Desdinova
join:2003-01-26
Gaithersburg, MD
| Re: Wow I dunno, I agree completely that the saying "two wrongs..." is frivolous nonsense. What's RIGHT and what's WRONG varies from one person to another and despite the delusional beliefs of many folks these values are not a chisled-in-stone and measurable constant outside of any self-referential belief system.
Let's say someone punches me over a misunderstanding but then steps back and doesn't try and escalate the violence beyond that one punch. That's one wrong act. Still, I feel wronged so I stand up and punch him back. That makes two wrong acts because neither action in any way addresses the misunderstanding that perpetuated the reduction to violence. AND YET...I'll feel pretty goddamned good after popping the bastard in the mouth after he hit me. So yeah, it WILL make it right in my book: you hit me and I hit you. We've hit a moral balance (in my head and in that situation).
If we want to take it even further, most of the legal system is based upon the idea that--from a situational standpoint--two wrongs most certainly make a right. If I rape your wife, I've committed a wrong towards her. If the state arrests me and puts me in jail, they've committed a wrong towards me (as far as I'm concerned. I certainly wouldn't choose to surrender my freedom voluntarily). Once my sentence has been served I'm released and having paid my debt to society (but surprisingly NOT to my victim as it's impossible to unrape her), all is forgiven and we're back to square one.
In other words, I hurt someone so the state hurts me back in order to teach me a lesson. The state KNOWS that their actions will cause me to suffer or they wouldn't be doing it. I'm being punished, remember? Knowingly causing someone to suffer is a wrong act, so by extraction, the legal system is the embodiment of two wrongs DO make a right.
I don't even want to go into capital punishment and how the state feels that killing one person will somehow magically fix things. Hmmm...the victims were still dead last time I checked...
And no, I'm not indicting the legal system and calling for its disassembly. What I AM saying is that the phrase in question is pointless, absurd and proven wrong constantly. THAT'S the subject I'm rambling about, so let's keep the flames to that subject and that alone, shall we? 
Okay, let the flaming begin...*grin* |
