Inherent Worth of Abusers?

I am often asked how I can have faith in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. If someone abuses you or others repeatedly, seriously, are they still persons of worth?

Here’s my quick summary of conclusions I’ve come to, over many years of thinking about these questions.

Believing in the inherent worth and dignity of someone does not mean that anger is somehow “wrong,” or that all actions are equally “right.”

Belief in worth and dignity does not mean that you “have to” forgive in the absence of changed behavior. You may, at some point, decide to give up anger and even hatred for the sake of your own emotional health, even in the absence of changed behavior — but I think that’s different from forgiveness, which comes only when there’s some genuine understanding and a choice to change and often, also, the choice to make proportional amends, on the part of the person whose actions you found hurtful.

Even when someone’s behavior is hurtful to another, the belief in inherent worth and dignity even in that person is what makes me decide not to treat the person out of vengeance but only to stop the behavior and help establish consequences in proportion to and appropriate to the wrong. Thus, the person can be reported to authorities, such that our legal system’s consequences would apply — but responding in kind with abuse or torture would be something I’d avoid — for my own sake and for the sake of building a more humane culture.

Belief in worth and dignity of others is far more about how I will behave than it is about what quality exists in the other. Even those we call “abusers” — people whose habitual actions hurt others — are human beings, and if we treat them as subhuman, it’s my belief that diminishes us more than it punishes them. But giving consequences to others for hurtful behavior, and establishing boundaries that protect ourselves and others, is not the same as treating someone as subhuman.

The belief in worth and dignity is also what helps me look at a person whose behavior has been hurtful, and realize that they were not born to do that — that something in their life and/or in our general culture trained them to abuse and permitted them to abuse. Does this excuse hurtful behavior? Not at all. But it does mean that I pay special attention to the next generation, and help them grow up with different expectations, different problem-solving and conflict-resolving tools, and different treatment.

There is “good” and the potential for “good” in everyone, and there is always some chance, however tiny, that someone who is now hurting others may choose to change. What behavior in us, in you is most likely to promote such change? The record is clear that it’s not punishment and vengeful reactions.

But — and I stress this equally — you have the right to protect yourself and to wait for significant change before trusting that the change is real and permanent.

You are not alone in trying to figure this out.

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Originally posted online in September, 2003. Minor edits and major revisions 2004-2009.