Thursday, December 16, 2010

Beautiful

IOZ:
I propose to you that the desire to see another human being punished, even a person who has done wrong...is the most despicable of all human desires. Even if one admits to the necessity of punishment, a necessity that I find categorically problematic to begin with, then the only decent attitude is regret.

12 comments:

Jack Crow said...

It's a difficult sentiment to communicate. Someone always has a list of people who should be punished.

And has high a value as I place on the aesthetic and moral cause for vengeance - from time to time - I cannot understand how eager are the many who feel free to punish.

And how many of us outsiders would look like the current crop of rulers, if only we had the power.

Jack Crow said...

"as high"

Rachel said...

And how many of us outsiders would look like the current crop of rulers, if only we had the power.

I wonder that too, and I think most if not all. I am extra squicked by people who confidently pronounce that, sure, power corrupts, but not THEM.

Anonymous said...

jody mcintyre had a brief trial before he was pulled to the gutter. Power doesn't corrupt; corruption is the wellspring of power. Acton had it exactly backwards.

drip

Justin said...

maybe Acton had it backwards and forwards, and that's the bitch of it all.

Jack Crow said...

I'm wary of "corruption." It implies a true, healthy, faithful, normal and normative mode of human experience.

Especially in relation to power - since power is not an item to hold; power is a way of acting towards others, and it is so common and pervasive as to be far more normative than the normality implied by a countervailing "corruption."

Ethan said...

I've got nothing to add--I think y'all have, collectively, said it all.

bonobo said...

Jack said:

I'm wary of "corruption." It implies a true, healthy, faithful, normal and normative mode of human experience.

That's an interesting thought but I'm not sure if that's what 'corruption' usually implies to most people. Certainly, the 'power corrupts' adage implies that normal human impulses are basically bad.

It seems to me that 'corruption' usually means a flouting of rules and conventions so as to enrich an individual or a small group of individuals to the detriment of a larger group of individuals or society as a whole. I don't think it speaks to a normative mode for humans so much as a normative mode for particular institutions. Indeed, I think if people did not have romantic notions about how people 'really' are, were aware of how ephemeral the constraints on bad behavior really are, they would take corruption more seriously.

bonobo said...

how many of us outsiders would look like the current crop of rulers, if only we had the power.

I dunno. Not sure I can get on board with all punishment being regrettable. I think a society that would hang Henry Kissinger is very different from one that would torture Bradley Manning. I don't think Yggy's acquiescence in punishment as necessary is as important as the object of it.

ms_xeno said...

I think I like bonobo's point. I just didn't have the words to articulate it myself.

Those who suspect that I rejoice at the prospect of my enemies being punished should beware of jumping to conclusions. Maybe what looks to them like rejoicing is simple relief that my enemies' punishment will finally grant me some time free from the consequences of their rule.

Ethan said...

I would say that bonobo's and ms xeno's arguments are by no means incompatible with ioz's.

bonobo said...

I would say that bonobo's and ms xeno's arguments are by no means incompatible with ioz's.

Well, then color me despicable. Because I could not feign regret at the punishing of riff-raff like Kissinger or just about every president in my lifetime for crimes against humanity.