Seneca, Moral Letters 7.3

You may retort: "But he was a highway robber; he killed a man!" And what of it? Granted that, as a murderer, he deserved this punishment, what crime have you committed, poor fellow, that you should deserve to sit and see this show? 

 

In the morning they cried "Kill him! Lash him! Burn him! Why does he meet the sword in so cowardly a way? Why does he strike so feebly? Why doesn't he die game? Whip him to meet his wounds! Let them receive blow for blow, with chests bare and exposed to the stroke!" 

 

And when the games stop for the intermission, they announce: “A little throat-cutting in the meantime, so that there may still be something going on!"

 

Most people from my generation have a very vivid memory of the O.J. Simpson trial, but for me the most impactful moment in public law and order came a few years earlier, with the execution of Ted Bundy. 

 

I was certainly shaken by all the accounts of his crimes, and yet what affected me even more was the frenzy of a celebration surrounding his execution. I can’t forget seeing the images of the vast cheering crowds, the sea of placards with angry messages, or the folks who made good money selling clever t-shirts. 

 

It only made me wonder where to find that line between noble justice and bloody vengeance, when a punishment for someone who sought gratification in violence then itself became another sort of gratification in violence. Might Seneca have thought something similar as he watched those spectators at the games taking pleasure in the butchering of criminals? 

 

Is it different when it is given some official stamp of approval? When everyone goes along, is it somehow better than if one person does it alone? Are popular forms of hatred better than unpopular ones? 

 

It is so easy to hide my own responsibility by being swept along, like one little pebble in an avalanche. 

 

I watched a protestor on television explaining, in graphic detail, what he would personally do to Bundy if he were alone in a room with him. “I’d make him hurt, just like he made other people hurt!”

 

I suppose I can at least turn to Seneca’s advice here for some peace of mind. 

 

In making a man pay the price for his sins, let me be certain I do not then have to pay the price for my own. Things are countered by their opposites, and merely compounded by more of the same. 

 

Chanting evil in a chorus never magically transforms it into something good. 

Written in 4/2012