When you are wronged

[jobycom]

When you are wronged, do you take from that experience that you should wrong others, or that you should not inflict that pain on others?

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. It depends. There was a time I would have said that you should

not inflict pain upon others, but then a police department single handedly destroyed my family. I don't think that way anymore.

[jobycom]

2. I don't mean on the people who caused the problem.

I mean on others, unrelated. For instance, if you get robbed by someone, does that make you want to rob someone else, or try to prevent robberies of others?

[skygazer]

3. I don't really take my cues as to how to act from others

I act the way my own internal morals tell me to act. I don't lie. I don't intentionally hurt people. I don't suffer fools. If I am wronged, I remove myself and go on.

I don't like letting other people control me. :shrug:

[redqueen]

5. What you said.

In other words: Say NO to cynicism!

[graywarrior]

4. In my head, I murder them

In person, I try to be nice or I take a buffer with me. I learned that living in a small town you never EVER burn bridges.

[Shell Beau]

6. Sometimes, but usually if I think things through and give

myself time to calm down, I realize that is never the right answer. Ever.

[AlCzervik]

7. no, thats not how i choose to live.

just because someone wrongs me doesn't mean i take on their behavior. If someone screws me over i file it away, if it happens again then i'm usually done with them.

[jobycom]

9. That's not really what I'm trying to ask.

It's just something I notice. Some people get cheated, for instance, and their reaction is "Next time, I'll do the cheating." Whereas other people react by saying "I'd never do that to anyone." I'm not really talking about doing back to someone what they themselves did to me--that's a basic human instinct most of us fight all the time, and sometimes it's a genuine desire for justice.

I'm talking about how we view things. How we react to things. I see comments here on DU, for instance, about whether to attack Cindy McCain for past sins to get at John, and some people say no, and others say yes, but the thing that always surprises me are the people who say "That's what they did to us in 04." Or, when Russert died, some people took that as the time to attack him, yet some of those same people have gotten upset over the right-wing attacks on Carlin over his atheism, even though the attacks seem the same as what some here did to Russert. My instinct is to say "I won't do that to them because that's what they've done to us," but others seem to conclude "I should do this to them because they did it to us."

Bothers me. I don't know what I'm trying to find, but something.

[AlCzervik]

10. i didn't mean the person who might have wronged me, we are the sum of our experiences

imo and of course i've been wronged by someone before but i don't decide i'm going to wrong someone in the future that way i was wronged in the past. My experience has taught me to try and not to treat people badly and i do the best i can.

[skygazer]

11. You are talking about people justifying their poor behavior by their perceived experiences of

injustice.

Which in my opinion is less about the wrongs they may have suffered in the past than it is in the type of person they are anyway. When you use past injustice to rationalize more injustice, you are starting off on a very weak foot indeed.

[MissMillie]

8. my first instinct

is to wonder why anyone would treat me badly... I'm pretty nice to people so....


But you know, no matter what anyone does to me, I see no reason not to be nice to people.

[unpossibles]

12. generally, I use the experience for two things

1 - most importantly, how to recognize and avoid the situations which lead to being wronged. This doesn't mean constantly playing it safe, or refusing to allow anyone to get close, but simply to try to avoid being used or wronged.

2 - Otherwise, I use it as a role model of how NOT to be. You know how it feels - do you really want to pass that along?