Do Bad Things Happen to You?

I don't really think of anything as inherently better than anything else. I don't believe in objective value, only subjective, meaning something can only be good or bad depending on the perspective of who, ya know, perceives it...

The "greater good" argument is valid, particularly with regards to society, but that's still just your perspective. You're making your value decision by taking into account the value decisions made by others. That's cool, man. To each their own.

However, there can always be more information that you don't know that shifts that perspective. For instance, you see a cop shoot a man in the street that appears to have been putting his weapon down. Millions see it, millions hate the cop. Does that mean it's right to punish the cop? Public opinion is the majority, and the "greater good" says GET HIM.

However, a bit more information is added to your perspective, and it becomes clear that another cop, out of view, was telling the cop that shot the guy that he was using his other hand to pull out another gun. Perspective shifts again. Suddenly, millions are happy the victim was shot. "He deserved it," they say, confident in the value they've judged based on their perspective.

But wait. A neighbor had called the police, having heard a strange sound. The neighbor looks out, and sees a man carrying a gun. He calls the police. The man carrying the guns, it turns out, was lawfully carrying and possessing both weapons. He had come out of his house, just a few doors down, having heard the same sound and was investigating his own property. The police came, he complied by setting down his rifle, but was also carrying a concealed pistol, and was reaching for the other weapon in order to lay it on the ground. That's why he was reaching slowly, so as not to alarm the cops. Perhaps he should have been loudly announcing what he was doing, as well. Perhaps he was armed because he was planning on killing his neighbor, too.

But you still never know, so instead of getting upset each time new information comes out, you can decide that things just happen, and that they are good and bad depending on the perspective of whom they happen to.

Did it happen to you?