The phrase ‘impact over intent‘ gets lots of play in social justice circles. And for good reason. It helps us direct our attention away from the psychology of individuals and toward problems of sexism or racism out in the world. And since social justice groups – at least good social justice groups – want to fight sexism, racism, et al. in the world and not just in the head, they use ‘impact over intent’ as a part of their mission.
However, the phrase really only purports to do this. In something of an irony, the impact of ‘impact over intent’ often fails to live up to its lofty intentions.
And that’s the topic of this post. In the past, I’ve written about the limits of everything from universal design to lived experience to mobilizing. Let’s shift our attention to ‘impact over intent.’
Two Limits of ‘Impact over Intent’
So, I see two main limits to the phrase. First, people often direct the phrase toward the person rather than toward the world. In other words, a person uses the phrase to ‘call out’ another person for doing something sexist or racist. In doing so, they draw attention to the person performing sexism or racism rather than the sexist or racist thing itself. This is the irony I alluded to above.
How does this happen? People wield the phrase as a weapon against those on the wrong side of a social justice issue. Granted, the wielding often comes from a good place. The person they’re attacking is probably wrong, and may have done a horrendously sexist or racist thing. But the very act of weaponizing ‘impact over intent’ tends to…well…place attention on the person and their intentions. Makes sense, right?
Second, the entire idea behind ‘impact over intent’ was to talk about ideas and actions out in the world, not to make judgments about moral responsibility for actions. Why? Because intent is highly relevant to moral judgments. Whether a person does a thing on purpose matters to whether we judge them responsible and how responsible. But it doesn’t matter for the impact of their actions. Those are separate things. Many users of the phrase ‘impact over intent’ forgot this point long ago.
A Quick Summary
There’s plenty we could say about politics and morality. Some readers probably know I think we ought to largely separate them. But regardless of one’s overall views, it’s clear that ‘impact over intent’ isn’t supposed to be about moral responsibility or moral suasion.
And so, users of the phrase often turn it against itself. ‘Impact over intent’ had good intentions, but often poor impact. Go figure.
