No guilt, everyone is innocent. Now what?

Have you asked yourself: why some people have the will to be good to others and others cant do it.
Its like its easy for some of us to do the right thing, but to others its almost impossible, their will doesn't go to the light side.
We all have free will but its much more complicated than that...
Genes, personal history, family, friends, culture, collective values and trends, there are so many factors that make up our minds and then when its time to act and decide, where is our control about who we are and what we do?
Do we really control the factors that determine our will? I guess not...
Life is a mystery, i think we all are innocent, no one is guilty, people cant control what makes them who they are...
Oh he killed her, he is a monster. Why did he do it? Why is it that his will doesn't lead him to good actions? His he really in charge of all that made his will go that way? Did he really have a choice? And if he had a choice, why didn't he decide to do good? Its a mystery, but we all can agree that people don't make themselves...
So why punishment?
I say we don't punish, we love, we care, we send good energy, we help, we try to understand, we listen.
What about society? Wrong doing must have consequences, chaos will prevail, bad examples cant go on without a consequence, people must respond for their actions right? Yes.
The only good motive to apply "penalties" for wrong doing is to maintain order of the collective.
People are innocent, they should be loved, cared, understood, helped.
People are loved, only actions are judged and managed to maintain order.
Love will bring wrong doers up to the light, not judgement and hate.
When a brother does wrong, he must face the consequences of his actions but he his loved and cared all the way, no hate, no judgement, only love because if you think about it, deep down, he is innocent, there is no guilt.

Deep down there is pure innocence, deep down there is no person, as you say its hard to know which path to tread. Have you seen the movie the mission, this covers this angle very well. Jeremy Irons chose the path of love and forgiveness but on the surface it looked as if he had no spine. We can each do our best and that is good enough.

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That's so broad, it's difficult to respond.

We have ideas of morality like right and wrong, but then we also have ethics, which looks at what the best option would be when a right or wrong choice is not blatantly clear.

I'd say we cannot just forgive some crimes.
There's got to be some process of retribution or reconciliation.
For example, political crimes may be morally wrong, but they seemed ethically right at the time, so in some countries we had truth commissions to facilitate forgiveness after political changes.

Unfortunately actions don't exist outside human beings.
So when we punish actions, we better make sure they are not a "war" on a concept, because then we are fooling ourselves into thinking we are not criminalizing people and causing needless suffering to real people.

However, some actions like theft or murder in society must be punished by a state.
If they are not we will have vigilante justice, or mob justice (which we've had in SA).
If one person intrudes on the property or the life of another, then the brother who is a victim also has rights, and firstly all sympathies should go to the victim.

People may not make themselves, but within their milieu they still have choices where one can say: even for your specific situation, your choice was just wrong and evil.
Or, perhaps one could say: you did the lesser of two evils for that situation, so there's a lesser consequence.

reply to post by halfoldman


My theory is that persons are never judged, only actions.
Persons are always loved and supported, only their actions are managed.
This will make our justice system more human, people should be brought to goodness with goodness, even if they must face penalties, they should be treated with love, care and affection.

reply to post by halfoldman


Lets suppose we are all brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters are equal, they have the same status, this brotherhood relationship is a situation of equality, which is a good starting point.

You never stop supporting and caring a brother or a sister. There may be tension and even aggression sometimes, but brothers never stop loving brothers as they are equal, its not like a father-sun relationship, brothers are at the same level.

So we are all brothers and sisters, we shouldn't in any circumstance, forget love, support and affection for one another.

reply to post by Manula

Well it depends, in the Inquisition horrific tortures and executions were seen as signs of love.

The person baptized into the church who strayed into heresy was given a chance to repent - and all earthly pain was considered nothing compared to eternal hell - and then if he would not confess and repent then he was killed in a way that kept the body intact for Judgement Day.

Today we would call that extreme torture, but then that was considered kindness and mercy for the prodigal brother.

"Kindness" and "love" can come in many guises.

reply to post by halfoldman


Oh... come on, your example was so extreme... Your point is useless...

People give what they get. They need a connection in order to have compassion. If a person is mistreated and shown only hate and hurt then they will return that. If someone is told they are evil enough they will turn evil. It really is not hard to understand. It is the same with any animal. If you beat a dog and treat it bad, it will bite people or it will withdraw and hide. If you abuse a human enough it will either withdraw or lash out. Or both. Some emotions are not built in. Fairness is built in. Every human has a sense of fairness and it is extremely hard to do away with. I tried with my kids to teach them that fairness does not exist. But it would not work. To this day they still gripe that some things are not fair. Compassion is not built in. It has to be learned. It has to be taught.

What we call evil is merely when a person has not been shown good. You have to be good to people in order for them to be good to others.

reply to post by Manula

Well what example are you giving?

How many institutions today or in recent history say they will "help" people or "correct" people, but really they are a means of power to discipline.
Curing hysterical women, defining madness, "curing" homosexuality with aversion therapy and electric shocks, chemical standardization (even of children), court orders to attend AA religious programs that tell people with drinking issues they are inherently diseased - all that is done in the name of kindness!
I could go on and on ... girls who got pregnant and disappeared into convents, political prisoners confined for "mental illness", cults with punishment camps ... all in the name of love and kindness!

My example was historical, but it was positively enlightened.

However just because that happens doesn't mean we shouldn't argue for alternatives.
In India, for example, there are prisons that are open, and people go to jobs and come back in the evenings.
That's almost unthinkable in the West.

My point is that saying we "love" people doesn't mean much.
"Love" and "cure" are simply discipline and punish in other discourses.
No system says openly: We torture people!
They all make it sound nice.

So, what can you offer apart from rhetoric?

reply to post by halfoldman


I said we should support and love wrong doers, while managing the penalties to keep the social order.

You grabbed this simple message and started talking about inquisition and stuff like that... come on...

In Portugal the maximum penalty for a crime is 25 years. We have no perpetual jail time or death penalty.
Portugal was the first European modern state to abolish the death penalty.

How do you help people be better persons. They must know actions have consequences, but meanwhile, thay can be respected and loved as every human beings should be.

The greatest difference here is the attitude towards the wrong doer.

You still give him the consequences of his actions but not with a hate face, you can be loving and compassionate but firm in the judgement of his actions.

reply to post by Manula

Thanks for the clarification.

The OP post was very open-ended, not about a specific example or program.

So yes, we must show generosity of spirit.

But these terms have been misused by politicians, so with my example I'm showing that without perhaps an example they can mean many things.

That is why I still maybe wonder on practicalities, beyond just feelings?

Forgive me if this is out of place, but I think of a case in our country called the Amy Biehl murder.
In 1993 an American exchange student was killed in a racial attack, during a very turbulent political time.
The killers were jailed, but Amy's parents supported their release.
Since then they set up a foundation in her name, that has helped many underprivileged people in the community where she once studied.
So a horrific crime came to much good.

Amy Elizabeth Biehl (April 26, 1967 – August 25, 1993) was a white American graduate of Stanford University and an Anti-Apartheid activist in South Africa. She studied at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town as a scholar in the Fulbright Program. When 26-year-old Biehl drove a friend home to the township of Guguletu, outside Cape Town, on August 25, 1993, a black mob pelted her car with stones and smashed its windows while shouting racial epithets. Biehl was struck in the head with a brick, then dragged from her car and surrounded by a mob who stoned and stabbed her to death while she begged for her life.[1] According to Rex van Schalkwyk, in his 1998 book One Miracle is Not Enough: “Supporters of the three men accused of murdering [her] … burst out laughing in the public gallery of the Supreme Court today when a witness told how the battered woman groaned in pain.” (pp. 188-89.) Four of Biehl's murderers were convicted for her killing; however, in 1998, all were pardoned by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Biehl's family supported release of the killers, and her father shook the murderers' hands, stating that “ The most important vehicle of reconciliation is open and honest dialogue...we are here to reconcile a human life which was taken without an opportunity for dialogue. When we are finished with this process we must move forward with linked arms.[1] ” In 1994, Biehl's parents, Linda and Peter, founded the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust to develop and empower youth in the townships, in order to discourage further violence.[1] In 1999, Biehl's parents were honored with the Aline and Norman Felton Humanitarian Award.[2]

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by halfoldman


Beautiful example, indeed South Africa is a great country because out of hate they created love, out of extreme separation, they created unity.
The more darkness, the more potential to create light.

reply to post by Manula

This is something we could talk about forever.

There's so much about nature that's cruel.

But nature is in us.

Nature is an experimenter.

It kills to produce higher forms of intelligence.

At its heart, it's a creator.

But like a lab scientist, it has only infantile emotions for its subjects.

We're creators too.

We kill many lower life-forms in pursuit of improving ourselves.

We create many things without knowing the full implications of our actions.

Our time on this planet is an experiment.

......

How much can we 'fix' nature? How much can we do 'right'? If nature is embedded in us then how do we know when we have become more ethical in our actions?

Ever seen an autopsy?

Or seen another animal prey on another?

Or an injured animal that's soon to die?

Or a diseased person that by accident is doomed to die young?

Or a man in his prime fall dead - the light from his eyes gone - from a heart defect?

Many of you have. Some of you have seen far worse.

We have many reminders of how dangerous this world is and how vulnerable we're.

When and where should we deny nature its role and insert ourselves instead?

Are we really more ethical to save a dying animal, or is it just another experiment?

Are we really more ethical to help a murderer, or is it just another experiment?

Is it right to do what we feel is right even if it conflicts with nature?

Ever heard someone say "Let nature take its course."

But what happens when you feel it's wrong to let nature take its course?

If we're nature then does it even matter since every way is nature's way?

Maybe the only right choice is to end our life and not be accomplices to nature's ways.

We're animals. Flesh and bone.

Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon, Calcium, Phosphorous, Sulphur.

Peel off our skin and we're all watery tissue.

Cut off the skull cap and cut the eye nerves and the rest of the nerves and the membrane(s) and the stem and you can pull out our prized achievement and hold it in the palm of your hand.

You can do the same to every animal and hold their prized possession.

If we're special then all the animals and creatures are special. No exceptions.

reply to post by jonnywhite


I understand what you are saying, people are what they are, they do what they do and they dont really choose to be that way, a crocodile isn't to blame for his instincts to kill and feed himself. Likewise, people aren't to blame for their instincts, lack of consciousness, moral and ethics.
True. That´s why everyone deserves unconditional love, people are not to blame.

Well how about applying "no guilt" equally?

How about no guilt for slavery in past centuries or colonial and tribal wars?

Let everyone today off guilt and developmental programs based on Western guilt and ... well I wonder?

reply to post by halfoldman


People don't have to feel guilty, they respond for their actions, i think that's enough...
What they need is prudence and consciousness as well as responsibility (respond for your actions).
Guilt is useless.

reply to post by Manula

But what about collective guilt?

I don't think the holocaust was repaid with individual hands ...

What about colonialisation?

Portugal had Angola and Mozambique ... jewels of Africa.
Their people fled to us at independence.
Some of their possessions were dumped in the desert, dumped at the border ...
They were so desperate to come to South Africa.

Who will pay to rebuild those societies again?

So many questions, and the answer is history.

reply to post by halfoldman


There is no collective guilt IMO

I respond for what i do, i don't respond for what others do.