Today's Question

What is innocence?

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in-no-cence   /ˈɪnəsəns/[in-uh-suhns]
–noun
1. the quality or state of being innocent; freedom from sin or moral wrong.
2. freedom from legal or specific wrong; guiltlessness: The prisoner proved his innocence.
3. simplicity; absence of guile or cunning; naiveté.
4. lack of knowledge or understanding.
5. harmlessness; innocuousness.
6. chastity.
7. an innocent person or thing.
8. bluet (def. 1).
9. blue-eyed Mary.
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Origin:
1300–50; ME < L innocentia. See innocent, -ence
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
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We lament the acts of terrorists and criminals who harm the 'innocent' because we see the victims as having no direct influence on the grievance the terrorists and criminals are acting on.
I wonder if its fair to call anyone innocent when our inaction can have as much influence as direct action?
Of course, the ultimate resolution to the question is moot if we find new ways to deal with grievances that don't involve violence. That's a given.
But, in the current context of terrorism and crime, should we create a narrative that includes offending the innocent as part of the crime? As the media describes the act, it is with sadness that the victim had nothing to do with the grievance.
I wonder if, maybe, we should take that out of the equation - we're all part of an interlocking story and by our indifference or inaction we influence how the pieces fit together. As a nation, we commonly dismiss grievances we judge to be trivial, or too complicated, or too far away. Does that make us culpable?
Again, I'm not condoing or supporting violent acts at all - I'm just asking if we should stop taking ourselves off the hook (by call ourselves innocent) when we become unwitting victims in someone else's struggle.

UPDATE from 11/29/2016 - I'm reading old posts I wrote - just for nostalgia's sake.  This post was NOT written by me.  I don't seem to have attributed it to anyone, but I can tell I didn't write it (all I did was copy the dictionary stuff). Those are my thoughts, but not my writing. I found something that someone else wrote, liked it, copied it here, and forgot to attribute it.  Darn.  I wonder what that person is writing now?