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Lately it seems I have been seeing this or variations with especial frequency (may even have said it once or twice, alas). It also seems to me this is very rarely a helpful thing to say. So far as I am aware, most people do have good intentions and seldom do things out of malicious intent; pointing out the person in question likely had good intentions seems a largely irrelevant distraction since it is not normally in question.
Where it would be helpful to say is I think in situations where it appears a person is being demonised, cast as monstrous in a way which obscures inquiry.
Possibly it would be helpful at this point to state outright that I am not opposed to inquiry into people's motives, but that it is not useful to reflexively defend the motives of a person or people as pure when it is not really in question that they 'meant well', especially when this carries also the implicit suggestion others should be less harsh in response.
Where it would be helpful to say is I think in situations where it appears a person is being demonised, cast as monstrous in a way which obscures inquiry.
Possibly it would be helpful at this point to state outright that I am not opposed to inquiry into people's motives, but that it is not useful to reflexively defend the motives of a person or people as pure when it is not really in question that they 'meant well', especially when this carries also the implicit suggestion others should be less harsh in response.
