The punishment never fits the crime. The umbrella like punishments we have established for dealing with the "criminal" have never done justice to the victim or the criminal (victim of the system). The overwhelming similarity to me at least, between Candide and the modern world is that Candide is being punished by a world in which all he did was exist. He did not create or even choose to take part, but suddenly like birth, is placed with no training or prior knowledge to guide him. The world then takes advantage of him and begins to ravage and rip him apart piece by piece. Punishment for existing it seems, but it's the best of all possible worlds!
---I had been sitting in the greenery on Jackson and State when I was approached by a homeless woman who asked me "did I believe in god?" I said no, I wasn't opposed to god, but it didn't have much relevance in my life. Words frothed from her chapped gums as she screamed at me "Who do you think made all this!" "God has a plan for all of us, God is good, God is great, I would be nothing without god." How fucking depressing. She was indeed Candide. She knew no better than just to put faith in god. Her existence was far from good, she was missing all but seven teeth, but the world was good because she knew god was up there looking down. The indifference of the world was crushing her every second that she lived. The system created so that the majority could at least be fed and housed was up in a tower shooting down any potential she had. She was being punished by the world like Candide. Did she deserve this punishment, I don't think so. Who deserves to have all but seven of their teeth lost. Who deserves to wear a pink shirt so soiled by dried dirt and spit that you would mistake it for grey? Who deserves to have eyes the murky mix of yellow and red from their last drug intake. The world punishes, who? The unluckies, the Candides. Candide was kicked out of the castle, flung into the real world because he tried to kiss a girl. Put into the ocean without a lifeboat because he tried to live life, his crime doesn't fit the punishment, nor do most people's for that matter. It's the fact that life sucks and then you die, for those unlucky people who get the wrong end of the stick. The person who kisses the girl right as the king passes.
XoXo
So you believe that nobody ever deserves to be punished by the court system/police/anyone? Do you believe that being on this earth alone is punishment enough? What about those that commit murder, steal and hurt others?
ReplyDeleteI believe that most crimes do deserve punishment of some sort, but a majority of crimes thatare commited are not by pure will but by a combination of will and circumstance. Circumstance, "the unluckies", while hard to define its role in a crime, is neglected by the all emcompassing methods of punishment which our system uses; Tickets, Jail, Death. The glimmer of hope I see, and which sometimes does exist in our justice system, is that people are still making decisions on someone's punishment. People have the ability to make choices based on a variety of criteria instead of assigning punishment based strcitly on definition of crime. The court system still allows the criminal's story to be heard by a person who can make moral and intellegent choices based on the "whole" story. The problem is that can the whole story ever be told? Many criminals become criminals at birth because of circumstances like poverty, abuse, and other diry things. So while it is hard to give true justice, and there may well never be true justice, circumstance needs to be considered to a greater extent than it is now.
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