I'm going to take the Buddhist/mindfulness perspective here, which is becoming increasingly popular in clinical psychology (e.g., Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), and propose that there are no "bad thoughts." Thoughts just happen. When a man notices a twinge of arousal when looking at a naked, prepubescent child, it doesn't mean he's having "pedophilic thoughts," it just means he's a human male. (A study in Eastern Europe found that some 70% of 19-year-old male soldiers experienced that kind of physiological response when seeing photos of young naked children.) When an exhausted new mother has a momentary thought of violence -- which happens to nearly every exhausted new mother! -- it only means she's stressed. It's normal to have all sorts of thoughts that you'd never, ever want to act on, and it causes all sorts of psychological grief to react to these thoughts with the guilt of fearing that you really mean them. It's best not even to try to suppress them, but rather, just notice them, interpret them in a way that doesn't freak you out, and then let them go.
The place to draw the line, probably, is when you start investing energy into supporting the kinds of thoughts that you'd never, ever want to act on (indulging in full-scale fantasies about doing bad things, for example). Or in your case, if you mindlessly believed that your encounter with the real estate guy gave you a full picture of his circumstances, such that you were convinced that your karma thoughts were 100% on the mark, that would be normal and understandable; we're not obligated to open ourselves to the depths of every human being we ever meet. But then if you felt entitled to go on interacting with him, or presenting him to others, in ways consistent with ignoring the possibility that the guy might also have had a decent side and mitigating circumstances, that seems more problematic.
Your data on 19 year-olds just makes sense. The human mind doesn’t pop into adulthood ex nihilo, and a 19 year-old isn’t too far removed from the days when his/her formative sexual thoughts were of people aged 9-14. You’d expect some residual responses there.
A second strategy might go something like this: such thoughts are a product of our imagination, which is a defining feature of our humanity. Since the imagination is a good thing to have, the inevitable bizarre thoughts that accompany the imagination can’t be dismissed as wrong or bad. In fact, in this light they may seem good.
However, I think this leads to a refinement of Gina’s question. We might think that it is the content of the imagined thoughts that makes them bead, but it’s clear that it is in fact the emotional response to the content that matters. I can think of a horribly offensive thing right now. (Oh, god, that’s gross.) But if I found it, say, emotionally stimulating in a certain way, I might be said to have a bad character.
So perhaps we are not responsible for the content of our thoughts, but rather our responses to them. Furthermore, it is not that the response to the thought is an action which is subject to moral blame, but rather that the response is indicative of a certain character trait, one which it is our responsibility to eliminate in the future.
So, we might not blame the 19 year old for his response, but we will nonetheless require him to change over time. Importantly, we will NOT require him to stop imagining young girls... one cannot be blamed for the mere content of one's thoughts.
The place to draw the line, probably, is when you start investing energy into supporting the kinds of thoughts that you'd never, ever want to act on (indulging in full-scale fantasies about doing bad things, for example). Or in your case, if you mindlessly believed that your encounter with the real estate guy gave you a full picture of his circumstances, such that you were convinced that your karma thoughts were 100% on the mark, that would be normal and understandable; we're not obligated to open ourselves to the depths of every human being we ever meet. But then if you felt entitled to go on interacting with him, or presenting him to others, in ways consistent with ignoring the possibility that the guy might also have had a decent side and mitigating circumstances, that seems more problematic.
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A second strategy might go something like this: such thoughts are a product of our imagination, which is a defining feature of our humanity. Since the imagination is a good thing to have, the inevitable bizarre thoughts that accompany the imagination can’t be dismissed as wrong or bad. In fact, in this light they may seem good.
However, I think this leads to a refinement of Gina’s question. We might think that it is the content of the imagined thoughts that makes them bead, but it’s clear that it is in fact the emotional response to the content that matters. I can think of a horribly offensive thing right now. (Oh, god, that’s gross.) But if I found it, say, emotionally stimulating in a certain way, I might be said to have a bad character.
So perhaps we are not responsible for the content of our thoughts, but rather our responses to them. Furthermore, it is not that the response to the thought is an action which is subject to moral blame, but rather that the response is indicative of a certain character trait, one which it is our responsibility to eliminate in the future.
So, we might not blame the 19 year old for his response, but we will nonetheless require him to change over time. Importantly, we will NOT require him to stop imagining young girls... one cannot be blamed for the mere content of one's thoughts.
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