I’ve noticed something. I’ve complained before about the elevation of stock phrases to do work that only actual thinking can do (I’m not the only one). “Intent isn’t magic” is one of the biggest offenders. It’s like the proverbial “attractive nuisance,” the open swimming pool in the yard that begs toddlers to fall in and drown.
“Intent isn’t magic”, for too many people, has morphed into “intent is irrelevant and has no explanatory power for human interactions.” They don’t say that in those words, but that is the effect.
Except it doesn’t work. Intent matters a lot. A huge lot. We make all kinds of decisions based on what we believe other people are likely to do. Intent is the difference between a person who knocks you over on the bus and laughs, and the person who knocks you over on the bus then profusely apologizes and helps you pick up your groceries.
Intent makes the difference between a conviction for premeditated murder and a conviction for manslaughter. That difference is roughly reflected in the sentences for each.
Intent matters so very much that it can go off the rails when we focus on it too particularly. The latest horribleness in which some are trying to divine the True, Deep State of Mind of other people (They don’t sound like a TERF, but are they really truly fundamentally ontologically a TERF? I must find out!) demonstrates this.
No amount of actions—things that can be seen by others, writing that explicitly states the author’s position and recognition of the rights of other people—is enough. Actions mean little; they’re a cover for the True Deep Intent of the suspected heretic.
When you step back and look at this focus on intent, it is not unreasonable. Human life is full of people saying one thing and doing another. We have to engage our bullshit detectors, we have to read for subtext and implication, and we have to be reasonably confident that we’re not being played by someone who claims to want to help while they’re undermining us quietly.
But that requires us to recognize that intent does matter, and that it is a useful tool in guiding our actions and reactions to others when used properly. This is something a certain set of the social justice-interested refuse to acknowledge.
But they are as obsessed with true intent as any human is.
Josh Spokes
Perfect analogy. Intent does not magically make harm go away, but it certainly matters if you care about making amends, learning from the experience, etc.
I disagree with you slightly when you say this:
I’ve seen it morph into “Your intent is irrelevant because I am the arbiter of what your intent actually is.” Intent obviously has explanatory power, as you say later, but obviously can only be judged from the outside, preferably by someone who is already predisposed to think the worst of you anyway. /sarcasm
But you’re still knocked over. No one pulls out the “intent isn’t magic” line unless the person says “I didn’t mean to do that, you shouldn’t be upset.” Being upset is something everyone is entitled to be and whether you intended to upset them or not doesn’t matter.
Perhaps “intent isn’t magic but context is” might be a more complete line because until you laugh, apologize, shrug indifferently, sneer or don’t notice at all, knocking someone over is knocking someone over.
Sambarge, of course you’re still knocked over. Why do you think that I don’t realize that?
The problem I’m describing is a different one. I’m not so mediocre upstairs that I failed to notice the completely obvious point that one is still knocked over. Can we stipulate that?
Let me be incredibly specific to the point of pedantry because I really care about this issue and I want people to understand what I’m saying.
1. When you are knocked over, your being knocked over still happened no matter what the intent of the knocker-over was.
2. This is obvious. I get this. I understand it. I accept it. I never didn’t understand it.
3. Your being knocked over is not the problem I am describing. Really. There is, actually, another dynamic that I’m describing. One that is in addition to your being knocked over. Let that be possible, please.
4. The problem I am describing is using “intent isn’t magic” inappropriately. Using it to dismiss concerns that it cannot address.
5. Examples of the problem “intent isn’t magic” cannot address: The knocker-over’s intent is something that concerns anyone who is knocked over. Their intent can create a second, and additional harm, wholly separate from being knocked over. That additional, separate harm is the knowledge that the person who did it to you doesn’t care about your discomfort and even finds it amusing. They are likely to hurt you even more, something you recognize because they displayed their intent to you.
It is that thing I am describing. Is that clear?
Not true. Emphatically, absolutely NOT true. They do. You may not have seen it, but it is real. That’s why I’m complaining.
I’m sorry for being snotty. This irritates me extremely because it’s so hard to get people to stop long enough to recognize that there are different levels to this problem. That’s what the phrase does. It’s like it colonizes your mind and shuts down other possibilities. It’s very irksome and frustrating. It’s also unpleasantly surprising to learn that some folks actually think the “intent isn’t magic” phrase is never misdirected.
Also, you’re not always “still knocked over.” Not to the same degree. The intent of the person who knocked you over, if it’s good intent, can compel him to take actions that ameliorate some of the damage. Like helping you pick up your groceries, as I said in my example.
Wow. That struck a nerve. Ok. Allow me explain it:
1. You’re 6 yrs old on the first day of school. Someone knocks you down. They laugh and run away.
2. You’re 10 yrs old and going to the store to buy milk. You’re feeling grown up. Someone knocks you down. They don’t even notice you.
3. You’re 16 yrs old and going to get your driver’s license. The man behind the counter knocks you down. He explains that he has to; it’s part of the rules.
4. You’re 18 yrs old and going to college. Your professor knocks you down. He explains to the class that you getting knocked down is a systemic problem and doesn’t reflect on him.
5. You’re applying for your first grown up job. College classmates are getting hired. You keep getting knocked down. People helpfully suggest you change your resume.
6. You get a job. Your co-workers get promoted. You keep getting knocked down in the elevator. Your boss encourages you to keep a positive attitude.
7. You have a child and take them to the park. Another child knocks them down. That child’s parent doesn’t do anything.
8. You’re on the bus and someone knocks you down and spills your groceries.
Now, you tell me that in that instant, the intent of the knocker down matters. It doesn’t matter. It could be a total mistake. It could be a thoughtless act. It could be all sorts of things that would not reflect poorly on the knocker down. But are you on the ground again? Yes you are. And the intent of the person who put you there again does not matter one fucking iota to you. And if the knocker down insists that their intent matters while you’re on ground, then they are exercising a privilege of which they may be unaware; the privilege to say “don’t judge me by the actions of the other knocker downs, I’m a nice person of good intentions.”
If that’s unfair to the person who knocked you down for the umpteenth time in your life, then they will have to pick up the shattered pieces of their life and move on. Or, they can acknowledge that you’ve been knocked down before (even systemically) and they have just knocked you down again, They can acknowledge their error and endeavour to not do it again.
Maybe people use it to shut people down but it is helpful to remember that regardless of your intent, when you hurt someone, you’ve hurt them. If you’re aware you’ve hurt them, you might even apologize and make amends. But, given that you hadn’t set out to hurt them, you might not even be aware. And, because you set out to do good, you can walk away whistling and leave that person sitting on their ass. Because you intended good.
Intent is not magic means “regardless of my intent, I was wrong and I’m sorry.” If people are misusing an appropriate and respectful concept to shame and belittle others, that is the fault of the people not the concept.
So, to leave the knocking down analogy aside for the moment, how does this normally play out?.
“I didn’t intend that to sound sexist.” Well, it did. Your intention doesn’t matter.
“I didn’t intend that to be racist.” Well, it was. Your intent wasn’t magic.
“I didn’t intend to hurt gay people.” Well, you did. Regardless of intent, you hurt me.
We can disagree (I know Ophelia agrees with you) but I do not challenge “I didn’t intend” statements with any purpose other than to point out to people that what you intended doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this world.
The way I first heard it phrased was, someone steps on your foot, and you say “hey, you’re on my foot.” They reply that they didn’t mean to step on your foot, and you’re like, “that’s nice and all, but you’re still on my foot so I don’t really care what your intent was at the moment.”
Which is a very different scenario than when the person moves from your foot and says “sorry, didn’t mean to,” and you call them names and berate them for thinking their intent matters, until they run away, and you feel satisfied that you called out a Bad Person.
Sambarge, the problem is that I agree with you. About that. In the moment. Of course I do.
No matter how I explain this, I feel like you don’t grasp that I’m talking about something different from and additional to. I am not saying that, in those moments and using those words you describe, that one’s intent changes how much your foot hurts, or anything like that.
Will you accept that I understand that?
And I take you at your word that when you use “hey, your intent doesn’t matter right now because holy hell my foot hurts.” Will you please take me at my word that I have noticed that many other people use it misguidedly?
What Erica said. That is the difference I’m describing.
I’ve seen a whole lot of people who say “intent doesn’t matter” in the sense Josh objects to turn around and endorse special penalties for hate crimes.
Slogans are just that.
I get that you get it. I also get that some people are angry about their oppression and are unwilling to accept that not every privileged person is looking to hurt them.
My goodness. After the last week on this blog, who can doubt that?
I will continue to use “intent is not magic” though; when people are standing on my foot, knocking me down or whatever analogy we’re using and don’t acknowledge it or say sorry.
Sorry.
When someone is a member of a group that has been attacked physically and emotionally, it is natural to be sensitive to other people’s motivations. And sometimes it can look like paranoia when it really it is a fear of being hurt again. Usually, the best way to resolve the situation is to just ask what the other person intends. There has been so much emotion with this transgender debate, it has been hard to acknowledge the commonalities between people
Sambarge, this whole exchange was testier than I wanted it to be. For my part, I’m sorry.
FWIW, I agree with Josh (and PatrickG). I don’t believe Josh was saying you shouldn’t say “intent isn’t magic”. Just that it’s often misused. I’d go so far as to say I’ve probably seen it misused more often than used appropriately. A hypothetical example might look like this:
Blogger: Why is an ostensibly feminist publication celebrating a woman having to conform to narrow, traditional conceptions of female beauty just because she’s trans?
Commenter: How dare you say it’s wrong to tell a trans woman she looks nice! You bigot!
B: Wut? I never said it’s wrong to tell a trans woman she looks nice…
C: Liar! You just complained that a publication told a trans woman she looked nice.
B: You completely misunderstood the point I was making…
C: I don’t care what you meant to say! Intent is not fucking magic! You owe a grovelling apology to trans women everywhere, blah de blah blah…
Josh, thank you for this guest post, with Erica #9 illustrating you mean her 2nd paragraph:
Sambarge, your comments are always clear and great, and your position at #15 is a fine thing, but Josh is talking about Erica’s illustration in my blockquote above, which is a different topic than how you would handle examples of harm. Josh and Erica mean a maneuver to berate people to get an individual psychological payoff and a group dynamic payoff.
Evidently you would not think to play that game, and that makes you a person I like and trust. But with other people on other blogs, some people may deploy the maneuver when an opening appears, with harm or offense being real or manufactured to get the payoffs.
@ SilentBob, #18
Other misused phrases:
* Peer-reviewed evidence or GTFO
* Anecdotes are not data
* Shut up and listen
* What is asserted without evidence…
Not that those aren’t extremely valid and useful phrases in many circumstances, but maigod can they be misused. Just like “intent isn’t magic”.
Yes, Patrick at #20. All of that. So much.
Part of the issue is that these phrases are useful and valid a lot of the time. As much as I despise cliches, “intent isn’t magic” is often a very useful phrase. It condenses the objection to the idea that your intent absolves you of your responsibility for harming someone.
But the usefulness can be dangerous, too. I think we get similar patterns in physics (my day job). There are a lot of mental crutches we develop that work 95% of the time, but which can get you into trouble. These intuitions are useful–they help us quickly reject bullshit ideas, but what we gain in convenience we pay for in the form of sometimes missing deeper insights.
Trying to discern intent is also the only realistic way of dealing with culturally diverse situations. This is because language and actions are also social constructs. They don’t communicate meaning in a direct, natural and uncomplicated way. Anyone who says ‘intent isn’t magic’ in such a context is in fact painfully (and possibly dangerously) naive and provincial… regardless of their intentions.
Spot on. So very much this & quoted for truth.
Dan Fincke wrote (imo a good post) about this
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2013/06/intent-is-not-magic-but-it-still-matters/
Pen @ #23
Because intent isn’t magic? Lol! We’re in the endless loop.
In any case, I will continue to point out, where appropriate that regardless of intent saying or doing something harmful is, well, harmful. Understanding the context of the words or action is important but so is understanding the affect you can have on others, regardless of your intent. That’s all.
I should say though, I’m not that experienced in commenting here on FtB. I’ve stayed away for the most part because it is not always the most welcoming place. I like B&W the most for commenting but I always seem to get on the wrong side of someone/everyone on other blogs here. I would not be surprised if slogans are hurled without thought and inappropriately. I can see why people are testy about it.
Oh, please – how many ways must Josh and others say it, before it sinks in?
No-one, as far as I can tell, is saying “Don’t use that phrase!”; they are just saying “Don’t misuse that phrase!”
To those who are still baffled:
Please re-read what is written above; this time slowly, and while understanding that there are people out there who are being dishonest about what they mean when they use the phrase.
I think that we all agree that intent doesn’t magically minimise the harm an action inflicted. However, it must be taken into account when deciding on the severity of the punishment, if any, of the perpetrator – or we have no justice.
Out there in internet-land, there are people are claiming that the fact that the intentions of the person causing the harm has no effect on the severity of the harm, that gives them carte blanche to inflict the heaviest penalties on someone who accidentally hurt others, just as much as if xe had done it deliberately. And that they don’t even have to show that any harm was, in fact, done – they still have the right to hound out of the movement someone whose words might have hurt someone’s feelings, somewhere.
That isn’t justice. It’s bullying.
Intent doesn’t matter. But it’s still data.
@Samberge, going back to your list of getting-knocked-down events, 1 through to 8. Let us suppose 9.
9) You go to an ice skating rink. Someone deliberately charges at you in an attempt to knock you down. However, someone else stops them before they get to you – you were never at any real risk of being knocked down by this person.
It seems to me that if intent doesn’t matter, you shouldn’t care when someone intends to harm us, but fails to do so.
Personally, I do care when someone intends to harm me but fails to do so. If I’d had a long lifetime history of being knocked down all the time, I would care more about this person’s intent to knock me over precisely because that history would make me uniquely sensitive to that form of abuse.
Your thoughts?
Sorry, that was a typo due to an edit in my comment text. My first line should have read:
Daniel Schealler:
You might suspect it, but short of them telling you their intent, how do you actually know they’re deliberately attempting to knock you down before the fact?
(People aren’t omniscient observers)
Amendment, for John Morales:
9) You go to an ice skating rink. Someone deliberately charges at you in an attempt to knock you down, while yelling loudly at the top of their voice in a way that everyone can hear that this is in fact their intention. However, someone else stops them before they get to you – you were never at any real risk of being knocked down by this person.
Daniel, thanks. I appreciate that you didn’t think mine a pointless nitpick.
Actually, I sort of did. But I figured it would be a bit hypocritical of me if I were to pointlessly nit-pick you about it. 😛
Well, it was your actions I praised, not your intent, Daniel. 😉
@ 34 John Morales
It was in fact Daniel’s thinking for which you expressed appreciation, not their actions.
(OMG. I’m starting to sound like Morales 🙁 )
😉
Silentbob, heh. Yes.
I intended to praise Daniel’s action but instead praised Daniel’s intent as (wrongly) inferred on the basis of Daniel’s action.
Ya, even indisputable facts can be used in a fallacious argument.