Everyone always says that people can change and shouldn’t be held responsible for past actions due to them being immature and their brains not being fully developed. But did you ever think that maybe the reason people change and no longer do those harmful actions is because someone called them out on it and not excuse it as being the actions of an immature teenager or young adult? I know no one else cares about this issue but we really need to stop brushing aside this type of harmful behavior and excusing these actions based on age or their environment.
I think there is still a fundamental misunderstanding here.
No one is saying that people should not be held accountable for their past actions. In fact, accountability is one of the essential mechanisms through which growth occurs. Being confronted with the consequences of one's words, being challenged when one causes harm, being encouraged to reflect on one's assumptions—these are all necessary parts of education, moral development, and personal transformation.
The issue is that many people seem to conflate accountability with perpetual condemnation.
Those are not the same thing.
Calling someone out for harmful behavior can be constructive. Helping them understand why their actions were wrong can be constructive. Encouraging them to take responsibility, apologize, and do better can be constructive.
But if, after that process has occurred, after genuine reflection has taken place, after years of demonstrated growth have passed, we continue to reduce that person to their worst mistake and insist that they can never move beyond it, then we are no longer pursuing accountability. We are pursuing permanent punishment.
And I do not believe those are the same moral project.
Let me put it another way.
You are a human being. That means that at some point in your life, you have almost certainly said something ignorant, insensitive, prejudiced, unfair, or hurtful. Perhaps you did not understand the implications at the time. Perhaps someone confronted you. Perhaps you reflected on it, learned from it, apologized, and changed.
Now imagine that years later, despite all that growth, despite all the evidence that you are no longer the same person, people continued to define you exclusively by that moment. They continued to mock you, humiliate you, and weaponize that mistake against you indefinitely, all while claiming they were merely "holding you accountable."
Would that truly help anyone?
Would it make you a better person?
Or would it simply become a form of social punishment detached from any meaningful purpose?
I suspect most people would recognize the injustice in that situation.
That is the distinction I have been trying to make.
Understanding that human beings are capable of redemption does not mean excusing what they did. Believing that someone can learn from a mistake does not mean pretending the mistake never happened.
It means recognizing that accountability is supposed to be a bridge toward growth, not a life sentence.
I also think we often underestimate the role that age, immaturity, and social environments play in human behavior—not as excuses, but as explanations.
I interact with young people regularly, both online and offline, and one thing becomes apparent very quickly: even those who sincerely believe themselves to be moral, compassionate, and progressive are often carrying enormous blind spots, misconceptions, and forms of ignorance that they have not yet recognized. Adolescence and early adulthood are periods of intellectual and moral construction. People are learning, questioning, absorbing ideas, discarding others, and often making mistakes in the process.
If we accept that young people can be manipulated because of their immaturity, then we must also accept that the same immaturity can lead them to say foolish, offensive, or harmful things that they later come to regret.
That does not absolve them of responsibility.
It simply acknowledges reality.
Wisdom is rarely acquired without error.
Growth is rarely achieved without correction.
And maturity does not descend upon a person overnight like a divine revelation on their eighteenth birthday.
People become wiser because they are challenged, educated, corrected, and given opportunities to do better.
That process requires accountability.
But it also requires the possibility of redemption.
Without accountability, there is no growth.
Without redemption, there is no reason to grow.
And that is why I reject both extremes: the idea that harmful actions should be ignored, and the idea that a human being should be forever imprisoned by every mistake they have ever made.
Neither position reflects how people actually learn.
Nor how societies actually progress.
At times, I think there is also an uncomfortable psychological truth beneath these conversations. Some people are genuinely seeking justice. Others, however, seem more interested in the emotional gratification that comes from feeling morally superior to someone else.
The first impulse builds a better society.
The second merely creates new targets.
And I think it is important that we learn to distinguish between them.
