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by mrguyorama 1070 days ago
No, victims are not obligated to forgive you and neither is society. Sometimes people do bad things that cannot be undone and should not be forgotten. Sometimes that person doing the bad thing is you. Even if you didn't intend to harm someone, even if you did nothing wrong, even if you followed best known procedures and were fully attentive, you can still cause irreparable harm to someone else, and we shouldn't just pretend that's okay as some coping strategy.

Sometimes you hurt someone and you should feel bad about that. Deal with it. It's a part of life to be an imperfect human and this should help you keep in mind that EVERYONE IS AN IMPERFECT HUMAN.
2 comments
bittercynic 1070 days ago
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but it seems like we're in agreement, no?
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bittercynic 1070 days ago
Replying to myself - I didn't understand the context of this conversation before, but I just read Mark Wahlberg's wikipedia page. Yikes. Seems like the guy was (and is?) a violent, hateful, lunatic. Something smells very off about one of his victims releasing a public statement that he has forgiven Mark.

I was not intending to argue that he should be pardoned.

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blq10 1070 days ago
We do that, it's called imprisoning people for a very long time.

This is generally unpopular among liberal and left leaning spaces, and is only marginally popular in right leaning ones.

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mrguyorama 1070 days ago
My stance says nothing about punishment, imprisonment, or retribution, and is more about recognizing that there are things humans can do to each other that are irreversibly damaging, and that is not an okay thing to do, and recognizing that you have caused someone irreparable harm that will never be "fixed" is the emotionally mature stance. I'm not even saying you should wake up every day with a weight on your shoulders for killing someone, but rather it's something you should keep in mind, and victims owe nothing to the people that harmed them, and I do not believe expecting victims to tell people doing bad things "everything is okay" is beneficial to society. Being without forgiveness from those you harmed is not equivalent in any way to being in prison for life.
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