Inwardly addressing Heidhin, Everard thinks:
"You are not a scientifically educated post-Christian Western European. To you, the gods are real and your highest duty is avenging a wrong." (p. 593)
In two sentences, Everard summarizes three stages of social development:
Pagan
Christian
scientifically educated post-Christian
And there are also anti-scientific post-Christians.
All these stages are very different and are only stages. What lies ahead of us? Everard knows what lies ahead on his timeline...
(Catholic schools are a long way down the chain of historical causation from Veleda.)
14 comments:
For most modern post-Christians revenge is a guilty pleasure.
Pretenses that it's not pleasurable are, of course, just posturing. Though enough guilt can spoil the pleasure.
Me, I -like- revenge if I feel someone has deliberately injured me; I'll take it and exult in it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And if "post-Christians" don't believe in a Highest Power the desire for revenge will soon no longer be a guilty pleasure. More and more will be exulting and rejoicing over humiliating and destroying their enemies or those who had injured them. Going down that road will not lead to anything but chaos and anarchy.
The Scriptures Paul cited has God reserving vengeance to Himself in Deuteronomy 32.35: "Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time,..." And Romans 12.17-19 expands on this: "To no man render evil for evil, but provide good things ot only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as far as in you lies, be at peace with all men. Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to the wrath, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord. But 'if thy enemy is hungry, give him food; if he is thirsty, give him drink, for by so doing thou wilt heap coals of fire upon his head.' Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
But we should not understand this as meaning St. Paul had any foolish illusions about human beings! Romans 13 makes very that the State is one of the things necessary if men are going to be able to live peacefully. Romans 13.4 says: "...For it [the State] is God's minister to thee for good. But if thou dost what is evil, fear, for not without reason does it carry the sword. For it is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who does evil."
That is why I believe, after true states arose, it was right and necessary that they more and more took over the penalizing and controlling of crime and violence. Despite a million blunders and cruelties it was better than leaving it to be handled by feud and vendetta.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: it's certainly more efficient.
In Britain, Alfie Rouse was executed for the murder of an unknown hitchhiker whose identity has never been established.
Well, nobody who's been executed has ever committed a crime after they're dead.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: And that was good, that the murder of even a complete unknown was so outrageous that it was just to impose the ultimate penalty on Alfie Rouse.
Mr. Stirling: I agree. I have no objection for imposing capital punishment for the worst crimes, as long as the accused were given fair trials with a right to appeal.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: in my experience (brief, I grant) as a lawyer, everyone charged in court was guilty. Usually guilty of what they were charged with, and in any case guilty of -something-. People commit crimes because they're bad people, just rotten and irredeemably bad. The ones who get -caught- are usually stupid as doorknobs to boot.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I know and I agree with you. I'm rather a fan of LAW & ORDER, and I often see ADA Jack McCoy reluctantly agreeing to plea deals with criminals, either because that was the only way to get some punishment for these criminals or to get an even worse felon behind bars.
That said, I still believe the best we can hope for, realistically, is what we now have. If only to minimize the chances of innocent people being convicted.
Ad astra! Sean
My take would be on the second felony conviction to drag the convicted criminal out, kick them onto their knees on the courthouse steps, and shoot them in the back of the head with a .40.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I sympathize, esp. when I think of horrible crimes like the murder of that poor girl in Charlotte, NC this past August by a criminally deranged felon. I was so angry by that (and the Kirk case) that I wrote to my Congresswoman about it. Since she's a Democrat, it was probably wasted effort.
All that said, I can't go that far, what you said after a criminal got a second felony conviction. There are degrees and gradations of guilt and some effort should be made in punishing criminals accordingly. In my "Crime and Punishment in the Terran Empire" article I discussed how Anderson would prefer using corporal punishment, not prisons, for penalizing many offenses. An idea I think has merits.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: I'm mainly interested in reducing social friction. Most crimes are done by repeat offenders, who are relatively small in numbers, so eliminate them and you eliminate most crime at vast savings in expense and trouble.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
A very good point--which reminded me of how crime dropped drastically 30 years ago when many states got so fed up that they incarcerated convicted felons for long sentences. Given enough anger and frustration, the soft on crime people will be ousted, and we go back to that.
Ad astra! Sean
FWIW I was recently reading about how the Norwegian prison system works. The prisoners are in something more like university dorm rooms an rehabilitation is pushed. Apparently Norway has far fewer repeat offenders than other countries. Maybe the problem is doing something in between executing the offender & going the Norway route. I suppose the Norway route tells you which ones are actually redeemable, and maybe the repeat offenders after that should be executed.
Kaor, Jim!
If that works for Norway, great! But I am not sure it would work in the US, what works in one country won't necessarily work in another. Norway is vastly smaller than the US, with a population of only about six million. Making its problems with crime proportionately smaller than in the US. Also, the US does have prisons analogous to those of Norway, minimum security prisons, meant for non-violent convicts or for those convicted of minor offenses.
I am not at all sure "rehabilitation" will ever do much good with really hardened, violent repeat offenders. If often takes a religious conversion to really change a convict for the better. Long prison sentences might at least mean many of them would be too old to go back to crime when/if released.
I am still reluctant to go too easily to executing criminals--I would prefer to limit that to criminals convicted of the worst and most brutal crimes.
I would be interested to know if you read my article "Crime and Punishment in the Terran Empire."
Ad astra! Sean
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