Thursday, September 02, 2010

Gambling

Perhaps the worst thing about gambling is that it is quite so easy to condemn those who gamble, and to then wash our hands off their affairs. Those who have acquired gambling debts are often viewed with contempt, for their situation is almost entirely of their doing. After all, the choice to gamble, and often the intent to continue, was entirely theirs; oft it is mentioned that "nobody forced them to continue gambling!".

I might agree, but I also feel that there is something quite so subtly wrong.

It might be said that there is some element of addiction in gambling, but perhaps I am too harsh, for it might be more accurately be desired as a form of tunnel vision acquired in the pursuit of gains, or recovery of losses. Decisions taken by one in such states of mind are different from those taken in a normal state of mind. If so, we cannot fully blame the victim for his choices, for those choices are affected. Part of the moral responsibility must lie elsewhere.

3 comments:

Benedict said...

not uninteresting, but surely you can be more detailed? This is a lazy post la, dude

The Negative Man said...

Actually I wanted to leave it at the first line, but felt that that would have been far too short!

Dylan Weeks said...

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