The Waiting Room of Innocence:
An adult holds himself
accountable. Any rational being does everything within his power not only to
preserve his own well-being, nor only the well-being of the majority, but to
preserve rather the well-being of ALL beings. This is inalienable; the moment
that he ceases to do so, he ceases to be a rational being, and he absolves
himself of his own human rights, for they can only be guaranteed by rationality
and by altruism.
A rational man does not blame
victims. Nor does he blame his accusers. Least of all does he blame an other
man of Reason when that man is both parties at once; he does not make excuses
in order to prevent being held accountable. The moment that he does any of
these things, he ceases to be rational. And then his own account is a lie. It
has no practical value. It is only an attempt to rebel against the Truth.
The value of all rational
actions is in that they serve the ideal of Justice. This preserves the
well-being of all beings, even from threats by irrational beings. This is not
at the EXPENSE of man’s irrational nature. On the very contrary, it is the
rational function of the mind that makes possible the preservation of man’s
irrational appetites and perceptions. Every sensation and intuition is
objective, but without feeling and thought there can be no synthesis of
individuals into a Greater Whole and Higher Good. So it follows that man’s will
becomes perverse, severed from the Divine Order of Things that nurtures and
provides for all beings.
A rational man does not blame
victims. Nor does he blame his accusers. Least of all does he blame an other
man of Reason when that man is both parties at once: victim and accuser. No
individual deserves to endure such a Hell; all individuals deserve Justice. And
no self-respecting Individual would allow for such an Injustice. It would be to
surrender one’s own Reason, and by extension one’s own Humanity.
To be a Rational Adult is to
be accountable. To be accountable is to make no excuses. The moment that one
refuses to agree to a Rational Agenda, one ceases to be of value. The moment
that one refuses to atone for a wrongdoing, the infliction of harm or pain, one
ceases to be of value. The moment that one endangers an other human being, and
under the false auspices of caring and good intent, one ceases to be of value.
For all of these sins endanger Humanity, and insofar as one is what one does,
and what one does is reflected in the world, so it follows that one compromises
one’s own Humanity by committing these sins. And then one’s testimony becomes
void.
I will not be blamed for any
act of rage that I committed with Beneficent Intent. A man does not use the
rage of his accusers as an excuse to perpetuate the wrongdoing or to fail to
make amends. Either course – the active one of wrongdoing, or its passive corollary
of refusal to atone – leads to human tragedy and the loss of life and its
meaning. A man owns up to that rage, even if he is blameless, long enough to be
able to clear his name. He then pardons and forgives his accusers, knowing that
he would have done the same in their place. He is prepared to stand before a
jury of his peers, guilty until proven innocent, on the mere suspicion that he
had committed a wrongdoing. Because he understands the inalienable value of
Justice, and he reserves no right to Law and Order if he does not do his own
part to uphold it.
I, for one, will not be blamed
for bringing an irrational man to justice. For it would simply be an extension
of protecting Others.
These are not peculiar
virtues. They are the non-negotiable attributes of all Rational Beings.
The introvert is gifted with
the ability to perceive tragedy before it happens. The extravert is gifted with
the ability to prove that it has happened. The friendship between these two
depends entirely upon a mutual trust and respect. If an introvert should intuit
that a man’s character is self-serving, he is not rightfully to be suspected of
harbouring a prejudice. When evidence is presented against the accused, this
rules in the introvert’s favour. When evidence is presented in favour of the
accused, the introvert is not to be penalized, for the accused was guilty until
proven innocent. The conceit of a State is in imitating a human being; what is
oppressive for government to do is permissible to the civilian, for it is the
civilian, not the government, that feels and that must provide for its own
survival and the survival of its fellows.
Once proof is provided, the
accuser remains blameless, for he was not himself accused to begin with. In
order to preserve the human right of accusation one cannot dismiss accusation
as a sin. Life is lived forwards; it is understood backwards. If I find reason
to judge, then that reason remains my right and responsibility. A rational man
would pardon me, for, as stated previously, he would have done the same in my
place, and his Reason enables him to see that. He would pardon me even for
being wrong, simply because the ideal of Justice is higher than either of us,
and even though we would appear to work at cross-purposes with one an other the
overlying cause of Human Good would preserve our mutual dignity. One cannot be
innocent if one works against those whose intent is to defend or even to avenge
the innocent. And it is only when one’s ACTIONS clear one’s name that one can
speak of one’s own innocence to a skeptical Public. Failure to do so is
irrational because it only warrants the rage of the accuser, aggravating it by
endangering the victim. All Justice is aimed at preserving the well-being of
the victim. Once the victim is endangered, either by deception, force, or by
simple neglect, (the third of which is the least permissible of the three sins)
then the testimony of the Accused is no longer valid. Nor is it true. It is in
this way that the introvert retains his inalienable freedom to predict tragedy
BEFORE it happens, that the Public might be armed against it and able to
prevent it. The extravert’s findings will usually corroborate the introvert’s
intuitions, and this will often happen after some damage is done but when
salvation is still possible. This salvation is made available through the
introvert and the extravert working together towards the common ideal of
Justice. Once an Injustice is committed, it is non-negotiable. There can be no
excuse to be found in blaming either the introvert nor the extravert, for they
both bore witness to the same danger, one before the fact, based upon an
intrinsic understanding of Human Nature, and the other after the fact, via Common
Sense.
Life is lived forwards, but
understood backwards. If someone wrongs me, I retain the right to hate that
person. If the Truth is required of me, I reserve the right to report that
person’s wrongdoings with all due passion. Any practical moral philosophy must
hold the wrongdoer responsible. The facts of his wrongdoing remain irrespective
of whether or not they are believed. We must therefore orient ourselves to a
style of investigation that will enable us to make use of all of our God-given
gifts, introverted and extraverted, to work together in uncovering the Truth.
We must not entertain lies based on the SUSPICIONS of a person who has all
ready been PROVEN ill. Once proof is definite, one cannot blame someone for
having seen it coming. And that person is vindicated in exhausting every
resource in preventing it. The only person who retains the right to act on
suspicion is one who has never been proven guilty, or who is at that very
moment working in league with a Rational Agenda that clears his own name by
offering salvation to the suffering. And the prevention of evil is the very
obverse of guilt. Those who still suffer need still for the accused – the Suspected
– to comply with the Agenda. There is no excuse to refuse.
There is no evil with good
intentions. An inalienable right is to observe Reality objectively and to react
to it with Moral Clarity. The facts of life are simple and imminent. Harm
toward others is sin, because it creates danger. Danger must be prevented via
Justice. Justice is made possible by atonement. The refusal to atone is to
invite Vengeance, for that is a last resort when the danger is consummated in
the Loss of Human Life and the Depreciation of Life’s Value.
We all have an instinct to
survive. So we all have the right to judge.
Life must be lived forwards
and understood backwards. Hence one is guilty until proven innocent. Yet one is
guilty only externally if in fact one possesses Good Intent. A Rational Man
bears the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and public outcry with a
minimal degree of resentment, because he understands that his own virtue is its
own reward and that his accusers are simply striving towards the same ends as
he is. So when he clears his name he forgives them as he is himself forgiven,
for all were labouring towards a Common Cause, and the enemy was elsewhere. So
it is to be a member of the Human Community. But a man with poor intent will do
no such thing to clear his name, pretending that others are wrong by default to
defy his will, even if his will has produced harm, suffering, and suspicion. So
a rational man will do everything in his power to clear his name by agreeing to
a Rational Agenda, not because he is interested in self-preservation and
self-perpetuation (which are Given by the Cause Itself) but rather because he
loves the Cause Itself and has no higher value than the Good of those he has
endangered by past misdeeds. In this way even a sinner can be forgiven and
totally vindicated by proving his love for the seemingly oppressed, even if in
fact he had no such love when he oppressed them, and in that case their
oppression would have been more than mere semblance. In this sense, living
forwards and understanding backwards provides the greatest mercy for people to
be able to atone for past mistakes. But it is to that same degree of surpassing
severity to those who have no intent to learn from their mistakes and to atone,
for it guarantees their guilt until they join again the Human Community as
Healers to resolve the damage that they had inflicted before it could grow too
severe.
Justice will all ways be
convenient to the Just. Those who accuse agents of Justice of self-interest are
operating out of merely their OWN convenience, parasitically. No rational man
can allow for this to persist.
No life is preserved by
blaming victims or whistleblowers. The whistleblowers are the theory; the
actions of the accused stand as proof, one way or the other. Without theory,
there can be no proof, one way or the other. And even a theory without proof
compels us to take certain precautions, for knowledge can be made available to
the Few before it is obvious to the Public. This intimation is all so an
inalienable right. It is no different from the clean conscience of the falsely
accused man who sits in judgment by his peers until the day comes to clear his
name. And it is as real as the depraved conscience of the man who gets away
with wrongdoing by alienating all his critics and victims from one an other.
Most often, the accusers are
themselves just the victims who survived, trying to spare their fellows from a
worse fate. So least of all beings is he who accuses the man who is both victim
and accuser. That survivor is the only voice that trumps all others.
Dm.A.A.
