3. Certain things can only be done but not told
In the Sichuan earthquake 6 years ago, a primary school teacher named “Fan-run-run” provoked the public with a blog. In his blog, he wrote that he rushed out of the building as soon as he felt the earthquake, leaving his students unattended in the classroom. He said what he did was perfectly okay because saving the life of others isn’t an obligation but an honorable choice which he doubt most people don’t have the courage to make. “I wouldn’t only trade my life for my daughter’s,” he said “not even for my mother’s.” People got very mad at him not because of what he did but because of what he said. The common attitude was: “I understand him and might have done the same if I were him, but why can’t he keep it to himself? What’s to brag?” This reminds me of what you wrote in against fairness, “I would strangle everyone in this room if it prolonged my son’s life.” This idea was also badly received. I can’t find fault in these actions because I wouldn’t have done any better but the way it sounds is still very disturbing. Although ideally, one shouldn’t get in trouble for speaking his mind and certainly not for speaking of unblamable deeds, almost the whole society finds Fan-ran-ran very guilty and deserves to be morally condemned.
My grandfather used to tell me that there is no absolute truth, it all depends on what ground you hold. There’s a Chinese saying that goes like “Once you stepped onto the bus, you change your mind immediately.” which is a very vivid description. You wait for a bus for half an hour and it arrives with a load of people, there’s a long line both in front of you and behind you. Before you squeezed into the bus, you would tell people before you, “Please move forward, I’m sure there’s still some space.” And once you got on the bus, you would shout to the people behind you “Can’t you see it’s already too crowded in here? Wait for the next bus!” So this is one of the explanations to why some things can only be done but not told. What Fan-run-run did was appropriate if you stand in his ground, but it becomes less convincible if you’re one of his students.
Even if the public were very understanding and didn't blame him for his actions, it’s still inappropriate to write down this occurrence and post it on the Internet. The other explanation I came up to why some things can only be done but not told is that, what is tolerable isn’t always promotable. I mean, everyone picks their noses and farts from time to time; okay so sometimes we might even be caught in the act, there’s nothing to blame. But do we have to write a blog telling the whole world we picked our noses and farted? And can you call someone who kept those information to himself a hypocrite? No. Not saying anything is not hiding. And the act of telling is more than just telling but promoting, convincing everyone else to do just the same. There are plenty of things tolerable, angry mothers beating up misbehaving kids is pretty much tolerable in China, but we don’t see many mothers gathered together exchanging experiences about how they physically abused their kids. Because we still want a nation where teachers take responsibilities for their students, where favoritism is replaced by fairness and parents sorted things out peacefully with their kids. Certain things can be done but better left untold.
4. Should death penalty be abolished in China?
Last year a graduate student from Fudan University poisoned his roommate with deadly chemicals, causing the latter a painful death. He was sentenced with death penalty, something completely disputable. However, recently, 177 Fudan students wrote a petition pleading for him. They stated: “Lin isn’t a brutal man. He was only blinded by his emotions. He deserves a second chance to make up for his crime to the victim’s parents and be a better contributor to the society.” Also, they argued that death penalty should be abolished, starting from this case. But the victim’s parents insisted that only by putting him to death can they relieve from the loss of their boy.
It is only normal to seek vengeance, “eye for an eye”， right? Some misunderstood this idea. If you plucked my eye out, I won’t need to pluck out yours. I simply need to makes you suffer to the same extent you made me suffer. This sounds fair because whatever you do to others somehow goes back to you, a result of eating one’s own bitter fruit. And it’s very operable, in case you don't even have eyes.
Death penalty was designed to satisfy this principle. Take a life and repay it with your own. But there’s one problem: It’s irreversible and ultimate. If we by accident execute an innocent man, there’s no going back. Even the finest judge makes mistakes sometimes and the consequences are just too overwhelming. I support the elimination of death penalty because it is too extreme, not because of what some people may argue, that death penalty is inhumane. Those holding this argument have definitely gone down the wrong path. A harsh law system helps individuals to be better restrained. If a criminal gets away with murder (getting away means suffering less than the victim), it’s unjust to the victim and also crime rates would go up. This might not be the case for most countries but China is in a very special period. There’s a huge wealth gap between the upper-class and the bottom, and serious social injustice goes on every day. People are forever in conflict with one another, some of which evolve into grudges. Even with the death penalty as the ultimate punishment, some enraged men still bears this in mind when they strike: My life is cheap anyways, if I’ll trade mine for yours and I still win. Imagine what could happen with the death penalty gone and nothing as fearful to replace it.
So if we are to abolish the death penalty, all we need to do is come up with some new replacement. There are a lot of ways to torture a man and he’d beg for a quick death. Take a look back into history and we may find the most savage tortures. Okay you might not like where this is going…I’m just saying there are a lot of alternatives for death penalty which can make the criminal suffer all the same. And though all of these methods are inhumane in essence, we can shift them a little so that they look more humane. From physical to mental perhaps. Here are two great examples:
The first one I saw from an episode of Black Mirror, a British TV series. A woman committed some kind of crime and she was sentenced with “eternal punishment”。 They put her in an amusement park and every day she wakes up into a terrifying world. Man in scary outfits would try to hunt her down, jigsaw in hand. And she would run for her life. Tourists of the amusement park would just take photos, enjoying the show regardless of how she cried for help. Then by the end of the day, the staff would show her the video of her court day, reminding her of what she has done. She would break emotionally and they would sit her in an operating table and wipe her memory clean for the next day.
The second one I saw from a Japanese mini film called “30 days in custody”。 A man killed someone but only found himself sentenced with 30 days in custody. He felt extremely lucky and thought he had gotten away with murder. Once in jail, the prison guard stripped him of his clothes and tied him to a wooden cross on the roof. His skin burned from excessive exposure to sun radiation and they only gave him a few drops of water, bearly enough to keep him alive. This went on for 30 days and the man was already in very bad shape. Then he woke up and found medics around him. They told him they had put him in REM and all that was a dream. It had only been five minutes in reality. The medic gave him another injection as he screamed in horror.
I find these two methods very adaptable.