Got Blood?

Gandhi was an idiot. His declaration that ‘an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind’ is perhaps the epitome of absurdity. It assumes half of the planet is going around stabbing the other half in the face. Twice.

So why is it repeated so often? There is a fear woven into our societal construct which has us
convinced our reality is cantilevered over a chaotic hell and that the only thing holding us to function is punishment. It is a fear that without fear everything breaks down. Science has proven this wrong and it is widely held, even by many who insist on a system rooted in vengeance, that reward is the better manipulator of behavior.

Yet right now, in the wake of the NYC crane collapse, there are two questions on the minds of construction workers, whom will hang and for how long? Seven dead, several injured and no intent considered. Even so, it is almost certain there will be arrest and jail time.

The idea of criminal negligence is at play and raises the question of what exactly makes negligence criminal. Were a person to have a car accident in which someone is killed, it is rare (barring accidents involving substance abuse) criminal charges are even considered. Perhaps it is because we feel the person in the other car was partly at fault. Perhaps it is because there is no one to charge whom has not already been victimized by the accident. We already have our pound of flesh.

When there are survivors whom are unscathed, the spectators taste blood in the water. Whether it is the owner of a company, or a man who slung a load, or a cop who could not see clearly in the dark, people want justice. If there is no crime, they will make one out of tragedy. No victim, no crime. Victim? Crime.

Make no mistake; there is a place for criminal negligence. Where a person acts with depraved indifference for profit or other motive, when that person knew well the odds and made a conscious choice to disregard consequence, that person must pay.

When the desire for punishment is a greater motivation than the desire for justice, we are in the land of the sadist. It is in sadism that injustice flourishes.