There is little to no bit in my opinion for people to punch down; yes the rule of law is important and actions need consequences, but what is there to be gained from punching down? Whether by personal action or due to personal circumstances people find themselves in a situation they either don’t know how to deal with or can’t deal with. We (or I) interpret their response to this situation as destructive (either towards others or towards themselves) and the world ends up a little bit inevitably sadder (presumably from a utilitarian point of view).
If people choose to punish themselves (or act against the values they espouse internally for them or externally for others) there is little benefit to be gained by punishing them further (unless you believe a larger consequence would somehow improve the lesson being learnt). A couple of recent examples of mine from an Australian context:
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I ordered food from Menulog (to a hospital) and the courier lost the food (either misdelivered or stole), it took me over a week of communication to encourage Menulog to provide me a refund, and if my life is cut short I’ll never order from them again. Was it the courier’s fault? they new the contract they were engaged in, they accepted the (underpaid?) work as their best option given what they knew at the time, and somehow the contract fell through; Ideally they wouldn’t had agreed to deliver the order but we’re not discussing that counterfactual. In my opinion, me chasing the courier would be punching down, prior to brain cancer (and its been (touchwood) far easier than I imagined it was I was told the initial diagnosis) I lived a cushy life and I still have funds to purchase takeaway in whatever time I have remaining, I do wonder if the courier has such luxuries. Punching up in this circumstance is me complaining about the insufficient systems MenuLog have in place. I’d argue my (social?) contract was with Menulog who on-contracted the delivery person. Menulog is in theory worth at least millions and changed hands several times. If their systems are leading to lost contracts and stolen food surely they have the strongest incentives to fix their business? {{ emotes/shrug }}
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Extended experience with NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Currently, I’ve been hearing and reading about a business’ dealings with {{ html/abbr key=“NCAT” }}, and whilst these institutions have to be set up to hear and deal with different types of spurious legislation its ultimately a dead weight loss when they do. Anyway, this business spent hours and hours with a client, fulfilled their promises as best they could once the plan hit the real world and I’m sure delivered excellent product there is still a dispute. My feeling is that the clients are short on money and desire a refund to spend elsewhere (their shit situation) which has no expanded to the business I was reading about via this lodgement. I expect the business to win this case, but based on what I know there is no point chasing the clients further. It already sounds like they’re miserable given my interpretation of their circumstances and their decision to file this spurious brief over finding new ways to serve others either through work, at home, or their own values whatever they may be.
Anyway, the whole of this article is to advocate against punching down (rule of law being a slightly different matter), it only extends pain and distractsyou from what you want to achieve. Punching up can be acceptable but only you can decide if it’s worth it based on the circumstances you find yourself… I decided to pursue my Menulog refund as punishment to the company for having an unacceptable system within the context of delivering to a hospital and would hate to find out other patients having a similarly rough order during a trying time but ultimately I recognise my actions will be next to near meaningless relative to the decisions of both the Menulog staff and their delivery network. The better the decisions we make today the more hopeful I am of avoiding suffering tomorrow, but this is the bias of my mind and you dear reader have to decide what might be appropriate for you.
— LostLetterbox