I am categorically opposed to the death penalty. There are several reasons, not least of which is the number of people over the last few decades who have been on death row unjustly, innocent people who have been exonerated by better technology, recanted testimony, judicial misconduct. For me, one of them is too many, but something like one in eight have been exonerated, around 200 people since 1973. We are not able to be absolutely certain, but death is an absolute condition that cannot be taken back when we discover we were wrong.
But on a slightly more abstract level, the death penalty is barbaric. By that I mean, it is anti-civilization. It is nothing more than institutionalized revenge. It has never been shown to be a deterrent, most probably due to the chaotic nature of crime, but also because if not a consequence of circumstance, those committing what we consider death penalty offenses have probably decided such actions are worth the risk. Which means the moral consequences redound to us. Revenge is brutalizing, whether we individually realize it or not. It demeans. It makes a mockery of progress and undermines our effort to be better.
Now we have people in charge who not only hunger for the exercise of that kind of power but insist on making the rest of us watch. To what purpose? To tear us all down to their level and make us comfortable with brutality. It’s all of a piece with the way they have conducted the radical realignment of their social priorities. The logic of the thug. Get your popcorn and make yourselves comfortable as you watch the ultimate in de-civilizing entertainment.
Civilization is hard. It’s work. That’s why some people don’t want to do it. Civilization requires that we level up, become acquainted with ethics and morality, with a touch of philosophy, and learn that certain things must not be done, whether we can do them or not, because the costs are just too high. The current administration can’t help but make everyone complicit in this because they hate anyone who might be a bit more civilized than they are. Why? Because they have found it almost impossible to “level up.” They lack empathy, compassion, positive aspirations, and they are on some level aware of that lack and would like to destroy anything that reminds them that they are barbarians.
The Distal Muse
Death Streaming
I am categorically opposed to the death penalty. There are several reasons, not least of which is the number of people over the last few decades who have been on death row unjustly, innocent people who have been exonerated by better technology, recanted testimony, judicial misconduct. For me, one of them is too many, but something like one in eight have been exonerated, around 200 people since 1973. We are not able to be absolutely certain, but death is an absolute condition that cannot be taken back when we discover we were wrong.
But on a slightly more abstract level, the death penalty is barbaric. By that I mean, it is anti-civilization. It is nothing more than institutionalized revenge. It has never been shown to be a deterrent, most probably due to the chaotic nature of crime, but also because if not a consequence of circumstance, those committing what we consider death penalty offenses have probably decided such actions are worth the risk. Which means the moral consequences redound to us. Revenge is brutalizing, whether we individually realize it or not. It demeans. It makes a mockery of progress and undermines our effort to be better.
Now we have people in charge who not only hunger for the exercise of that kind of power but insist on making the rest of us watch. To what purpose? To tear us all down to their level and make us comfortable with brutality. It’s all of a piece with the way they have conducted the radical realignment of their social priorities. The logic of the thug. Get your popcorn and make yourselves comfortable as you watch the ultimate in de-civilizing entertainment.
Civilization is hard. It’s work. That’s why some people don’t want to do it. Civilization requires that we level up, become acquainted with ethics and morality, with a touch of philosophy, and learn that certain things must not be done, whether we can do them or not, because the costs are just too high. The current administration can’t help but make everyone complicit in this because they hate anyone who might be a bit more civilized than they are. Why? Because they have found it almost impossible to “level up.” They lack empathy, compassion, positive aspirations, and they are on some level aware of that lack and would like to destroy anything that reminds them that they are barbarians.
Is that clear enough?
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