Humanity is born of sin, we come from sin. From the moment Adam and Eve bit off of the fruit, we were damned to sin. Naturally, everyone has evil within them, a darkness that hides in the deepest corner of our hearts and minds, of our soul even. It is up to one whether to let that evil that exist within, control us, or be controlled by us. In white bear, the woman is rightly accused for being in compliance with the perpetrator, of recording his evil deeds at the pain and expense of the little girl. She willingly recorded her fiance burning the little girl alive, disregarding and obliterating any empathy for the frightened and forsaken child.
Despite her actions however, I see far beyond the "justice" park's main point; I see the perspective of the people, but also that of society. True she did a terrible thing, an unbearable action that angered that community/country, true justice needed to be served; but despite whatever her wrong doing was, the manner in which "justice" was being exercised was no longer justifiable. Her punishment became an amusement for others and a visitor site, the way in which she was being punished had no ultimate positive effect or reaction.
Moreover, those in charge of exercising the punishment wrapped themselves into it so much, that it no longer stressed any form of justice. It was pure torture to "teach her" a lesson, though that lesson was never truly being conveyed to her since her memory was wiped out every night. She was no longer living under this form of punishment to learn her lesson, but to amuse the public and enrich the park. The people were now practicing the exact same action she did during the incident, only now it was acceptable to society because this woman, was a criminal.
She was evil for doing it, an unbearable human being; she was no longer human in their eyes, she was entertainment... an object... a money making machine... She was a parasite in their community. Those who took part in punishing her, though doing the same thing as she, were "just" people who were doing it to teach her a lesson, or were they? Perhaps they too were exactly like her deep down, they just wouldn't show it, until there was a way to do it without being in trouble or being "unjust". Perhaps they all had that evil within and just needed something to trigger it. They needed to feed the evil within , they craved for the moment in which they could, they just needed the perfect cover up to do it. They needed their unjust desires to be "justified".
I like your point about all of us having evil within us. It is similar to when we laugh at people's pain or accidents on those compilation videos, but on a much lower level than white bear. I do agree with you on the idea of teaching her a lesson, but at what point is the lesson learned. She was, as you said, entertainment for the park's visitors. This seems to be dehumanizing almost and turning her into just an object. I do think that the people took it to far. I never thought about them justifying their unjust actions by this. Going back to the beginning, they might have been getting some of their evil out this way instead of having to worry about being punished for it.
ReplyDelete