Gosh,
there’s a lot of talk about freedom of speech at the moment, isn’t
there? Outrage at everything from the word vagina to tasteless
jokes, swinging by religion and sexuality for good measure. I
wouldn’t want to be a deeply religious homosexual comedian with a
vagina right now, quite apart from the inner conflict, I’m fairly
sure I’d be getting a rough time of it. Agreeing to disagree
seems unlikely to be honest, which would be fine if disagreeing to
disagree wasn’t so bloody loud and embarrassing, my general view of
society wasn’t a rosy one as was – yet still I find myself a bit
disappointed with us. It would appear that everyone has climbed
so far up their own tree of viewpoint that they are reluctant to come
down, even when the tree is being destroyed by rot.
I have my
own tree, of course, but I like to think (or have convinced myself)
that I come down occasionally, have a look at everyone else’s, and
go back up mine with at least a few cuttings. I mean, usually I
forget to water them, or they cross pollenate with something else and
mutate into some awful catastrophe, but I have a go. Yep, I’ve
found outrage fascinating of late, so it’s been a brilliant month
or two for me.
Only
today, during one of those conversations designed to keep my brain
functioning at work, there was a flutter of outrage. Somehow we
had got on to the subject of murderising and the like, I think
someone had been reading one of those true crime books in which a
grisly killing is gone over in great detail, and the end result was
that we were talking about people as monsters. One individual
opined that they simply didn’t understand how and why somebody
would do such terrible things, that it was unthinkable, unimaginable.
The underlying suggestion there, intended or not, is that
through the action, the perpetrator removes themselves from humanity
– humanity cannot fathom the madness, thus it cannot have come from
humanity – and so the person becomes the monster. I suggested
that although I wasn’t going to go around killing or raping anyone
– and I still promise I’m not – they are still the acts of a
person, and that to state that such things are outside your thought
process, is attempting to set your being apart from the possibility
of similarly related actions. To make you something
untouchable. Self deceit, essentially, of a self protecting
sort, but deceit all the same. All I’d meant to do, was point
out that we’re all animals. We all want to beat something to
death at some point in our lives, not to do it but think it, and
we’ve all threatened to kill someone no matter how empty that
threat actually was. We tend to be a bunch of bickering
bastards given the slightest of opportunity, so don’t give it the
big ‘I am’. You’re not. That’s all I’d meant to
do.
But
no.
What
I had apparently been saying, quite unknown to myself, was that my
fellow debaters were mentally disturbed assassins working for a
higher power. Which, understandably, notched things up a gear.
Now, even though I hadn’t actually been calling them mental
killers, and even though if someone called me an assassin working for
a higher power, I’d be thrilled, I can see how it might put someone
on the defensive. There followed a resurgence of an ongoing
conversation/argument about capital punishment, sparked by the
response to my misinterpretedponderings
being that such Monsters (now with a capital) are so far removed from
being like us normal, well balanced, grounded people, that we should
be allowed to kill them.
Kill. Them. I
know what you’re thinking, and I tried to explain that, but reason
was climbing into the back by this point. And we’d lost the
map. And I kept asking if we were nearly there yet. So it
seems when someone does a kill, we should erase them, sweep away the
embarrassment, stamp EVIL on it, and definitely not wonder if stuff
and things caused what happened and maybe do something about it?!
But Bob, I hear you say, what if someone broke in and tortured
and killed your child? Wouldn’t you want them dead? Well,
on one hand: yes, I’d probably want to tear off their skin and
strangle them with it. Which is precisely the reason we have a
criminal justice system, however flawed – to remove stupid knee
jerk, instinctive, eye-for-an-eye nonsense like that. On the
other hand: no. I don’t want to end that persons suffering so
swiftly, I want a longer sentence probably, tougher prisons, sure,
but someone else killed? No, you’re alright, ta. We’re
animals, but the whole point about being highly evolved animals with
light switches and Scalextric and apps, is that we get to be a bit
more thoughtful.
If
humanity cannot fathom the act, it cannot understand the conception
of the idea that preceded it, so is thought the point at which the
monster is created? Wouldn’t that be a bit terrifying, all a
bit Minority Report? If it’s unthinkable, we can’t know
enough to kill, and if it is thinkable, then the thinker isn’t a
monster, so, wow I guess don’t kill. Is it thinkable that
someone can be put in prison for making a poor joke, or drawing a
cartoon? Because like taking someone else’s life under the
guise of justice, that really is offensive: to police ideas, opinions
and thought, is an act that makes monsters of us all. Some
people are insane or troubled, some people are just shits, some
people do things that almost earn them the title of Monster, but
they’re just people, and certainly shouldn’t be reduced to action
figure collectables or top trumps statistics. Neither should
they be glamourised, and it’s a society that does that. Similarly,
people have opinions, ideas, make jokes and talk, and if you don’t
like it you get to not like it, that is all. There is no
thought that should condemn anyone, any opinion should be able to be
heard. They’re not monsters, they’re different, and that is
both the worst and best thing about all you infuriating, interesting
folk.
Not
me though. I’m just odd.
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