ABSTRACT
One of the biggest unresolved problems of social theory is the disjunctive relationship between causes and their effects, including the unresolved question of the unintended consequences of human actions. Based on an anthropological adaptation of the concept of distortion, the overarching hypothesis has been that by exploring 'distortion' as a necessary property of human life people might reach not just a better understanding of how, why and when intentions fail to achieve outcomes, but, more generally, this concept will also enable them to explain how a given event demarcated by initial inputs and final outputs possesses a peculiar connectedness, which is not causal in any linear or direct way. According to the Webster Dictionary, 'distortion' has two principal meanings. It refers to the act of twisting something out of meaning or proportion, or natural, normal or original shape; or the condition of something becoming perverted.
