It’s Friday, and it may, once again, be a true end of the week for me, though if it’s’n’t*, I’m sure I’ll write a new post tomorrow, barring‒as is always implicit‒the unforeseen.
I’m in a bad mood this morning, though not in the usual sense. Of course, I’m often, perhaps even usually, in a mood that others would consider bad; they certainly wouldn’t want it for themselves. Although, I would never say “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy”, because that’s just not true.
If someone were indeed my “worst enemy”, then I would wish to visit upon them just about any form of pain and suffering and other synonyms for torment that you can name, and I would be more than capable, psychologically, of delivering that torment personally.
As a doctor, when I was in practice, there were innumerable times when I had to cause pain to people I was trying to help (e.g., phlebotomy, lumbar punctures, paracentesis, incision and drainage of abscesses, etc.). I did it without hesitation when it was indicated, though I always strove to keep any pain as minimal as possible.
Also, I’ve been in places and in situations where violence was always waiting, and you needed to be capable of violence to protect yourself from potential violence from others.
So, yeah, I would be more than emotionally capable of delivering any suffering I’ve ever known to someone who merited it.
Of course, in reality, I wouldn’t really waste time delivering torment to someone who was somehow my “worst enemy”. I’ve learned at least some lessons from fictional and real world situations of that kind: don’t put your enemies in death traps, don’t gloat over them (while they’re alive), don’t draw things out. Just delete them, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Surely that’s the only sensible way to deal with someone who is truly your enemy. The world will be a much less stressful place for you with any true enemies erased from it.
Of course, you don’t want to be mistaken about that. One shouldn’t use force unless it is legitimately necessary, and only against those who merit it‒ideally only against those who initiated or threatened it. If they call the tune, so to speak, then there can be no legitimate moral complaints about the fact that they need to pay the piper.
So, yeah, that’s the kind of bad mood I’m in this morning. I’ve learned of something terrible that happened to someone I (distantly) know and like, at the hands of someone who had apparently been trusted by the person I know, and who was much bigger and stronger.
I am, of course, in no way involved other than being aware of it, and of course, such acts occur all over the world, every day. That doesn’t make accepting them any easier, nor does it make me any less angry. If anything, knowing that one act of violence by a bigger person against a smaller, weaker person is just a tiny sample of a much larger statistic is ever more maddening the longer one contemplates the fact.
However, the “madness” that can seize one in the event of an injustice, especially a violent one‒and the examples committed by those who are supposed to be in positions of protection and service are particularly common and especially egregious of late‒raises and reinforces the all-important issue of proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
This is why the concept of due process is even more important than the concept of punishment. The tendency toward the feud, toward vendetta, is very strong in humans, and it can become a self-perpetuating and self-justifying process that leads to terrible injustice and unnecessary suffering.
That being said, though, anger can be quite motivating, at least if it is anger unmarred by too much self-loathing. So, though I am in pain this morning, and did not sleep well at all, I have a bit more physical energy than usual, at least for the moment, because when one becomes angry at an injustice, one wants to be able to do something about it, even if it is not within the reach of one’s arm at the moment.
For instance, it’s much easier to motivate oneself to workout when one thinks of it as getting into shape to be best able to deal with unjust physical violence if it should become necessary.
I’ve certainly let myself become softer than I ever used to be. I do still work out nearly every day (with appropriate rest sessions) because when I don’t, my chronic pain becomes worse. But I’ve left behind the martial arts practice I used to do, and I stopped learning new stuff along those lines quite some time ago. I’ve also not been watching/reading things that motivated me along those lines in quite a while, but I may want to indulge in them a bit more, now. If nothing else, they can get me motivated to get in better shape, and that’s almost certainly going to be a benefit.
If it should ever become necessary and useful to use better conditioning to protect someone from harm, or to take action against those who commit harm against the innocent, well…I suspect it would probably be a better world if more people became more ready, willing, and able to use violence against those who initiate or threaten it.
There’s always the critical rub of people being prone to bias and mistake, to rush to judgment, and to scapegoat. Which brings us back to why the rule of law, and due process, is so important.
But what does one do when those who are supposed to be part of the rule of law and to enforce and to bow to due process choose to betray their oaths and their duties, and do not submit to the rule of law themselves?
The answer is probably obvious, but feel free to write your guesses in the comments below.
Have a good day.
*In case it’sn’t clear, I combined the contractions “it’s” for “it is” and the contraction “isn’t” for “is not” into a next-order contraction.
Robert Elessar 