Mistakes and Moral Failings

kstyle notes that some people regard mistakes as moral failings, and I find that I have half-promised to dilate on that.

I remember dealing with Chuck's son on this one, and that taught me a lot, actually, because it forced me to articulate my own thoughts in a way that a 7-year-old could understand. What I tried to teach him (and who knows how much stuck) is that everyone makes mistakes. It's going to happen. What matters is what you do when you make a mistake. In my mind, you apologize for it; you try to fix it, if it can be fixed in some way; and you try not to make that particular mistake again. Some kinds of mistakes are going to happen again anyway; as Bossman says, not every day can be a good day. Similarly, although I try very hard not to make mistakes in my proofreading and copyediting, I know that I will. As I discover new (kinds of) mistakes, I try to develop strategies for minimizing or eliminating them, but I know that I will not be perfect.

I tell you all of this to make it clear that I do not, in fact, regard mistakes as moral failings. As Orange could tell you, a frequent crossword puzzle clue is "to be human." The answer? "Err" (as in, to err is human).

But I think that the people 'style mentioned are afraid of this view. All mistakes must be regarded as transgressions, as moral failings, as evidence of one's badness and unfitness to draw a breath. Perhaps it has to do with a notion of the possibility of perfectibility. I think many (but by no means all) religious types regard humans as inherently flawed--Adam's sins and all that. (For an entertaining take on that matter, see this entertaining post by John Scalzi on the Creation Museum; hat tip to mythago.) Humans were perfect; then they fucked up; so all humans are fucked up; except Jesus will save you by washing away those sins.

And, really, that never made sense to me, in either the Protestant or Catholic versions. In some Protestant versions, if one acceptsJesusChristasone'spersonalsavior, then all sins are forgiven; in the Catholic version, one confesses one's transgressions to a priest, who (a) assigns a penance, in the form of prayers and (b) intercedes on one's behalf with one or more members of the holy trinity (I'm a little unclear on that aspect). (Here's a Jewish interpretion of that notion.) Obviously, there are several questions in play:
1. Is it the act that is problematic? Can/should the act be distinguished from the doer of the act? (Hate the sin/love the sinner would be one variation on that theme.)
2. Are humans inherently sinful?
3. Are humans inherently prone to sinful acts? (not quite the same as 2., I think)

And on and on and on.

To me, it seems a lot of blather, but that's where my lifelong atheism comes in. Why not just accept that we're all going to fuck up, and develop strategies for when that happens?

To get back to 'style's original sin question, however, I think we react most strongly to the things we most fear. The person who regards mistakes as moral failings is afraid of being thought of as, or afraid of being, a Bad Person, and s/he secretly or not-so-secretly is convinced that s/he is bad, and, therefore, unlovable.

Or (and this is less charitable): people who are afraid of non-religious transcendence, who are afraid of other-than-religious joy, because they're afraid of the loss of control inherent in joy and transcendence, want there to be rules, damnit! They want to be able to condemn others, and mistakes are an easy way to do that--mistakes being a sign of Original Sin and all that.

Eh; it makes me tired. It seems like a lot of time being spent worrying about other people's houses.

And, you know, I could be completely wrong and/or full of shit. Wouldn't be the first time.