This article actually echos to what I wrote more than one year ago on my Chinese blog The Tragedy of Humanity, and Love for the Guilty. If you can read Chinese, I’d suggest you to read it. My thought about the guilty and humanity never changed since then, and I don’t know how to translate many of the words in that article. Here are some additional thoughts about it.
Crime is like Infectious Disease
When someone was got by flu, and he/she infects others, we know that we need to cure the person instead of kill him/her, even though the disease spread out from this person to others. Why we know it is the disease that we need to fight against, not the person himself? Because we know we are human, and all human are vulnerable to diseases. Besides curing the patient, we need to go further to build the facility to reduce spread of diseases in public places, and educate people to wash hands often, and stay at home when infected.
However, when it comes to crime, and the guilty, we tend to believe it is the PERSON who conducted the bad deed that we need to get rid of. We hate people who kill others, or who cheat, and who started a war. But the most dangerous conclusion I heard of is, they are different from us. They are bad guy, and we are the good guy. After killing them or putting them into jail for their entire lives, we solved the problem. No. They are not different from us at all, since we share the same thing: humanity.
Besides love, there are negative, dangerous, and disastrous factors in the humanity, such as fear, greed, and hate. Everyone has that inside ourselves, but most of us are so lucky that the fate hasn’t played a trick with us and put it into a situation that triggered this bad nature of humanity. However, many people are not that lucky.
Hate, for example, is very infectious. When Tim beats Jack on the shoulder, hate rises in the heart of Jack – exactly as the virus spread out from Tim to Jack. Jack will naturally go mad, and fight back and hit Tim on the face. A higher degree of hate infects Tim. If Tim or Jack cannot find justice from the society (a court, or police), they tend to rise the level of the conflict, and eventually, if someone is really driven mad, he will kill the other person. That is the typical tragedy in this world.
In real situation, things are much more complicated than this. I hate thieves. I obviously support to punish the thieves according to law, but we need to go further to understand why it happens. How the thought of the thieves were infected by greediness (“I am convinced that stealing is the quickest, and easiest way to be rich), or fear (“I will starve if I don’t steal. No one in this world really care about me.”)? They are the patient. To put them into jail is just like to put a patient into hospital. They need to be cured, in a hard way.
This is the continued discussion of my last article: I am a Rich Person?. I hate all kinds of bad behavior: the mason who laughed at me and blackmail me to give him more money (just 50RMB) by being bad to me, or the security guard who never thought about what service means, and who is the owner of the property, and I hate the movers who cheat, increase price 5 times during the move, and scratch my table without a sorry. I hate those behaviors, but I also need to understand that they were infected by diseases, just as I was often infected by mental diseases like thinking I am the center of the universe. We need to fight against the spread of the disease, not the patients where are infected.
The guilty and ourselves are the same – with the same humanity. We are programmed inside that we may lose temper. That is the nature of the human kind. The tragedy drama kindly remind us that we can very easily be the bad guy in real life.
Never think that we will not conduct crime some day in this life. We don’t not because we are different from people who conduct the crime. It is just because we are lucky enough that we were not infected by extreme hate. If you ask any of the people who killed someone, do they believe they will do it before they were triggered by something? They do it because they feel hopeless, they feel so angry, and they don’t believe there is any other solution to solve the problem. We are very likely to behave the same way – it is just the nature of humanity. That is the reason we need to work hard to prevent people getting into that terrible situation, and to offer help when they need it. That is to help ourselves.
Jian Shou,
Yes human beings have a great capacity to do very bad things to others just as you say. And I agree that when a human being has no reason for his existance or feels like no one on earth cares for him/her it affects him greatly. I saw a recent video that really surprized me. It was about Christianity in China and how it is exploding and having a positive impact on the things you have written about. Do you know anything about this and is it true that many people are turning to Christianity in China? One interview was with a man who described himself as selfish and a liar but he is no longer living like that since he says he found that Jesus loves him. Does this really happen in China? I would like to know. thanks
:) Jian Shuo,
I nearly cannot say a word but sigh and get moved in my heart after I read it.
I take it to my blog with the name of Jian Shuo Wang: My Passion for Humanity,
(http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5e6f480a0100fm3e.html)
If it’s not convinent, please let me know.
Much thanks :)
inequality
Let’s put the debate (rules create a “better” world, or tolerance) away for a moment. Let talk about crime.
Many people conduct crime because of poor, and for living. At this point, I agree it’s because the society didn’t give him fair chance to be educated, employed. They don’t have equal right as others to respectively live. They still have choices, but the choices are obviously harder. We hate the crime, but we understand the reasons behind, so when the rule is still ruling, we love or forgive them from humanity perspective.
But sometimes, crime is just because of “humanity”. Human are born with love, as well as sins. Rich people also steal, but with smarter means. Educated people also kills, well planned, not because hating other, but only because caring themselves too much. For these people, crime is not infected by others. Crime is the consequence by not healing the sins part of humanity.
So maybe we should devote our passion to one part of the humanity, and our commitment to healing the other part.
@Run, I agree that not all crime is forced, but I still insist that crime is infected, by others.
Look at our own history. Communism is a virus. Look at what people did to this country. Today, consumerism is another virus that push everyone to believe that to buy more is to do the society a favor… We are all influenced by others, and those opinions helped to form our own opinions. That is the reasons I believe every crime (not matter forced or attracted) has a traceable infectious root that we need to get rid of, not just the criminal. We need to get rid of crime, not criminal, just because criminals are patient infected by crime.
War is another infectious crime. Ask around and see how many people want to go to war for their country (proudly!). That is infectious.
People repeatedly say they are willing to die. They are willing to devote their lives to the Party. Hmm… They are willing to die for love, and they are willing to die for freedom. That is infectious, but also crime to themselves.
Hi, David B, :)
I am Cheery.
As far as I know, many Chinese people prefer to believe in Buddha more than Christianity, for Chinese get more familiar with the culture of Buddha which also gets well with our nature, such as humility and human kindness.
Meanwhile, not a few of my friends are Christian.
Whatsoever, it’s a good thing for people to have religious belief, or not :) , because the same call of the two religions is to behave goodly which helps to the happiness of people and stabilization of society.
Hi Cherry,
I agree with you. During the curltural revolution religion was replaced by the state but the state is not spiritual. We human beings are spiritual and we need that influence in our lives. It is these principals that some choose to live by and will stand firm on them instead of giving an excuse for bad behavior. I love the teachings of humility and kindness. You can be rich or poor it matters not when it comes to humility and kindness. It seems like both Christianity and Buddism are similar since both religions teach doing good to others and being humble in life. I live in the US and these same principals must be here as well if our society is going to remain stable. It seems that in the US we are now begining to go through our own cultural revolution. I hope we hold on to what is good. Nice to meet you Cheery.
Peace
Hi, David B, :)
I agree with you, too. And I don’t know much about ” in the US we are now beginning to go through our own cultural revolution”. If it’s not offending, I’m willing to share.
Nice to meet you, too. :)
Cheery
Hello JS
This is terrible.
Being compassionate and understanding is exactly what criminals want from us.
Humanity excludes actions that will harm your fellow man. It is the inhumane actions that begets punishment.
I am sure Hitler feels like he had a logical reason to kill Jews. But I am not going to waste my time trying to justify for him.
Just because I don’t like your face doesn’t mean I can punch it, or you should go for cosmetic surgery (so that no one else will feel the urge to punch it).
All societies must have rules of behaviour.
Please JS, don’t confuse your mind with imponderable thoughts. Your instinctive sense of outrage and anger at unacceptable behaviours is right. These feelings are what makes us different from animals.
They are part of our humanity and we have nothing to apologise for.
Yes. I agree with Wonton’s words.
I think the reason for JS has this thought is because he still feel very anger and outrage for
the men who scratched his table without a sorry.
haha.
When i feel very depressed, i will think such things about humanities, however, when happy,
my happiness can also be a virsus to affect others.
Well. I never put an equal sign between “humanity” and “mercy”. Mercy, or remove/soften punishment is the worst thing. I will object if anyone wants to give additional mercy beyond what is allowed by the law.
To put someone into jail, to give fine are just medicine and injection, and operation in hospital. Without all these strong methods, people cannot cure. Just talking cannot cure anyone, just like talking cannot cure in hospital.
My point is, along with all the punishment, we need to keep humanity, and understand that why we do it. We punish, not to end up with punishment. We punish to cure the disease of the criminal, and to prevent other future crime. If we don’t have that in mind, punish can be a very dangerous tool to cause much more problems. Punishment needs to cure, not to spread hate.