Feeding My Ignorance

There have been plenty of posts in this blog about our selective memory - the way we remember some things but not others - the way we find it difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction when looking back at past events - the way we tend to exaggerate, one way or another, those memories that we retain - the way that something someone else says or does will trigger a memory, sometimes even triggering a memory that is fictitious.

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My previous post discussed a quite specific scenario - a real life scenario - which has resulted in a certain amount of controversy with people condemning or praising based on a selective (albeit 1st hand) report of what happened. This same type of reaction happens when the report is more sketchy, less meticulous in its detail, more prone to the type of exaggeration mentioned already and - most importantly - based on testimony which is perhaps 1st hand, but which has been shaped by months or years of "memory decay".

Note that in this context the decay that I am calling out is where the memory becomes progressively less like the actual event - not that we have 'forgotten' - the memory may be very strong, but time will have perverted the accuracy of what we recall.

This also is something which falls into the sort of grey areas that I have previously discussed. A lot of that was triggered in the main by the succession of news items that surfaced about the so-called historic child abuse. As I have said before - where those allegations were shown to be true this is a subject that deserves to be portrayed as despicable and "beyond the pale". My worry has always been that the very natural revulsion that we each feel is responsible for a reaction that lays aside the "facts" and instead gets high on the headlines.

There have been many people (especially celebrities) who have been pilloried as a result of their alleged actions - often from many years ago. There are others who are, seemingly, the subject of constant rumour and innuendo - but nothing that constitutes proof. There have been a few where the insinuations have been unproven - there have been cases where those making the accusations have been shown to be either exaggerating or fabricating the stories.

Almost without exception though - every person who has surfaced as a possible perpetrator has been villified in the press and by the public - branded as monsters - hounded wherever they go - abused in a diferent way to that suffered by their (alleged) victims and, in some cases, out of proportion from the original accusation.

Then - a revered "celebrity" passes away - they are praised in the press and by at least some sections of the public for their "contribution" - their influence will "never be forgotten" - and yet they have a conviction for the sort of abuse that others were being hounded about.

Its not been forgotten - it does get plenty of mention, its not as if it is being hidden - it is a matter of fact - it is a matter of public knowledge. Yet, unlike those who are being hounded in this day and age, there is no (or at least very, very little) condemnation of that behaviour.

Is this because "justice was seen to be done"? Perhaps - have they shown contrition? I don't know. Also bear in mind that the conviction happened a number of years ago - predating most of the "historic" cases being investigated now - and, I suspect, in an era where the punishments were much less and the crime itself not perhaps not treated with the same seriousness as it would be today.

Do I see this as a little hypocritical? Yes, I do. Do I think that this person should be villified as others are? No, I do not. My point is that there is this great inconsistency again - possibly this is an inbuilt cognitive bias - whereby we discount "old news" - focussing only on the headlines of today (and perhaps yesterday!!). We scream for the head of someone who might have done something wrong forty years ago - even where the precise allegations are consistent with behaviour that was deemed 'acceptable' then and has only been downgraded in recent years. Yet we laud and praise someone who did something that was illegal then and now.

From my previous post it is clear, I hope, that contrition and an acceptance that what happened was wrong could be enough to allow forgiveness in. So it is likely that it is right that this celebrity is praised and lauded for their great achievements and that any mentions of past misdemeanours should be suppressed. Where I perhaps differ from the majority is that I perhaps think that there are others who deserve an equal amount of "selective memory". Not everyone rounded up in recent investigations is innocent - but not everyone is guilty - and many, I suspect, are being tried against different rules from those in existence when the 'crime' was committed. That is never wholly satisfactory.

We are again traversing grey areas - its a shame so many treat them as one extreme or the other. I am comfortable with forgiving people for wrongdoing - it worries me slightly when, as here, there seems to have been a collective forgetfullness - or perhaps just a selective memory.