The Curse Of The Law
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alissowack
Members Posts: 1,930 ✭✭✭
Here I go with the wackness. My intentions are not to say that laws are bad; that by taking heed to them that we somehow are corrupted by it. However, it is to say that the law can blind us from our humanity; that the law can produce in us perceptions that causes us to reduce ourselves to something that we are not.
We look at the people we consider good in life. They may have a good upbringing, come up in good schools and have a good sense of what the rules are; what is right and wrong. However, the thing we find ourselves doing to "goodie two shoes" is defining their humanity based on their keen sense of the rules. They may even do it in themselves to where they can't do something without first acknowledging the rules. It can even go further as there is a false sense of superiority to the people who are deemed "lawless". So, we live our lives measuring people's personalities and such by the rules they keep...caring less about who they are.
It's a tricky thing to avoid doing when it is almost certain that if someone does something terribly wrong, the person is "bad". But, there are "good" people who find themselves in bad circumstances where the rules were compromised and it was acknowledged. It is one thing to treat such an instance with an understanding of what was done and exercise any consequences resulting from it. But, to make one bad action define a person's whole livelihood shows no regard for the person behind the action. It gets even more difficult when this wrongdoing results in a tragic loss and a burning desire for justice. It just may be a right to grieve and have justice be served, but it shouldn't be at the expense of seeing some less than a human being.
To me, I don't think the issue is whether or not we can keep the law. It's whether we think that the law is suppose to advance us or to inspire us; whether we think the law is suppose to confine us or liberate us.
We look at the people we consider good in life. They may have a good upbringing, come up in good schools and have a good sense of what the rules are; what is right and wrong. However, the thing we find ourselves doing to "goodie two shoes" is defining their humanity based on their keen sense of the rules. They may even do it in themselves to where they can't do something without first acknowledging the rules. It can even go further as there is a false sense of superiority to the people who are deemed "lawless". So, we live our lives measuring people's personalities and such by the rules they keep...caring less about who they are.
It's a tricky thing to avoid doing when it is almost certain that if someone does something terribly wrong, the person is "bad". But, there are "good" people who find themselves in bad circumstances where the rules were compromised and it was acknowledged. It is one thing to treat such an instance with an understanding of what was done and exercise any consequences resulting from it. But, to make one bad action define a person's whole livelihood shows no regard for the person behind the action. It gets even more difficult when this wrongdoing results in a tragic loss and a burning desire for justice. It just may be a right to grieve and have justice be served, but it shouldn't be at the expense of seeing some less than a human being.
To me, I don't think the issue is whether or not we can keep the law. It's whether we think that the law is suppose to advance us or to inspire us; whether we think the law is suppose to confine us or liberate us.
Comments
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laws dont define people. People define others thru what they perceive, how they perceive stems from a multitude of things like experience, what they've learned from others, and as you mentioned upbringing. laws were established to maintain order, those who break them, suffer consequences. i see it as cause & effect. what a person did, and why they did it has its relevance in consideration of punishment, and that should be the extent of it. Spectators who bear witness have no place to judge, when they do, they end up in the confinement of their minds.
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I don't think the issue is so much where spectators can't judge especially if they see the wrong that has been done. It is when spectators think that in their judgment they have the right to degrade someone's humanity in the process; that they have the right to "rub it in".
