How to Handle a False Accusation

These are my thoughts on handling false accusations. I don't know if they're good or not. The title of the post may sound overconfident, but these are mainly intended as notes to myself. By 'handle', I mean how to handle it emotionally. 

I recently experienced a false accusation. A relatively minor one. Someone thought I was staring at them, and this was taken to mean something about my character. 

This got me thinking. 

Of course, if the accusation is not false and you actually did it, you must apologize and make amends, if possible to do so without causing further harm.

(1) The accusation may be false but sincerely believed. Trying to remember how views arise may allay your anxiety. Most interface with the world consists of using substitutes for direct observation. A state of mind in another person, for example, is inferred from an expression, a tone of voice, or circumstances we know him or her to be experiencing. Substitutes for direct observation are by nature imperfect. They are also commonly relied on for navigating a world with limited resources and time. Thus, while the complaint that a certain judgement required more circumspection than was employed may have some merit, asking for a world in which no one ever employs substitutes for direct observation is to ask for a world that can't exist. Perhaps most importantly, when you pay attention to your own inner train of thought, you will find that you do it too, and yet, when your judgments turn out to have been inaccurate, you will jump to your feet to defend yourself, like a defense attorney in a Hollywood movie, the hero for exonerating his client. 

(2) The reliability of substitutes for direct observation are refined through the accumulation of experience. As you go along through life, some are acquired; some are discarded; and those that have been acquired are made more specific. But here's the crucial point: by nature each human, even if she lived to be 900 years old, can only experience a limited portion of reality. No human can or has ever made a decision with the benefit of omniscience. When you are falsely accused, remember that every decision you have ever made or will ever make is will also be done so without the benefit of omniscience. 

(3) It is true that cultures make up for the limited experience short human lifespans can acquire by passing down wisdom from one generation to the next, but this has its own shortcomings: (a) Its antiquity can bestow an artificial sense of authority to a judgment that goes unquestioned by the culture's modern members. (b) It can be misperceived as universal by those members of the culture who have never lived outside of the culture. (c) Learning by reading or hearing is often difficult to apply in comparison to learning by experience. Learning by reading or hearing often resides in a state of abstraction in one's mind, until a lived experience makes it concrete.

(4) This might be the most important one: If falsely accused, under all circumstances, maintain your obligations to those around you. You have a duty to be virtuous, even to the person who has falsely accused you. Anything else may aggravate the problem or create new problems altogether.