innocence

Bouguereau's L'Innocence: Both young children and lambs are symbols of innocence

Innocence is a term that describes the lack of guilt of an individual, with respect to a crime. It may also be used to indicate a general lack of guilt, with respect to any kind of crime, sin, or wrongdoing.

It can also refer to a state of unknowing, where one's experience is lesser, in either a relative view to social peers, or by an absolute comparison to a more common normative scale. In contrast to ignorance, it is generally viewed as a positive term, connoting a blissfully positive view of the world, in particular one where the lack of knowledge stems from a lack of wrongdoing, whereas greater knowledge comes from doing wrong. This connotation may be connected with a popular false etymology explaining "innocent" as meaning "not knowing" (Latin noscere).

People who lack the mental capacity to understand the nature of their acts may be regarded as innocent regardless of their behavior. From this meaning comes the term innocent to refer to a child under the age of reason, or a person, of any age, who is severely mentally disabled.

In some cases, the term of "innocence" connotes a pejorative meaning, where an assumed level of experience dictates common discourse or baseline qualifications for entry into another, different, social experience. Since experience is the prime factor in a point of view, innocence is often also used to connote an ignorance or lack of personal experience.

Experience

Differences in experience can exist between generations as well, as in the case of access to education, material resources, prosperity, social interaction, moral development, dealing with conflicts, etc.

Children are usually considered to be innocent and to gradually lose this attribute through maturity by gaining knowledge of the adult world. This view is common in regard to sexuality, though seeing that as a wrong thing is a disputed idea, which some argue stems from Christianity and other religions' classification; however, it is also common in regard to Humanity's violence.

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