Absolution and Redemption and Second Chances
America has always been known for insistence on belief in the Judeo-Christian concepts of absolution and redemption. In America people have traditionally been given (or allowed to take) second chances. Americans have never expected their fellow citizens to commit
hara-kiri for their blunders and sins. We've always reacted with public shock and disapproval if someone's repentance was demonstrated by death or disappearance. Inability to try to start over has always been weakness in our public eyes, and we, as a nation, tend to look down on weakness.
In other cultures people are required to live with the consequences of their actions and choices, but Americans, for better or worse, have always been able to start over. Even our Canadian neighbors, who sometimes seem so much the same as us--if only in our eyes--are more bound by consequences than we are. My Canadian cousin remarked that she was amazed when I took a major step in life and then casually took a 180 degree turn to undo my action a year later.
From the beginning of our nationhood, we have never been tightly bound by consequences unless we chose to be. Get a scarlet letter in your hometown, just move west and be someone else...
Lately, though, something has changed. People's lives are being ruined by accusations without any judicial process to confirm guilt. Rumors and innuendo destroy lives. Talking heads discussing what they imagine must have happened or been said are enough to condemn when their concoctions are repeated as facts by their fans.
Even when a culprit confesses, repents and apologizes, there are calls for vengeance metaphorically along the lines of hangings in the public square. This morning's television shows featured the story of a YouTube star named Logan Paul who, if I understood correctly, filmed in Japan's suicide forest and, in a flippant way, showed the body of someone who had committed suicide there. I never heard of this boy until this morning, but he appeared to have recognized that he made a mistake. He seemed sincere in his apology. I assume he never did anything like this before, because I'm sure the television programs would have told us all about it if he had. Yet people are calling for him to be taken off YouTube forever. His audience, to be sure, is young children and his mistake rather shocking. Still, is this a reason that he should have no absolution and redemption? There is no second chance allowed him? His career must end?
Is that really the direction America is taking--one mistake and the lynch mob will be at your door?.
hara-kiri for their blunders and sins. We've always reacted with public shock and disapproval if someone's repentance was demonstrated by death or disappearance. Inability to try to start over has always been weakness in our public eyes, and we, as a nation, tend to look down on weakness.
In other cultures people are required to live with the consequences of their actions and choices, but Americans, for better or worse, have always been able to start over. Even our Canadian neighbors, who sometimes seem so much the same as us--if only in our eyes--are more bound by consequences than we are. My Canadian cousin remarked that she was amazed when I took a major step in life and then casually took a 180 degree turn to undo my action a year later.
From the beginning of our nationhood, we have never been tightly bound by consequences unless we chose to be. Get a scarlet letter in your hometown, just move west and be someone else...
Lately, though, something has changed. People's lives are being ruined by accusations without any judicial process to confirm guilt. Rumors and innuendo destroy lives. Talking heads discussing what they imagine must have happened or been said are enough to condemn when their concoctions are repeated as facts by their fans.
Even when a culprit confesses, repents and apologizes, there are calls for vengeance metaphorically along the lines of hangings in the public square. This morning's television shows featured the story of a YouTube star named Logan Paul who, if I understood correctly, filmed in Japan's suicide forest and, in a flippant way, showed the body of someone who had committed suicide there. I never heard of this boy until this morning, but he appeared to have recognized that he made a mistake. He seemed sincere in his apology. I assume he never did anything like this before, because I'm sure the television programs would have told us all about it if he had. Yet people are calling for him to be taken off YouTube forever. His audience, to be sure, is young children and his mistake rather shocking. Still, is this a reason that he should have no absolution and redemption? There is no second chance allowed him? His career must end?
Is that really the direction America is taking--one mistake and the lynch mob will be at your door?.
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