”My God, what have I done?” I heard this line, a classic in horror films, sci-fi, and thrillers, in a commercial the other day. It was for the latest Purge film. Which, by the way, looks like it may actually be quite decent. A lot of people connect the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions to the idea that impact trumps intent. On the other side are the folks that use “I meant well.” as a sort of get out of jail free card. Legally there is a difference between killing in cold blood rather than in the rage of the moment despite the fact that both end with a dead body. Both are punished but they are punished differently because while both intent and impact matter, intent matters mostly because of its impact on impact.
Daniel Ames, Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, and Susan Fiske, Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton, show in in their work that when a harmful act is seen as intentional that not only are people more likely to assign fault they, we, see the impact as bigger- more negative. Their research shows that our mental links between intention and impact are so resilient that even unconnected bad intentions can make consequences of an act seem worse. To the extent that people can focus on purposeful harms while neglecting accidental harms, even when the impact is the same.
Out in the world, especially on social media, we tend to focus exclusively on intent. We make it all about the transgressor and ignore the one who has been transgressed against. It centers the intentions and identity of the transgressor and marginalizes the impact of the harmful actions or words. It is an inherently privileged action. When we focus on intent the conversation is one about who we are. That’s how we get statements like “I’m a good person!” in response to people being called out for their harmful statements or actions. In short, focusing on intent makes it all about you, not about what you did or how what you did affected anyone else.
When we focus on impact the conversation is one about what we actually did and the effects of that action. People avoid this conversation because it is an inherently more uncomfortable dialogue. But also because there is a belief that by admitting that we have done something it makes us that something. That acknowledging that we did something sexist makes us a sexist. That admitting we said something racist makes us a racist. Sexists and racists are “bad people.” We don’t want to be bad people so we don’t talk about what we did, we talk about what we meant. And what we meant does matter. But there is still that dead body on the ground.
Part of the problem is focusing almost exclusively on one or the other. Pitting intent against impact presumes that the two are tangential. They aren’t. How we distinguish a person’s intent has a strong influence on how we understand the impact of that person’s actions. Intent impacts impact. A fact that is even encoded into our laws. A crime committed in cold blood is seen as worse than one committed in passion. As noted in the work of Ames and Fiske, intentional acts are seen as worse than unintentional acts even when the end results are the same.
When we begin and end with intention too often we attempt to absolve the person who caused the harm of all responsibility or even the need to apologize. After all, they didn’t “mean” it. The fact is that intent matters in that it affects impact. Therefore the focus should be on impact. When someone does something harmful, the offender’s intent is not what’s most important when determining the suitability of the action. Instead begin with the results; the impact of the situation. Focus on the feelings and experiences of the person who has been harmed. Start with the body.
Believing something should be excused because of intent is completely dismissive. In the case of minority communities it is also undermining their, our, lived experiences. On a personal level focusing on our intentions is both selfish and a violation of trust. On a macro level it works to shore up flawed systems by not taking the results of the systems into account.
You do not have to BE a —ist to say or do something —ist. We all fuck up, we all say and do things that we don’t *really* mean. Things that are hurtful. Things that are damaging. We need to suck it up and own up to our mistakes. Our fear of being labelled something shameful does not trump the reality that our words and actions have consequences. Instead of jumping to the defensive about our intentions we need to listen, reflect, empathize, apologize, and work to do better in the future.