Mistakes And Their Consequences

When someone admits to making a mistake, or when it’s discovered that they have made mistakes in the past, several responses are possible. We can disregard the mistake or forgive it outright. This allows everyone to move forward, but it does nothing to hold the person accountable for their actions or reinforce a sense of responsibility. That can be counterproductive in the long run.

We can ostracize the person who made the mistake. We can demand that they resign from their job or be removed from a position that they hold. We can humiliate them publicly. This may be the right way to handle a serious mistake, but could be overkill for a lesser infraction. Unfortunately, this is often the first reaction of well-meaning observers.

The third option is to start a conversation in order to analyze what happened thoughtfully. What was the nature and seriousness of the mistake? Did it do lasting harm to someone? Did the person who made the mistake attempt to make amends? Have they learned from the experience? Are they a better person today than they were when they made the mistake? Can they be trusted? Such reflection gives us the chance to take action in accord with the severity of the infraction, the quality of the person and their value to our community. The punishment can still be severe if necessary, but by avoiding a rush to judgment, it’s more likely to be appropriate.

In recent days, it discovered that a prominent politician had a racially insensitive photo posted on his medical school yearbook page. I question the integrity of an institution that would permit this, but I digress. Many people called for his resignation immediately upon hearing the news, even though it has not been determined whether or not he was actually in the photograph.

A famous actor admitted in an interview that he once, for a short time, felt animosity toward members of a certain race. This came after learning that a friend had been raped. People immediately demanded a boycott of the actor’s movies. 

Note the following. Both of these situations happened decades ago. Both men say that they learned from their experiences and that these actions do not reflect who they are as people today. And in neither case was any person directly harmed.

Contrast these with the case of a judge who was recently nominated to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. It was alleged by a credible witness that the judge had also made a mistake decades ago. He, too, claims that the alleged action (to which he did not admit) is not a reflection of who he really is as a person. The difference is that the judge’s mistake, an attempted rape, did a lifetime of damage to the victim. That judge was confirmed by the US Senate and sits on the Supreme Court today.

And let’s consider the peculiar case of another man, the man who occupies the White House, a person who, by all accounts, has made and admitted to a wide range of mistakes and unseemly, unethical, and even criminal behaviors over the years, some of which have done real harm to people, including but not limited to the man’s own wives. The man has never claimed responsibility for any of his past transgressions, and yet, he continues to serve in his elected capacity.

As a society, we need a more even-tempered way of handling revelations of past transgressions. If we simply overlook someone’s mistakes, no one will take responsibility for their actions. But if our first instinct is to call for the ruination of a person’s career at the mere mention of alleged misbehavior, that swings too far in the other direction, pushing us toward an Orwellian dystopia where one need only think bad thoughts in order to be deemed worthy of extreme punishment.

Let’s all take the opportunity to learn from these recent incidents. We could all use a bit of empathy and thoughtful reflection in our lives.