A few days ago I saw a documentary about a very well known and admired world leader, it was a different documentary, since it described some facts that revealed some «dark side» facets of the character; by the way, something that is not easily found in bookstores.

I asked myself why much of this is forgotten about the leaders, and based on the documentary, I reflected that in this case it is not forgotten, it is simply not on the front page of the archives, and whoever wants to find these stories, will do so.

Perhaps it is an effect of society remembering the good, or bad according to that axiom that «history is written by the victors» or simply no one has cared to inquire about that person; or perhaps, as a society we give the benefit of the doubt to some, as a kind of right to forget, and somehow to second chances.

In today’s digital world -almost universal-, some news on the Internet would hardly be forgotten, on the contrary, they are magnified based on the ease with which search engines illuminate them. This is an issue that has been debated and developed in the world of law, the right to informational self-determination, and the debate between the public interest to know controversial facts about people -which has a component of social interest- versus the right to be forgotten, to achieve the social reintegration of individuals who have «transgressed the moral or legal standard of an era» to allow the enjoyment of the rights to privacy, honor, dignity and intimacy in their life project.

What happens with biased, tendentious or outdated news, accidents, some legal situation already overcome, unfair accusations, etc., those who originate them rarely bother to update them, but the damage is done, the damage to reputation is sometimes irreparable.

The subject is so old that Western -Judeo-Christian- morality includes the debate in the words: «Let he who is without sin cast the first stone», a good starting point to reflect on the subject.

Another interesting angle to the issue is to learn that humans have «attribution biases», where we judge other individuals – with a different standard than we would judge ourselves, – the tendency to be harsh in our judgments of others as they respond to contextual pressures with a different standard than we would be more benign and even exculpatory – , something that the behavioral sciences have been revealing, or other types of human reflexes such as those discovered in studies where normal students simulate being jailers and observe their behavior and how their moral compass is adjusted by the strong context and the rationalizations they make.

In an attempt to round out the idea, I think it is pertinent to bring a brief paragraph from a text by the director of the Harvard negotiation program that reflects: «Does every person who commits a bad act by definition become a bad person? I don’t think so. Rather, I would qualify someone as a bad person only by disposition to repeatedly commit bad acts. This distinction is important. Too often we can condemn someone on the basis of a single act. Psychologists have shown that certain otherwise decent people may, out of obedience to authority or peer pressure, commit high bad acts in certain contexts. One of the most important findings of social psychology is that in evaluating the behavior of others, we tend to exaggerate a person’s dispositions or traits, and underestimate the influence of context. This tendency is well documented; social psychologists call it the «fundamental attribution error.» But when it comes to justifying our own behavior, our tendency is exactly the opposite; we are quick to employ conceptual pressures to excuse behavior we are not proud of. «I did something wrong,» we say to ourselves, «not because I’m a bad person, but because the situation put me under too much pressure.»»