This I believe
Man is neither inherently good nor bad. I believe that we act in ways because we are, for whatever reason, compelled to do so. I believe that we, as a society, need to assign labels to define behavior, to make ourselves feel better.
As someone who stands in a room of judgment, day after day, and watches society impose its collective morality on those that it deems the outliers, I cannot help but believe that there is something fundamentally askew with us. That our desire to control, to bring order, to inject sense where there may be none has blinded us. That we have drawn lines so sharp and clear in the sand that we have forgotten that there is no such thing as good or evil. I believe that it is our perception of acts that classifies them as good or evil.
I believe that the man who is about to spend the next 5 years of his life for shooting someone else has the same capacity for evil as the man who is sending him there. I believe that there is none among us who could not lift a finger to hurt another; just as there is none among us who wouldn’t lift a finger to help another. I believe that our actions are the product of our circumstances and thus, we are capable of anything: good or bad.
I believe that there is no act, however good or bad, that cannot be explained by the circumstances preceding or surrounding it. I believe that if we only chose to pay attention to those circumstances, that we would understand that. I do believe that the majority of us are better at controlling our base desires, of having better hold on our emotions and it is merely that which we are punishing in others: the lack of self-control.
I believe that we all have a breaking point; a point at which “we” become “them”. Some of the nicest, most docile men that I have met are those that have taken another life. Some of the angriest, most close-minded men are those that seek to judge others without recognizing the same capacity in themselves.
I believe that in order for us to evolve as a society, to have more “good” than “evil”, we must stop judging. I do not believe that people should not be punished, but that punishment must come with understanding and with mercy. I believe that it is easier to paint those that do not conform to our notions of “good” with the same broad brush of “evil”, but that it is more damaging. I believe that it is harder to look behind the acts that we are judging and recognize that capacity for good, but that if we tried – sincerely – we would all take a step forward toward making ourselves “better”.
I believe that it is difficult to believe this, but believe it I must.
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about 2 years ago
I believe that our actions are the product of our circumstances
So… no free will? No individual variation in reaction to the same circumstances?
Corollary: sexual orientation is determined by circumstance and not inherent to the individual? (I am not asserting this, simply pointing out that this would seem to follow from the postulate.)
that punishment must come with understanding and with mercy.
What would that look like? How would it be different than the current justice system?
about 2 years ago
I don’t think I suggested any such thing – but I could have been inartful in my writing. Certainly free will exists – and that’s the point. That our decisions/actions are informed by our circumstances, not that anyone who does X must necessarily be Y.
As to how an ideal system would be different? Well, for one, it wouldn’t be a numbers game; secondly, we wouldn’t throw around sentences like 20 years as if they existed only abstractly.
about 2 years ago
I believe . . . I believe . . . that, if the hound dog didn’t stop to take a leak, he would have caught the rabbit. I believe, further, that if it doesn’t rain, we are going to have a long dry spell.
It is true that COPS are probably more corrupt than those they arrest; that prisons are now more for purposes of revenue collection than for corrections; that warehousing is now more important than rehabilitation, and that once convicted of a felony, your abilities to obtain any job are becoming slimmer and slimmer as each day passes. More than anything else, I believe that many, many innocent people are in prison due, aolely, to incompetence, and corruption. I believe that the AEDPS (The Kill-Em-Quick) Act is the most serious attack on our liberty and rights since before the year of 1215, when King John affixed his signature to the Magna Carta.
about 2 years ago
The only way to prevent prosecutors from requesting, and judges from imposing, inordinate 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, etc., Life, sentences is to drive it home the consequences of those acts. Every prosecutor and every judge should be required to serve 60 days in the state penitentiary (not as a special guest), but as a non-descript inmate, before being allowed to act in judgment of free men. OF COURSE, THAT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN. Therefore, prosecutors will ask for such sentences and judges will pronounce such sentence in the absence of semblence of consequence.
The federal government must stop subsidising the lucritive industrial complex called prison. As long as their is profit to be had, innocent persons are going to be sent to prison, and as long as law schools pass on the incompetent, injustice will prevail.
about 1 year ago
I believe that the man who is about to spend the next 5 years of his life for shooting someone else has the same capacity for evil as the man who is sending him there.
You believe the man who pulled the trigger deserves the same as the man who never picked up the gun?
about 1 year ago
That’s not what that sentence says.
about 1 year ago
The point, though, is that while many may share the capacity for evil, we make choices. Every day, we make choices. That’s where our sharp lines come in.
about 1 year ago
Whose point? That wasn’t my point.
I understand that “choices” may be what separate “you” from “me”, but that doesn’t mean that you’re in any way morally superior to me.
about 1 year ago
There is evil out there, and I’ve seen it. It doesn’t matter where the stepping off point is. What matters is that a person steps off.
about 1 year ago
I guess it depends on what you mean by “evil”. I’d obviously disagree that there’s anything like “pure evil”. It’s philosophically untenable.
Sure, choices are what make us and what lead us down different paths, but we are not defined solely by our bad choices – or shouldn’t be, rather – but by the sum of our existence.
about 1 year ago
It’s that wonderful line of Sister Helen Prejean’s. “We’re all better than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
I’ve represented people who’ve done monstrous things. I can’t see them, won’t see them, shouldn’t see them as monsters. And while I have an obligation to make the effort, it’s also a proper one. They aren’t monsters. They are, however, as is each of us to some extent, consequences.
You have to get inside and understand how it happened. There’s choice, of course, but there’s also and always context. There but for the grace of god, if you believe that sort of thing.