treelizard

Hmmm, I hope this is the right forum to post this into because it's slightly related to similar topics (profiling, etc.) I have a friend who used to be a detective and she says that you judge a person by how they act or respond during their worst behavior. That is who they really are, and everything else is a farce.

While I agree that there are some things people should never do, that are pretty inexcusable no matter what the circumstances, I'm questioning the logic of judging an entire person by a small percentage of their behaviors. I know that I've done and said things that I'm not proud of, and I would prefer to be judged for them in the context of the other things I've done, the circumstances, my reasoning, what I did to try to make up for it, etc. I suppose one could make the argument that I or other people who claim to be better than we are at our worst are actually opportunistic and would make the same mistakes again, if we had the chance.

I guess I'm torn, because I do think some people never change and if they did something once chances are they're going to do it again (child molestors, rapists and such come to mind) but I still want to hold onto that shred of idealism that people actually CAN change or that there exists in reality a "one-time thing"--a mistake people learn from that isn't who they are in their entirety.

Interested in any thoughts, esp. from anyone who studies such things.