Saturday, September 20, 2025

The Story of the Clan: Philosophy and Intentional Harms

Certain values should
transcend time and
misapplication.
It is important for society to continually reflect on values, as it is those values that guide progress and raise the quality of life for its members. Shared values are essential. The Story of the Clan is a hypothetical, philosophical thought experiment meant to explore how values function within a specific narrative. It is designed for learning purposes and should be taken with a grain of salt. Feel free to reflect on your own values.

The Story of the Clan: The story centers on what hate and corruption look like in a closed system. Hate provided the motivation, while corruption offered the path. People were targeted and intentionally harmed in order to reward in-group members. In this learning story, the technicalities of the law were manipulated to undermine the higher institutional purpose that was supposed to be rooted in democratic philosophy. With systemic dehumanization in place, victims had no recourse or path to correction. A break in social contracts, direct rejection of certain oaths and undermining of long-term societal values.

The narrative is designed to create a moral dilemma: doing good for all versus doing good for a privileged in-group. It raises the question of whether loyalty should lie with universal principles or with social position. Broader lessons also emerge, including the impact on economic health and quality of life. One cannot justify intentional harm in one instance while still claiming fidelity to broad moral structures. Justifying in one place means there was or will be justifying in other places.

As we focus on what benefits society most—through enduring moral truths and beliefs that transcend time—we strengthen our resolve to uphold founding principles. Such values carry historical and philosophical weight. Therefore, the pressing decisions of the present (the “trees”) should be evaluated in the context of long-term societal health (the “forest”).

The quote below captures this idea well: the structures we build may appear strong, but it is our ideas and beliefs that endure. Structures can eventually disappear but certain founding values will live on as long as people are willing to believe and support those values. Those who came before us sacrificed for lasting values, and so our decisions should align with their long-term historical and philosophical purpose.

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."-Pericles (495-429 BC), statesman, general who started the construction of the Acropolis in Athens.

The study below discussions intentional versus unintentional harm. Unintentional harm is different and often an accident while intentional harm is specific to certain out-group members. Those who engage in in intentional harm often have other goals and motivations. Intentional harm is a tool to some other end.

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