Greetings, websurfer! I have two instructions for you to follow, if you'd be so kind as to oblige:
Firstly, read through the article found by clicking on the possibly invisible link to the right of this colon: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12118069
Secondly, consider the questions about human morality that this raises. The main point of BBC's article is "OMGOSH! He was so great and now he's involved with crime and stuff! It's so tragic!
Is this the correct way to view the situation? You'll notice the article tries to invoke sympathy for the man, by talking about the psychological problems he had after the 7/7 bombings, and how this lead to him being hooked on cocaine. Do you think they would be doing this for someone who hadn't been involved with the 7/7 recovery? I would have my doubts...
Is this the way we should be thinking of our hero-gone-criminal, then? Does the fact he saved lives and reduced damage during a horrible tragedy excuse him from more severe condemnation, or is every
criminal equally worthy of our judgement, regardless of their past? What if it was a ridiculously huge hero, like Ghandi for instance? Would you condemn him? What if the criminal had once saved your life, or your child's?
But the legalists say that crime is crime, and emotions cannot and should not enter into it. Are they right? Should we forget that real breathing people are involved with crime, and simply equate the crime with the appropriate action? Should we abandon juries, and common sense? Is there any room in the justice system for anything apart from cold, hard logic?
Just a simple news headline expanded into a debate about ethics- you know, as you do. Just to be clear, Simon Ford, the fire-fighter in question, is unlikely to be given a different sentence because of his identity, I was merely referring to the media's "treatment" of him. And no, I have no answers to any of my questions. Just felt like getting you thinking!
On a related note (in the sense that both subjects involve human beings and are things that I'm currently typing about), the rightfully celebrated children's author, Dick King-Smith, has died. King-Smith's books certainly constituted a large proportion of my childhood, and I'm sure nearly everyone reading this will have read and enjoyed at least one of his books at some point. You can read his obituary if you can find the invisible link, which is round about here. ---> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12121506
(If you can actually see the link, you obviously have an advantage in this game.)
I know pretty much all of my news sources have been BBC news so far, and I will try to make them more diverse in future. Just in case it was making you lose sleep at night.
As a certain fictional bouncing tiger would say:
TTFN!
Of course, Gandhi was a notorious womaniser and reprobate in his early years...
ReplyDeleteI'm actually infinitely more concerned that I've been spelling Gandhi wrong all these years. O_O
ReplyDeleteBut moving on- does it perhaps make a difference is the crime is committed before the heroics? Perhaps the heroics are then able to redeem the criminal?