John Rawls had an idea called a “veil of ignorance.” As I understand it, you’re meant to imagine that you know nothing about yourself except for the fact that you exist and will live in some kind of society. With that in mind, imagine the kind of society in which you’ll be doing pretty well regardless of what you look like, whatever abilities or disabilities you might have, how old you are, your level of wealth, and so on. That’s about as much as I know about the “veil of ignorance,” although I find a modified version useful for thinking about how I live my life. Let’s explore that together.
My approach whenever I’m unsure of how I want to proceed with something and am present enough to do this is to step back and ask myself what kind of world do I want to live in. Once I think about that, I think about how the world would look if everyone acted as I did. Sometimes, that’s enough to inspire me to act with more compassion, patience, and the like since that’s how I’d like everyone else to act toward me, and I (at least occasionally at this point) try to serve as an example of how I’d like others to act.
I think of this at times whenever I see someone accused of doing something awful. Almost every time, the person’s picture and name are shown alongside the accusation all over various kinds of media. People who’d never heard of that person before come racing in with comments denouncing the person and calling for various awful kinds of punishment. All before there’s been a trial or any solid look at the situation to figure out what actually happened and whether or not the person did what they’re accused of doing. By the time the actual facts come forward, almost everyone has already made up their minds about what happened, and any new information at that point merely serves to reinforce the views they already have about the situation.
You can run through this thought experiment for yourself. Imagine, if you will, that you’re accused of doing something horrible that you know you didn’t do. Your name and picture are shared all over the internet, TV news shows, newspapers, and so along with information about what you’re accused of doing. Sometimes it’s made clear that this is only an accusation and sometimes it’s not. Depending on how those who see all of this respond, it could have huge impacts on whether or not your family, friends, current and future employment/business activities, freedom, and all else goes well or poorly (possibly for the rest of your life). How do you hope everyone would respond?
I started thinking about this over 15 years ago when I read a disturbing magazine article. A woman had been accused of murdering her disabled daughter and was immediately treated as if she were guilty right after her daughter died. Even after she was found innocent in court, many still considered her guilty, such as the person who went up to her in a grocery store and asked her if she was the woman who killed her daughter. Imagine the pain that woman went through with losing her daughter, being accused of murdering her, and then still being treated as if she were guilty even after her name had been cleared. I certainly wouldn’t want to have insult added to injury in that way if I were in a similarly traumatic situation. Would you?
I’m not trying to make any legal points here or give my opinion on how I’d like any laws to be. What I’m doing here is focusing on how people treat others, what happens to those found guilty in the court of public opinion, and how everyone behaves toward each other. For example, some seem to think that it’s ok for others to be widely shunned from nearly all social interactions for something they’ve been accused of doing (whether it’s actually bad or just popular to think of it as bad) even if they’ve been shown in court to be innocent of that accusation. Not many seem to think about what will happen to them if they can’t get jobs, food, housing, etc. I suspect they’re indifferent to that because they haven’t considered the possibility that they might someday be accused of doing something awful and then be shunned from what they need to survive. What if that happened to you or someone you love?
All of this makes me wish humans could be more like dogs. My dog Sawyer was quick to curiosity, forgiveness, and doing his best to find out what was actually going on. In contrast, so many humans, including me, are quick to make assumptions, hold grudges, and jump to conclusions without ever even considering other possibilities. I’m working on being more like Sawyer and giving others grace, which is often easier said than done. Still, if I never work at it, I’ll never improve at it.
With all of this in mind, I’d like to close by asking you a few questions. First, what kind of world do you want to live in, and do your daily actions take you closer to that world or farther away from it? Second, suppose that everyone behaved how you behave. What emotions do you feel right now as you imagine that kind of world? Third, how do you typically respond when you see someone’s name and picture shared all over the internet, TV news shows, newspapers, and so along with information about what they’re accused of doing, and how would you want others to respond if that happened to you? Finally, once you’ve thought about all of this for a while, do you think that this will or won’t change how you respond in those sorts of situations? Depending on how you answered those questions, and if you feel largely negative emotions, then you might want to rethink how you live your life, especially in how you behave toward others.