I have a default assumption about causing harm. If a person, group or nation causes harm and later expresses concern about that harm, I assume that their core goal is to act to heal that harm as much as possible, and to not do it again.
My default assumptions often prevent me from clearly seeing all of what is going on. For this reason, I sometimes get all detailed and explicit on things that may be really obvious to other people.
In this spirit, and given discussions of torture and various other things floating around on my radar screen, I am trying to make explicit a pattern that does not fit my default assumption about public expressions of "we have done harm" -- a dynamic in which the goal is to repair and maintain a good image, and in which image maintanance takes the place of action-focused morality.
So I made a flow chart. It's below the fold.
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