[strumming guitar]
[Sigh]
Alright, so what are we looking at?
What new hell have we sunk to now, here in
the United States of—
“and they ask you how you are and you just
have to say that you’re fine when you’re
not really fine and you just can’t get into
it because they would never understand—”
Well, it’s a Kentucky police patrol car
with a Blue Lives Matter, thin blue line,
Punisher skull on the hood.
Um…
There’s a lot to unpack here.
But let’s stick to tradition and begin by
examining the skull.
The skull is the symbol of the Punisher,
the Marvel Comics vigilante anti-hero.
The Punisher’s real name is Frank Castiglione,
but he changed it to Frank Castle, I guess
cause he’s ashamed of his Sicilian heritage,
disappointing.
Frank Castle is an ex-Marine whose wife and
kids are murdered by the mob, leaving him
an empty husk of a man whose only consolation
is his obsession with revenge nya.
There’s been a lot of TV and movie adaptations
of the Punisher, and as research for this
video I did watch all of them, and my conclusion
is that the best one is the 1989 version where
Dolph Lundgren dyes his hair black to pass
as Sicilian, and runs around naked and sweaty
in the sewers worshipping the god of vengeance
at a shrine of trash.
You know, just like the police do.
[police radio chatter]
Hi, I’m Nyatalie, creator of Catrapoints.
Actually no I’m not a catgirl, I’m a cat
woman.
I’m sorry you’re intimidated by that.
Look I’m tired of only being valued for
my petite, heterosexual body.
I’d like to be recognized for my worth as
a mother, as a wife, and…
...
...as a woman with values.
Just kidding, I’m trash.
Let’s talk about justice uwu.
Justice is when I get lots of headpats nyaa—
The Punisher’s main quest is to kill all
the mobsters who murdered his family.
But once he gets revenge he can’t stop killing,
because it’s the only thing that gives meaning
to his sh*tty life, so he wages a one-man
war on organized crime.
But no matter how many bad guys he kills it’s
never enough because new criminals just come
along and take the place the of the old ones.
It’s like a cycle where violence begets
violence and nothing ever really changes.
It’s almost like this comic book is trying
to tell us something about the nature of crime
and punishment.
But you know what, let’s not overthink this,
sure, just slap a giant skull on the car.
Great.
Perfect.
“Are we the baddies?”
Look, maybe you’re assuming that I’m one
of these libtarded, ANTIFA-sympathizing, big-government
anarchists who sits behind my iPhone with
my latte, criticizing the police even though
I could never do a job 1/10th as difficult
as theirs.
And to that I say, how dare you assume things
that are entirely correct?
This is—excuse me—a damn fine cup of coffee.
There’s just nothing better than waking
up in the morning and having the first dose
of the chemical you’re addicted to.
They tried to make me go to rehab but I said
nya nya nya.
But you seem like a reasonable person, a person
of science, a seasoned vendor at the free
marketplace of ideas gorg.
And as a reasonable person, I’m sure you
wouldn’t dismiss my argument just because
I happen to enjoy headpats.
As Socrates once said, “2+2=4 is equally
true whether uttered by a philosopher king
or a peasant knave.”
Or a nekomimi.
Kawaii desu!
Is this problematic?
[bell ding]
Cringe culture is dead and we have killed
it.
This is beyond cringe.
This is cursed, children, cursed.
So actually Socrates didn’t say this quote
I just made it up, but that just proves the
point I’m making, so maybe you should hear
me out nyaa.
I’m making this video at a time when hundreds
of videos of police brutality are being shared
on social media, spurring on a movement to
abolish police and prisons.
And at the same time, there’s a growing
culture of online vigilantism, where justice
is taken into the hands of Twitter mobs demanding
accountability and consequences for bad behavior.
All of this raises a lot of questions, questions
like:
What should the consequences be for bad behavior?
Who should impose these consequences, and
under what circumstances, and for what purpose?
If we abolish police and prisons, what would
their place?
Oh my god these contacts…
I’m literally doing a whole f*cking video
with sideways cateyes.
Ridiculous!
Why don’t we start with the basics, and
ask ourselves, what is justice Socrates?
It’s a question philosophers have pondered
for thousands of years with no conclusive
answers.
[“shade” sound effect]
I think I can probably figure this out in
a YouTube video, because the philosophers
were dummies.
And I am very smart nyaa.
Ra-ra-Rasputin!
One: Revenge
The Punisher represents a particular idea
about what justice is, symbolized by the skull
he wears on his t-shirt so that bad guys know
they’re about to get punished!
The Punisher’s view is that justice means
harming people who harm people, an eye for
an eye.
This is called retributive justice, the idea
that people who commit crimes deserve punishment
in proportion to their crime.
It’s a very emotionally powerful idea of
what justice is, because it’s rooted in
our instinct to strike back at someone who’s
harmed us.
Social animals like humans and chimpanzees
often practice revenge, probably because it
serves an evolutionary function.
If another monkey in your monkey troop steals
your bananas and you don’t get revenge,
then other monkeys will learn that you’re
a doormat monkey.
But if you get revenge on the thief monkey
by, I dunno, letting her boyfriend pick parasites
out of your fur, then that sends a message
to the other monkeys that it is not profitable
to mess with you.
So our little monkey brains have evolved a
taste for vengeance.
And even in cases where it doesn’t actually
benefit us, our desire for retribution is
strong, and our little monkey brains reward
us with a feeling of pleasant catharsis when
justice of this kind is served.
So of course there’s a lot of “content”
out there devoted to scratching this itch.
For example, there’s a subreddit called
r/JusticeServed, with one and a half million
subscribers.
I first found JusticeServed when the popular
feed showed me this post of two teenage thieves,
stripped naked, humiliated, and photographed
as punishment.
And all this celebrated under the heading
“Police Justice.”
In fact before the murder of George Floyd
by police the description of the community
was “Now with 20% more police brutality!”
Um, fun fact: this ain’t it chief.
Period.
Full stop.
That’s the tweet.
Of course, I subscribed to JusticeServed immediately
thinking, someone should be keeping an eye
on these people.
Here’s a typical JusticeServed post: “Woman
Sets p-e-d-o Husband on Fire After Catching
Him r-*-p-e 7-Year-Old Daughter.
Titled: This man got what he deserved.”
Instant regret!
Predator exposed!
To be honest when I wrote this part of the
script I forgot I was gonna be wearing cat
ears.
I’m really out here trying to have a conversation
about immolating s*x offenders while dressed
like an aging, bargain bin Belle Delphine
impersonator.
Well… dress for the job you want.
I mean whomst amonst us wouldn’t set their
husband on fire under those circumstances
right?
Let’s look at the comments on that post,
though, let’s read the room.
“She’s a hero in my opinion!”
“Should have had it live on television”
“give her a medal”
“give her two medals”
So most people are in favor of setting predators
ablaze but you know there’s always a couple
buzzkills in there whining as usual about,
“ohhh maybe we shouldn’t be cheering on
burning people alive with no due process and
no evidence.”
“Lots of men like to fuck my wife cause
I’m too busy crying about due process.”
But those people get shouted down pretty fast.
They get called pedo-symps.
[laughs] Pedo-symp!
So JusticeServed is a community for people
to gather together and bond over our shared
love of extra-judicial violence.
But of course there’s always someone who
takes it a little too far.
On this video of a thief being kicked in the
head until his face is a bloody pulp, one
commenter says,
“Thats a justice boner for me.
I dream of the day I catch the thieves that
stole from me and kick the life out of them.”
...Criminal fail!
Prank gone wrong!
So, when the righteous zeal for justice becomes
the cloak of bloodlust, that is off-putting
to some people.
As one disgruntled former JusticeServed subscriber
put it:
“I wanted to see stories and videos of assholes
getting their comeuppance.
Instead, I got bombarded with an angry, toxic
moral absolutism.
Everything is black and white with them.
If you don't support mutilating someone beyond
repair, then you must support giving them
a slap on the wrist, and letting them fuck
your wife.
Unsubscribed!”
But even this liberal cuckold still wanted
to watch “videos of assholes getting their
comeuppance.”
I think pretty much everyone is capable of
enjoying some version of this type of content.
There’s a lot of subgenres, you’ve got
Justice Porn,
Play stupid games win stupid prizes,
instant karma,
Bad parking revenge,
Predator poaching,
“why don’t you just shoot me?”
Serial killer sentenced to death and the whole
train clapped,
Instant JUSTICE was Served!
- Karma Fails—Stupid people getting what
they deserved…
Karma!
A lot of this content has a kind of right-wing
feel to it:
Unmarked Police Justice, Criminal Gets Shot
After Fighting Cop, Home invader takes shotgun
blast to the balls (Arizona)
[laughs] Just Arizona.
What more is there to say?
Arizona.
Justice served!
Punished!
It reminds me of NRA people who spend ten
hours a day fantasizing about how they’re
gonna kill home intruders with the gun they
keep in the bathroom.
But I don’t think this longing for retribution
is distinctively right-wing.
Left-wing people have the exact same emotional
response.
They just have it in different situations.
Think about the jubilation on Twitter when
they get a racist Karen fired.
“Remember that ugly hag, Lisa, who harassed
a black man in front of an apartment building…
karma.”
“AND she got her husband fired, dumb bitch
REALLY shoulda minded her business.
Love to see it.”
“She will probably end up with community
service and a fine, but I would love to see
her in jail for at least 6 months.”
“...firing them was not enough.
LIFE IN PRISON”
Life [clap] in [clap] prison! [clap]
An example I personally enjoy is that video
of Daniel Holtzclaw, the cop who abused his
power to sexually assault a series of black
women, crying in court as he’s sentenced
to serve 263 years in prison.
[cries]
He just cannot believe that he’s actually
facing consequences for this.
And of course there’s the much-savored vigilante
punching of N-a-z-i Richard Spencer.
Let’s watch it now.
Uh please try not to enjoy this, remember
this is purely for educational, monetizable
purposes.
[Interviewer] “What is your little frog?”
[Spencer] “It’s uh Pepe, he’s become
kind of a symbol—“
That was informative.
But let’s be honest, the reason that video
was so popular is people enjoyed watching
an N-a-z-i get what he deserves.
Justice served!
Punished!
Smashing!
Very happy gay sounds uwu!
Remember to smash subscribe!
So this punitive, retributive impulse, no
matter how righteous it feels, is still basically
a situational form of sadism, of schadenfreude.
The satisfaction of justice served is the
pleasure we take in inflicting or witnessing
the suffering of someone who deserves it.
Now the phrase “deserves it” is doing
a lot of work here.
The correct use of that phrase is the difference
between a morally well-adjusted person and
someone who’s hiding bodies in the crawl
space.
It puts the lotion on its skin nyaa.
But people generally agree that those who
harm others deserve to be harmed themselves.
It’s why we love stories about revenge,
stories like Mean Girls, The Crow, Oldboy,
Titus Andronicus, and Matilda.
“Much too good for children!”
[explosion]
Revenge is such a popular plotline because
it’s easy for people to identify with a
revenge-seeking protagonist, and it’s just
the easiest way to hype people up about spectacles
of violence.
This technique was used in one of the first
books ever, The Odyssey by Homer.
I stole this copy from my high school.
And I stole this copy from my college.
I still just read the Sparknotes.
Well let’s read it now.
See I knew this would be useful someday.
God he’s such a fuckboy.
What does Athena see in this man?
He must be really hot.
Okay I’m ready for my book report.
So the hero of the story is Odysseus, and
the whole book is him trying to get home to
the island of Ithica after um…
Okay so in the prequel Odysseus’s shitty
friend Menelaus throws a tantrum after his
wife leaves him to run off with a Turkish
guy she was actually attracted to how dare
she.
So Menelaus dragged an entire nation to war
instead of doing what any normal man would
do and blowing off some steam at Femboy Symposium.
Anyway when Odysseus gets back to Ithica,
he finds that his house is full of men who
are eating his food, and drinking his wine,
and trying to marry his wife.
So Odysseus, and this the hero of our story
here, he murders all his wife’s suitors
as payback.
And then he rounds up all the slave women
who slept with the suitors and he has them
all hanged.
And this one suitor, Melanthius, Odysseus
ties him up and cuts off his ears and nose
and feet and then rips off his genitals to
feed to the dogs.
And reading this I guess I just find myself
asking, uh, was this really necessary?
Like as a test reader my feedback for Homer
is, maybe workshop this?
I mean, super unlikeable protagonist.
Really kind of kills it for me.
I guess it’s a male protagonist, and you
can get away with making them unlikeable,
cause men love hearing about assholes.
That’s why they watch my channel.
But the crazy thing is, I don’t think Odysseus
is supposed to be an asshole.
The text seems to approve of what he does
to the suitors and to his uh... his slaves.
Yikes.
Disappointing.
Casual reminder that Odysseus kills his slaves.
It isn’t a good look.
Wow this blew up, I don’t have a SoundCloud,
give me money—
Oh my god this contact?
Is fully horizontal.
This is the last time we’re doing cateye
contacts.
F*ck this!
It just seems disproportionate, you know?
Like it’s not even eye for an eye, because
the suitors didn’t kill anyone.
They were basically just rude to Odysseus.
But I guess you have to understand this kind
of thing in cultural context.
They came into his home, and they disrespected
his wife, and probably she was into it but
whatever, we’ll play along.
So that was an affront to Odysseus’s honor.
And on the island of Ithaca in the year one
thousand B.C. or whatever, honor was everything.
Because this was a pre-legal society: no laws,
no courts, and no cops, school’s out, fuck
12!
[airhorn blast]
So honor is a code of conduct enforced by
reputation.
And that’s what kept people from stealing
and lying and murdering each other.
Though it was also often the thing causing
them to murder each other.
Because back then honor was the only thing
protecting people from being taken advantage
of.
If you’re an ancient Mycenaean king and
someone invites themself into your house and
drinks your wine and seduces you wife, well
you can’t let them get away with that, cause
then people will walk all over you.
So you need to get revenge to protect your
honor, to maintain your reputation as a person
who is not to be messed with.
It’s also is the point of hard masculinity
in honor cultures.
Hard masculinity is a defensive posture, an
intimidating posture.
It showcases strength and hides vulnerability.
We call it toxic masculinity now because in
our society it’s destructive and dysfunctional.
We’ve moved beyond the need for this, which
is why it’s possible for me to exist.
If society collapses and we go back to Achilles
and Odysseus, I’m in danger.
I’m much too delicate for this Mycenaean
savagery.
Back in Homer’s time I’d be, well, I’d
be a slave at femboy symbosium.
Extremely sad gay sounds nyaa.
But for people in situations where appealing
to community or state law enforcement is not
an option, such as kings of an ancient Mediterranean
islands, or gangsters who need to resolve
conflicts outside of the law, or Wild West
cowboys, hard masculinity has a function.
It’s a warning signal, like a skull t-shirt,
or the stripes on a poisonous snake.
And the poison is vengeance, justice served.
So revenge is arguably the most basic form
of retributive justice.
The philosopher Francis Bacon defined revenge
as “Wild justice,” according to the first
paragraph of the Wikipedia article about revenge.
Research!
I am very smart nyaa!
But in most modern legal systems, revenge
is frowned upon, and for pretty good reasons.
An eye for an eye will make the whole world
blind, didn’t you know that?
If someone harms you, and you get revenge
by killing him, then his family is gonna try
to get revenge by killing you.
It’s a cycle.
A cycle of smashing.
At the end of the Odyssey, the families of
the suitors Odysseus killed band together
and plot to get revenge by killing Odysseus.
And literally the last thing that happens
in the Odyssey is that the goddess Athena,
who has an inexplicable lady boner for Odysseus,
steps in and saves him by just making the
families forget that Odysseus killed their
children.
So only divine intervention and amnesia stops
the cycle of violence.
But in reality that doesn’t happen very
much, so these cycles can last for decades
or even centuries.
In Albania there’s an ancient code called
the Kanun, which requires a family to commit
murder in order to preserve their honor when
another family offends against them: life
for life, blood for blood.
This historically led to blood feuds between
families that could last for generations,
and in fact it still sometimes happens in
parts of Northern Albania.
There’s documentaries on YouTube about families
who are trapped at home possibly for the rest
of their lives, because there’s a vendetta
against them and if they leave the house,
they’ll be murdered.
Historically blood feuds led to a high mortality
rate for young men, which may have contributed
to the tradition of what are called Albanian
sworn virgins.
These are assigned-female-at-birth people
who would take a vow of chastity in exchange
for getting to live as men.
There’s still some of them around, and in
a very patriarchal society they’re socially
recognized as men, allowed to wear men’s
clothes, use a male name uwu, act as head
of a household, inherit family wealth and
generally have the rights and privileges of
a man.
Extremely happy trans sounds uwu!
I bring this up just because I think it shows
how devastating the blood feuds must have
been.
Because only desperation would lead a European
country hundreds of years ago to support trans
rights.
No one wants that so you know it was a last
resort.
“Um, sworn virgins weren’t ‘transgender,’
most were compelled to provide for their families—“
“Yeah I know that sweaty it was just a joke
okay calm down.”
Revenge cycles also happen at on larger scale
between communities, nations, ethnicities,
religions.
I’m worried if I give a real example I’ll
be canceled for seeming neutral about a conflict
where I’m supposed to take a side, so, in
there interest of cowardice…
let’s say that the catgirls bomb the doggirls,
and then the doggirls bomb the catgirls, and
that cycle repeats for a few decades and by
that point both nations have such a long and
bitter list of grievances against each other
that reconciliation is close to impossible.
Extremely angry gay sounds nyaa.
So a revenge-based code of honor is not really
an ideal justice system.
It’s bloody, it’s chaotic, and it produces
these endless cycles of violence.
So at some point in the growth of a civilization,
something has to be done to control the chaos
caused by vengeance.
And the most popular way to do that is to
create a state legal system.
Two: Retribution
The extremely heckin cute and valid German
sociologist Max Weber defined the state as
the organization with a “monopoly on the
legitimate use of violence.”
In an honor society with no rule of law, anyone
is allowed to kill someone, as long they do
so in accordance with the code of honor.
But once you have the state, usually only
the government is allowed to kill people.
In ancient Babylon there was a King called
Hammurabi, who enacted one of the first law
codes in the world in around 1750 B.C., an
era that scholars refer to as “History Times.”
The code of Hammurabi looked like this, the
laws were crudely scratched into the stone
using some primitive attempt at writing…
It mean it was like a thousand years ago so
I’m sure they were doing their best.
It’s very good sweetie, I’ll hang it up
on the refrigerator for you.
I was expecting this replica to bigger.
Sort of a Spinal Tap Stonehenge situation.
[tapping]
The actual Hammurabi steles were about seven
feet tall, and they were publicly placed in
the city so that everyone knew what the laws
were, even though most people were illiterate,
but hey, they tried sort of.
Let’s read some of Hammurabi’s laws.
That’s content right?
Catgirl reacts to the Code of Hammurabi!
Nyas Queen!
...we don’t deserve rights.
[laughs]
So there’s 282 laws, and they’re all in
if-then form, so if you do X, then the punishment
is Y.
Law 22, if any one is committing a robbery
and is caught, then he shall be put to death.
That’s extremely valid.
If a son of a paramour or prostitute say to
his adoptive father or mother: "You are not
my father, or my mother," his tongue shall
be cut off.
Well, at least they’re standing up for adoptive
parents.
If a man put out the eye of another man, his
eye shall be put out.
Now we’re getting into some of the classics.
If he break another man's bone, his bone shall
be broken.
If a freed man strike the body of another
freed man, he shall pay ten shekels in money.
But if the slave of a freed man strike the
body of a freed man, his ear shall be cut
off.
Oh so there’s different punishments for
different classes.
So it’s like our legal system except honest.
If a builder build a house for some one, and
does not construct it properly, and the house
which he built fall in and kill its owner,
then that builder shall be put to death.
If it kill the son of the owner the son of
that builder shall be put to death.
Love that!
Okay, so, by modern standards, the Code of
Hammurabi… does not pass the vibe check.
The vibrations are very negative.
It’s a lot of cutting people’s hands off
and burning them alive, just a major vibe-killer
all around.
But you have to credit Hammurabi’s Code
for resolving the problem of honor-driven
revenge cycles.
You know, if you live in Babylon and someone
harms you, instead of retaliating against
their family and potentially starting a generations-long
blood feud, you take your grievance to the
elders of the city, who reach a verdict and
impose a sentence, justice served.
So the involvement of a neutral third party
is one major difference between vigilante
revenge and a state legal system of retributive
justice.
Let’s list all the differences.
Revenge is personal, in the sense that it’s
the victim who does the avenging.
It’s often emotional, an act of passion.
It can be disproportionate, as in Odysseus
killing the suitors for squatting in his palace.
And it’s sadistic, it’s satisfying to
the avenger: revenge is sweet.
On the other hand a legal system of retributive
justice is impersonal in that the punishment
is imposed by a third party, the state, and
not the victim.
It’s therefore disinterested, so not in
theory motivated by emotion, and also lacking
the sadism of sweet revenge.
It’s also proportionate, again in theory.
You known an eye for an eye sounds brutal,
but it’s an eye for an eye and no more than
an eye, and that could be considered humane
compared to say, revenge killing someone’s
family for an eye.
And it’s also consistent, so different offenders
are supposed to get the same punishment for
the same crime.
I mean unless you’re rich in which case
don’t you even worry your little head about
it just pay some gold.
It’s fine.
Girl these contacts… like…
[horror drone]
So there are supposed to be these differences
between revenge and retributive justice, which
is why it’s so inappropriate for law enforcement
to identify with the outlaw Punisher.
Modern criminal sentencing accepts retribution
as a goal while rejecting revenge as lawless.
However...
I feel that retributive justice is still spiritually
akin to revenge.
It scratches the same emotional itch.
It’s basically revenge by proxy.
If revenge is “wild justice” then retributive
justice is domesticated revenge.
In both cases there’s a drive to restore
the moral order of things, to balance out
the karma by harming the person who caused
harm, sometimes in a “poetic justice”
kind of way.
Like in the Code of Hammurabi there’s this
symbolic retaliation of punishing the body
part that you offended with: cutting off the
hand that struck the father, cutting off the
breasts of the wet nurse who switched the
babies, cutting out the tongue that renounced
its parents.
There’s a kind of aesthetic dimension to
this, an appreciation for the symmetry of
punishment and crime.
For a modern example here’s a poetic justice
post from r/instantkarma:
“Mugshots.com puts people’s mugshots online,
and then demands payment to take them down.
The site’s founders were just arrested for
extortion.
Here are their mugshots.”
There’s something metaphysically pleasant
about poetic justice, this sense of beautiful
cosmic harmony.
And my guess is that this way of thinking
originates in some primeval human instinct
that’s difficult to get rid of.
But, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t question
it.
The logic of retribution has been questioned
for thousands of years by philosophers, reformists,
Messiahs, you know, fancy people who think
they’re too good to enjoy violence.
One school of anti-retribution thought we
could call the love and forgiveness school.
And the main love and forgiveness guy is a
preachy lib you may have heard of called Jesus
of Nazareth.
Back in Bible Times, the Hebrews had laws
of retributive justice that were similar to
the Code of Hammurabi.
Like in the book of Exodus, God gives a bunch
of laws to Moses, including some relaunches
of Hammurabi classics:
Viewers at home may now open up your bibles
to Exodus 21:22.
“If people are fighting and hit a pregnant
woman and she gives birth prematurely but
there is no serious injury, the offender must
be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands
and the court allows.
But if there is serious injury, you are to
take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn
for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”
Headpats for headpats.
Welcome to catgirl bible study nyaa.
Extremely devotional gay sounds uwu.
I feel very spiritually aroused right now.
My third eye chakra?
Dripping.
Macaroni in a pot.
[macaroni stirring sound]
I need Jesus.
I’m so sorry.
So the law of Moses is pretty based and uncucked.
It’s basically an eye for an eye, don’t
be a homo—you know, basic common sense.
But then Jesus comes along and he’s riding
his high horse of love and forgiveness.
In Matthew 26:52 a disciple tries to defend
Jesus from being arrested after Judas betrays
him, but Jesus says, "Put your sword back
in its place, Spartacus."
“All who draw the sword will die by the
sword."
Now some people read that as saying that violence
begets violence and should be renounced even
to the point where you shouldn’t defend
yourself.
Which is peak radical centrism.
Denying the right of marginalized people to
defend themselves?
Rethink this.
It gets worse, in the Sermon on the Mount
Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray
for those who persecute you.”
Love your enemies?
I don’t wanna love my enemies.
No loving... smashing!
But maybe, Jesus wasn’t as literal minded
as that.
You know religion is a very subjective thing
and I have my own Bible interpretations, and
my personal view is that a lot of what Jesus
says is actually sarcasm.
Like… consider Matthew 5:38.
Why is no one talking about Matthew 5:38?
Jesus says, “You have heard that it was
said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth.’
But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.
But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek,
turn the other also.”
Think of the drama of what he’s asking you
to do here.
Someone strikes you across the face and you
go… uhhhh!!
This is not pacifism, this is passive aggression,
some sort of primeval Hebrew shade.
This is the Christianity of
Ok… well…
I’ll pray for you.
But if you do take Jesus at face value, then
I wouldd argue that his endorsement of love
and forgiveness as a response to wrongdoing
is not justice at all.
It’s an alternative to justice.
In the absence of justice, forgiveness is
an emotional unburdening of the resentment
and anger that victims of injustice experience.
And religion often provides this release,
instructing people not to worry too much about
serving earthly justice, because justice is
really God’s business, and he’ll take
care of all that when the Day of Judgment
comes.
It’s a little bit like in Hinduism and Buddhism
there’s the idea of karma, which is like
a cosmic law of moral cause and effect that
exists independently of any god or human institution.
You reap what you sow, basically, so maybe
don’t worry about injustice too much, cause
karma will take care of it.
This kind of thinking is sometimes called
the just world fallacy, the cognitive bias
that sees the world as inherently fair and
good.
“Everything happens for a reason.”
If something really horrible happens, like
if a child is murdered, people say “there’s
a special place in God’s kingdom for little
angels taken up so soon.”
And they’ll fantasize about the killer going
to hell and being an*lly demolished by fire
demons or whatever.
People reassure themselves like this because
it relieves the stress of enduring unresolved
injustice.
In the Bible the Book of Job deals with the
problem of injustice, why do bad things happen
to good people?
And the answer is just don’t worry about
it, it’s part of God’s plan, it’ll all
work out in the end, it’s fine, everything’s
fine.
The alternative is being burdened with the
awareness that the world is just kind of very
not good.
In which case you might start getting ideas
in your head about, I dunno, maybe changing
some things.
I guess I should disclaimer that #NotAllReligion
and obviously many political activists have
been influenced by faith, but let’s put
a pin in that for now.
Three: Utilitarianism
So there’s also a secular tradition of anti-retribution
thinking which tries to define justice as
something other than retaliation.
Utilitarian reformists have argued that the
goal of criminal justice should be to improve
society rather than punishment for punishment’s
sake.
Utilitarianism is the moral theory which says
that the right thing to do is whatever causes
the highest ratio of human happiness to human
suffering.
So the utilitarian approach to punishment
looks forward at preventing future crimes,
while retribution looks backward at punishing
past crimes, revenge by proxy.
Some utilitarian punishment goals might be
deterrence, punishing criminals as an incentive
for others not to offend.
Or incapacitation of criminals in prisons.
Or rehabilitation of criminals, trying to
educate or discipline them so that they can
reenter society.
A lot of people consider these utilitarian
goals to be more rational and scientific than
retribution, which is very based in emotions.
Also the utilitarian idea of justice also
makes sense even if you don’t believe in
free will.
Cause retribution really only makes sense
if you believe that people freely choose their
actions and are therefore culpable for their
behavior and can be deserving of punishment.
Because punishing someone for something they
didn’t meaningfully choose seems, well…
The Greek historian Herodotus tells a story
about the Persian King Xerxes ordering the
sea to be whipped with 300 lashes after a
storm destroyed his bridge.
Which seems irrational, right, to punish a
force of nature.
Leave my beautiful wet wife alone!
It’s debatable how free humans are, like
we’re at least partially products of our
genetics, our environment, our upbringing,
our Hogwarts House, the placement of Venus
in our natal chart, dry oily or combination—
And modern criminal sentencing tries to take
all of this into consideration.
Like you might get a lighter sentence if you
argue that, you know, your mother never took
you to Disneyland...
It was a crime of passion...
Through no fault of my own I was high on bath
salts at time of the tax evasion, your honor.
A lot of the language around punishment in
our legal system is utilitarian, like prisons
are called “correctional facilities” and
not “retribution cages”
But “correctional facilities” is a euphemism,
because the fact is these facilities are not
doing very much correcting.
I’m sorry.
In the United States two-thirds of released
prisoners are rearrested within three years,
and 76% are rearrested within five years.
And just think about the way we talk about
incarceration, like if someone really evil
gets a long sentence we always say:
Good!
I hope he rots in prison!
Like when was the last time you heard about
a criminal sentencing and someone said,
Good!
The proven efficacy of our correctional facilities
will rehabilitate this man and release him
a contributing member of his community.
So even the institutions we have that are
supposed to have a “correctional” or “rehabilitative”
function are still obviously satisfying our
urge to punish.
I think the problem with utilitarianism is
that while it’s very rational, it’s often
offensive to human emotions.
And you can say facts don’t care about your
feelings, we shouldn’t be basing our legal
system on whatever sadistic caprice passes
through your mind, and I agree with you.
But the fact remains, if someone hurts your
child, you don’t want to rehabilitate him.
You want to set him on fire.
And this disconnect between the legal system
and human emotion affects law enforcement
too.
A YouTuber called Jose has a video called
“Why Some Cops Think They’re The Punisher,”
which argues that some cops and soldiers admire
The Punisher because they relate to his military
background while fantasizing about the moral
simplicity of his vigilantism.
Jose quotes from interviews with military
Punisher fans who say things like:
“Castle doesn’t see shades of grey, which
unfortunately, the American justice system
is littered with and which tends to slow down
and sometimes even hinder victims of crime
from getting the justice they deserve.”
“Frank Castle is the ultimate definition
of Occam’s razor for the military…
Don’t worry about uniforms, inspections,
or restrictive rules of engagement.
Find the bad guys.
Kill the bad guys.
Protect the innocent.
Any true warrior?
That’s the dream.”
So these cops and soldiers feel cramped by
rules of engagement and use-of-force restrictions
that are keeping them from serving swift and
brutal justice.
You know, law enforcement would be a lot easier
if weren’t for all these pesky laws.
There’s a childish simplicity and dualism
to this moral worldview: “find the bad guys,
kill the bad guys.”
Again it reminds me of the NRA rhetoric about
how you need a good guy with gun to stop a
bad guy with a gun.
They sound like 8 year old boys playing cops
and robbers, “good guys and bad guys.”
Pewpewpewpew!
That’s my impression of an 8 year old boy.
And to be fair, I totally understand the appeal
of moral simplicity.
People love “justice served” and “instant
karma” videos for a reason.
We take satisfaction in swift, decisive, elegant
retribution.
But the procedures of law enforcement and
criminal justice don’t allow for that.
There’s all these tedious roadblocks: right
to an attorney, right to remain silent, right
to a fair trial, presumption of innocence.
A lot of police wish they could simplify things
by being judge, jury, and executioner.
But the function of the police is supposed
to be limited to making arrests and initiating
criminal investigations.
They’re not supposed to be walking avatars
of karma dispensing free-form retribution
in the streets at will, justice served, now
with 20% more police brutality.
But a lot of people defend the police when
they behave like this because the thin-wristed
civilians are just as emotionally frustrated
by due process as the cops.
Wow did I just say “All Lives Are Bastards”?
I’m double canceled.
Well look, all lives are bastards, but only
some bastards are armed by the state and licensed
to go bastarding around town.
The rest of us have to be bastards on our
off time.
I also think there’s a secular version of
the just world fallacy going on here.
People like to think that if the police kill
somebody, it must be because that person did
something wrong, karma at work, justice served.
Victim blaming is an expression of the just
world fallacy: you get what you deserve, so,
if something bad happens to you, you must
have been asking for it.
And obviously racism is a huge part of this,
you know there’s the structural white supremacy
that occupies black neighborhoods with police
instead of investing in communities.
And people are prejudiced and more likely
to think of black people as criminal thugs
therefore deserving of police violence.
So we get this “no angel” discourse that
comes up every time a black person is murdered
by the police, where they bring up the victim’s
criminal record or a picture of them looking
like a scary thug, as if that proves they
deserved to die.
The problem with this, of course, is that
no one is an angel.
There are no angels walking this earth.
We’re all flawed, we’ve all made mistakes,
we’ve all done bad things, it doesn’t
mean we deserve to die a violent death.
And then there’s people like Breonna Taylor
and Elijah McClean who as far as we know were
about as close to angels as humans come, but
that didn’t protect them.
Though that is 100% beside the point, because
black people in America should not literally
have to have white feather wings and glowing
halos to deserve not to be murdered by the
police.
In fact people of any race have the absolute
right to be lowlife drug-addicted petty criminals
who contribute absolutely nothing to society
and yet still not be executed by the cops,
because that’s what it’s supposed to mean
to live in a free country.
So things need to change.
The Punisher police have got to go, and a
lot of the rest of our justice system with them.
We need to imagine a whole new approach to
justice and to be honest, that might take
more than one YouTube video.
I know I said at the beginning I said was
going to explain what justice is but um…
I lied. [laughs]
[sigh] I’m sorry that I can’t fix America.
I’m just a lonely cat.
I guess the only solution is… revolution.
And by revolution I do mean vote Democrat
and then bully the Democrats into actually
doing something.
And if they don’t listen, well...
[Phone ringing]
Hang on let me get this.
Moshi moshi?
Heyhowareyou desu!
[hiss]
♪ “Catgirl Army” by Zoë Blade ♪
