend myself, sure - I'm responsible for my accident, not the broken toe, I'm not at fault for the whole pain - but immediately acting defensive and denying their pain is not a reasonably polite response to the situation.
There's a whole range of this sort of behavior, and it depends enormously on context. It's one thing to trip and accidentally step on a toe. It's another to stomp someone's foot. It's also another thing to, say, walk down a busy street carrying long lumber and constantly knocking people upside the head because you're not paying attention. There's different levels of responsible behavior for each of these, but you have to be ready to asses them on their context. The accidental toe-step is unfortunate, but it'll happen now again. The stomp is generally mustache-twirlingly evil. But if you shrug off every injury you cause carrying timber at head-height without paying attention as "just an accident, don't get upset", that's disingenuous as well. You could be taking more responsibility for that action and preventing issues better.
This got rather rambly, I apologize for that. I tend to try to overexplain things online. I think we're largely on the same page, I don't think people should generally be hounded for an occasional honest mistake - but I likewise think it should be acknowledged that the mistake will have markedly different impacts in different situations, and while you aren't at fault for all of them, you're still responsible in the situation, to the degree you're involved. It's up to me to modulate my reaction to the situation I've created based on my responsibility, not for the injured party to moderate the situation based on my imagined culpability. They're generally already bearing enough burdens without having to add to them.
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chiming
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Date: 2010-06-23 03:07 pm (UTC)From:I'm not saying you're obliged to beat your breasts and tear your hair, but when you hurt someone accidentally, you don't question whether they have a right to be hurt, you say "Oh, I'm sorry, that was accidental, I'll try to be more careful." If you offer an honest apology for what you've done, and someone still wants to berate you, that's probably out of line, but it's still likely less hurtful to you to hear it than to another person, to have real pain shrugged off. I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here - I'm not talking about holding anything against anybody, I'm just saying people have a right to say "Ow, that hurts" and get a response that acknowledges the hurt. Beyond that, it's all contextual, but that much is a given.
Maybe it's the Recovering Catholic in me, but one concept that stuck with me from early religion classes was fault vs responsibility. I'm responsible for the consequences of my actions. I have an ability and a duty to respond to the results of what I have done. I may not be the root cause of that outcome, because very little beyond yourself is entirely in your control, I may not be at fault for that situation, I may not have planned the outcome, I may not be in full control of the factors that create it, but I am responsible for my particular part in it.
I tend to use an analogy not unlike
There's a whole range of this sort of behavior, and it depends enormously on context. It's one thing to trip and accidentally step on a toe. It's another to stomp someone's foot. It's also another thing to, say, walk down a busy street carrying long lumber and constantly knocking people upside the head because you're not paying attention. There's different levels of responsible behavior for each of these, but you have to be ready to asses them on their context. The accidental toe-step is unfortunate, but it'll happen now again. The stomp is generally mustache-twirlingly evil. But if you shrug off every injury you cause carrying timber at head-height without paying attention as "just an accident, don't get upset", that's disingenuous as well. You could be taking more responsibility for that action and preventing issues better.
This got rather rambly, I apologize for that. I tend to try to overexplain things online. I think we're largely on the same page, I don't think people should generally be hounded for an occasional honest mistake - but I likewise think it should be acknowledged that the mistake will have markedly different impacts in different situations, and while you aren't at fault for all of them, you're still responsible in the situation, to the degree you're involved. It's up to me to modulate my reaction to the situation I've created based on my responsibility, not for the injured party to moderate the situation based on my imagined culpability. They're generally already bearing enough burdens without having to add to them.