That'll Teach 'Em?

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Anyone ever actually see this work? Someone gets a taste of their own medicine, sees that they were wrong, and changes their behavior accordingly? I'm not talking aversion here, like someone changing to avoid punishment, but an actual realization on their part after being treated how they were previously treating people.

I really can't think of an example personally, but am curious because this is such a commonly cited justification for bad behavior with an alleged cause, and I don't think it actually works. Anyone feel differently?

Is this like a joke?

An apology from some Old School SJWs:

We whose names are underwritten, being in the year 1692 called to serve as jurors in court in Salem, on trial of many who were by some suspected guilty of doing acts of witchcraft upon the bodies of sundry persons.

We confess that we ourselves were not capable to understand, nor able to withstand the mysterious delusions of the powers of darkness and prince of the air, but were for want of knowledge in ourselves and better information from others, prevailed with to take up with such evidence against the accused as on further consideration and better information, we justly fear was insufficient for the touching the lives of any, Deuteronomy 17.6, whereby we fear we have been instrumental with others, though ignorantly and unwittingly, to bring upon ourselves and this people of the Lord, the guilt of innocent blood, which sin the Lord saith in Scripture, he would not pardon, 2 Kings 24.4, that is we suppose in regard of His temporal judgments. We do, therefore, hereby signify to all in general (and to the surviving sufferers in especial) our deep sense of and sorrow for our errors in acting on such evidence to the condemning of any person.

And do hereby declare that we justly fear that we were sadly deluded and mistaken, for which we are much disquieted and distressed in our minds, and do therefore humbly beg forgiveness, first of God for Christ's sake for this our error. And pray that God would not impute the guilt of it to ourselves nor others. And we also pray that we may be considered candidly and aright by the living sufferers as being then under the power of a strong and general delusion, utterly unacquainted with and not experienced in matters of that nature.

We do heartily ask forgiveness of you all, whom we have justly offended and do declare, according to our present minds, we would none of us do such things again on such grounds for the whole world, praying you to accept of this in way of satisfaction for our offense, and that you would bless the inheritance of the Lord that He may be entreated for the land.

Foreman, Thomas Fisk, Thomas Perly, Senior
William Fiske, John Peabody
John Batcheler, Thomas Perkins
Thomas Fisk, Junior, Samuel Sather
John Dane, Andrew Elliott
Joseph Evelith, Henry Herrick, Senior

Henry Herrick is my 8th-great grandfather.

Nope, I'm genuinely curious if anyone has ever actually seen two wrongs make a right.

The way I see it is you have one person saying to another one "that'll teach 'em" meaning that person is saying that to be a smart ass to the other person and that they can do whatever it is better. The other person will never really tell the first person if they learned something and changed from it because they are embarrassed and really don't want to let the smart ass know that maybe they were right.

Does that make any sense? You'd have to have someone answer the question who was actually wrong about something then admit they were wrong and learned something from another person who they think is a showoff and a smart ass. Most people aren't going to admit they are wrong and another person put them in their place because they were in the wrong. I can't stress the "smart ass", part enough.

Last edited by nurseangela on 05 Sep 2016, 2:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah it happens sometimes but it requires a great deal of self-reflection. Most people wish to avoid the pain of self-reflection. People like to believe what is comfortable.

Dox, here is an experiment for argument's sake.

If I were to say that you have hurt my feelings in the past would you acknowledge it or would you say that I was wrong for being hurt?

Surely that's entirely situational? Hurt feelings are not evidence of wrongdoing.

Depends on if you are Aspie or NT.

It depends, I'd have to look back at what you were talking about and decide if I had been unduly harsh and done something worth apologizing for. However, that's not really what I'm talking about, the scenario I'm describing would be closer to you trying to hurt my feelings in order to "teach" me what it feels like, and alter my future behavior accordingly. Needless to say, I don't think that would be an effective strategy, but I feel that many people practice that approach regardless.

That's kind of what I'm getting at, that "putting someone in their place" isn't really effective, and is more often than not used as a justification for bad behavior than for anything actually constructive.

That's part of my point here, getting people to realize that bad behavior for what they believe to be a good cause is still bad behavior, and unlikely to achieve what they want to boot, something that will doubtlessly make some people uncomfortable.

I guess in my life for the last decade or so I've noticed and witnessed my ideas changing upon what others were telling me, of how my actions have had real consequences. I used to write on this forum a bit, and, after having others read my thoughts, tell me I was an aggressive, militant SJW of sorts. But in all earnest light, most of these ramblings were just ramblings, and the internet is a fun place to vent. But no, I don't really think all guns should be melted down and recasted as swords, nor would I want physical harm placed on another for a trifle, as in such places in the Middle East where capital punishment is met with such nonempathetic response from those placing judgement.

So no, I don't think punishment really works, as in your opening statement of this thread. If a priory of individuals whose job focuses on how to redistribute punishment uses tasteless extremes in dealing with "those who cannot learn," then they themselves are lowering their own standard and becoming the same as the transgressor.

Even though you have a picture of yourself holding a semi-automatic rifle in your avatar, you sure do make some interesting threads that provoke thought. I myself like to do the same thing, but with words, hence the previous statements, for I feel there is nothing wrong with causing cognitive dissidence.

edited for spelling

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about punishment, but rather mirroring, or giving someone back what they're dishing out in the hopes that being exposed to their own behavior will cause them to reflect on it and change it. Examples would be gossiping about a gossip, lying about a liar, bullying a bully, etc, thinking that they'll have some sort of "gee, it's really annoying when people do that to me, perhaps I should stop doing it to them" realization. My experience has been that this doesn't work but it's a commonly invoked trope, so I'm soliciting the board for any experience with times it has, to see if it's just me who doesn't get the desired results with this technique.



I'm a knuckle dragging intellectual, people here have been trying to pigeonhole me for years without success, and my mere existence seems to instill a particular rage in our partisan population. I don't know why it's so hard to grasp for some people that a person can be both educated and handy with firearms, but it is what it is.
For the record, that's a fully automatic rifle in my avatar, an H&K G36 to be precise, which I was demonstrating to tourists while working a machinegun shoot in Colorado years ago. You don't even want to know what it cost, and the legal hoops you'd need to jump through to possess it (but not own it, it's complicated) are both convoluted and expensive.

The only lesson I’ve seen effectively taught that way is, “I’m more powerful than you, so, if you hurt or displease me in any way, I’ll hurt you more”. Needless to say, I’ve often been on the receiving end. It’s never about reciprocity, of course—it’s about establishing who is the stronger party and, consequently, who can afford to hurt and further weaken whom.

Nope.

IMHO, humans are just generally bad at admitting when they are wrong or at applying self-criticism. When you give people a "dose of their own medicine," they just dig in deeper, clinging even more tightly to their perceived "rightness."

I recently dropped by a military forum I used to hang out on, but it pretty much been taken over by people complaining about women/homosexual/transgendered people/anyone-who-isn't-a white-heterosexual-Christian-male, and what I found most amusing is this one dude who kept referring to homosexuals as "perverts" and "deviants," but he would throw a tantrum if someone called him "cisgender."