Certainty

I don’t like the last few blogs I wrote and I’ve been trying to figure out why I wrote them. It’s not that I disagree with what I said, but that they bring up polarizing issues, and when that happens, they detract from the main point I’m trying to make. But what was that point?

I now realized what that point was, what other people have been saying and doing that bothers me. It’s the absolute (or nearly) certainty that people have in those situations I listed. It’s not that people don’t believe doctors; after all, they’re fallible humans too. It’s that fear, extreme negative perceptions, the hatred, and it’s that certainty that people have in their own perceptions that scares me. The unchangeable view that their negative impression of someone else must be correct, even when that negative view is extreme and there are less negative but reasonable possibilities, and that it’s OK to act on that negativity despite the consequences. That people around you really are as bad as you think they are.

Of course everyone must have some acceptable level of certainty to make a decision. But it doesn’t need to be absolute, and when people act like it is, it scares me. How can our perceptions ever be absolute? We’re not perfect, we all have flaws in our logic and understanding, we all lack some information, and it’s something we all have to learn to live with. Denial isn’t a healthy way to deal with anything, let alone our own flaws.

When that denial is applied to negative reactions to and impressions of others, we risk hurting those others. Are people really OK with that, with letting ourselves think so highly of our own interpretations that we allow ourselves to hurt others, even when there’s no benefit to ourselves? In situations of crime and justice, we have to make decisions that ultimately do hurt one person or another. But we incorporate the concept of “reasonable doubt” and “innocent until proven guilty” to protect hurting more people than necessary. I’ve heard many people say it’s unfortunate our justice system has these principles, and they confuse wanting justice with wanting revenge, wanting to take out their anger on anyone even suspected of wrong doing. That certainty that they know the truth and that they would risk harming innocents to get to it…the certainty that they know who is innocent and who is not, that there are global conspiracies waiting to harm them…is frightening.

Over a year ago I saw the movie Doubt. The subject and setting for this movie is not typically something I care for in movies, but this one left a big, positive impression on me. Whether or not the priest was a pedophile is not made clear, and that’s a significant point of the story. What happened is left up to the characters and the viewers to determine (and everyone who’s seen it seems to have a different interpretation of what went on), and it’s up to the other characters to decide what, if anything, to do. And yet, even at the end, when everyone’s made their decisions and reacted the way they saw best, there’s still the acknowledgement that they could be mistaken, and it’s clear their decisions were not made easily.

That’s what’s important to me. The recognition that when you accuse someone of wrongdoing or evil, you’re not infallible and you could be hurting an innocent person, the recognition that other interpretations are valid, not just your own. Making a decision may be necessary, but it’s not a decision people should make quickly or lightly, and certainty shouldn’t come purely from gut feeling.

It is innocent until proven guilty, right?

I was planning on not using this blog to respond to things in the news, since there’s plenty of that out there, and I don’t see the point in just stating my opinion on a topic. But I guess working out my feelings about people, society, etc, means I have to use real examples. And I do have a related personal story that I’m still angry about wanted to talk about anyway.

I’m really disturbed by people’s reactions to this Casey Anthony not guilty verdict. I don’t mean people “out there”, but friends and people I know well, or somewhat well. I don’t like to comment on trials and such because I feel it’s not up to me to judge. I’m not in the courtroom, hearing the different sides, the testimonies, the evidence, etc. I usually do have an opinion, as I would imagine most people do, and I keep up with trials to see if my opinions and the justice system match up, but it’s not like my opinion counts for much. This case, though, I don’t really have an opinion; the evidence is weak, the story is weird, the defendant is weird, so I have nothing to say about it, and it’s not really my job to have a say anyway. The only reason I’ve even been following it is because of the reactions of people I know.

It seems to me that so many people are convinced she’s guilty because her behavior is not what you’d expect from someone who’s child died. She didn’t go to police right away, gave really strange explanations, did strange things…but personally, I have no idea what kind of behavior is normal in a situation like that! It’s not like many of us are familiar with people losing young children. I think we see it on TV quite often in crime shows, but TV can’t even accurately portray drowning, never mind more complex behaviors like grief or guilt. So seeing someone judge another because their behavior isn’t what they think it should be even though they probably know as little about psychology as I do really upsets me.

Seeing people act on their ignorance is worse.

When I was in high school, I had 3 guy friends who were really close. One was moving a few weeks after the school year started, so the other two decided, as a tribute to him, they would dress like him until he moved. Unfortunately, the friend’s regular outfit was a black trenchcoat, and he was moving September 10, 2002. I went to high school in one of those small towns that realistically, had little to fear from terrorists, but was so sure of the town’s importance and significance, that officials were convinced there was a real threat everywhere. My friends did not think this plan through.

These 3 were, in many ways, the typical anime geeks of the late 90s, early 2000s. No one outside of anime fans knew anything about it, and the level of expressed weirdness and fandom was certainly new to school officials. We were accused of watching porn in Anime Club, and this was to be expected. On top of that, their other friends were what I considered the end of “goth” before people started calling wearing all black “emo”. These terms meant little to me, and probably to those teens as well, but were undeniably obvious. One guy had a tattoo on his face and pieced his own eyebrow with a safety pin while in class (and his teacher didn’t even notice). But many teens in this group were just more of the typical “unable to fit in” group…they also wore a lot of black, shopped at Hot Topic, were regular members of Anime Club, liked to hang out at the nearby bookstore and read comics and manga without paying for them (until they eventually were kicked out), but on the whole, they were nice people who were just a little strange (a lot less strange than they looked). From what I saw, they mostly just wanted to find a way to express themselves as different from the rich, popular kids at the school. They thought the coats made them look cool, like Neo from The Matrix. I was unaware of any drug use, certainly never in school. Unlike some honors students.

I was an honors student, I think the only one who associated with this group. I didn’t dress like them (much) or spend a whole lot of time around them, and I think that protected me from what happened next. A girl who I had been friends with a few years before started telling people these guys were going to bomb the school. I don’t know what kind of sick person she was to think of spreading this lie, but it obviously, and understandably, lead to some school officials panicking. For the whole week this went on, school was not cancelled, and I don’t think most students or parents even knew what was going on. But the police went to house of every person these guys associated with and searched it. Except me. Why? I have no idea, and have to wonder if it’s because I was a “good” student living in a good neighborhood, with wealthy-looking parents. The other ~15 students? Not so much. They were average-poor students often from either poor or not-so-great families. The police didn’t have warrants, but no one turned them away. And surprise, surprise, the police found absolutely nothing! So that should have been the end of it right? No! The reason the police were called was because of one Assistant Principal (we had I think 4). When the rumors started, the 3 guys went to one of the other Assistant Principals to tell her what was going on and that they were concerned. She believed them, but did nothing to help. The first assit. principal was not convinced, even after the police found nothing, and actually had the school officers arrests the guys one the morning before classes started! Before they could be taken out of the school, another friend yelled at the officers, telling them they had no right to arrest the guys for no reason other than someone’s paranoia, and the officers let the guys go. Within the next few days, the one friend moved, but the assistant principal still wasn’t satisfied and went through their files to find a way to transfer the remaining 2 to another school. He temporarily succeeded for one because they had the wrong address on record, but that was straightened out by the guys’ parents/grandparents. So the assistant principal declared black a “gang color” and banned it, along with all piercings, even ones that weren’t noticeable, like tongue and belly button piercings (but refused to grandfather in students who already had them).

A number of the students dropped out of school, even one who was a senior, because they felt the school official were either indifferent or out to get them. Which they were. No one ever asked why my friends dressed like that. No one ever looked into who started the rumors.

That year’s prom, the remaining guys and one girl who went were thoroughly searched with a metal detector by the Principal himself. Maybe they should have spent more time searching the rich, honors students who snuck in bottles of alcohol and all got drunk. The valedictorian was still allowed to be valedictorian even though the rules expressly said she could not be after that.

So when I hear people judging other’s behaviors, I don’t like it one bit. It scares me to think so many people, people who I know!, think that someone doing something strange, even if it is stupid, is automatically a sign of guilt, and that people in power can act on this ignorance and do harm. Do I think the woman’s guilty? I have no idea at all. But it gives me some hope that at least a jury can put aside personal feelings about “correct” behavior and look at what evidence they actually have, even in such horrible situations as one where a child dies.