After
reading Book I of Utopia, I suddenly
felt the urge to go back to read Beowulf
and try to understand Middle English. While the language is easier to
understand, the density and seriousness that Thomas More talks in is
overwhelming. I had to stop several
times to make sure my head could digest that material. Once I did, I was
slightly able to comprehend what was going on between the characters.
An
idea that stuck out to me was Raphael saying:
'If you allow
young folk to be abominably brought up and their characters corrupted, little
by little, from childhood; and if then you punish them as grownups for
committing crimes to which their early training has inclined them, what else is
this, I ask, but first making them thieves and then punishing them for it?’ (21)
I
agree with this idea because it is hard to expect someone who has known crime
or poverty their entire life, to reconsider, as they grow older. They are going
to continue living the way they have because it is all they know, especially
during the 1500s in Europe and elsewhere. People had little social mobility,
allowing many opportunities to be out of reach. Not to mention, those who lived
in poverty were concerned daily with finding food and not starving.
This doesn't mean they shouldn't be punished for their crime of thievery, but their past needs to be taken into consideration. As children, people follow the models set by their parents or guardians. If they live a life of poverty, relying on stealing and scrounging for necessities, they will most likely continue on this road. Only a select few may rise above this behavior and strive for more in life.
As
a result, I think Raphael’s solution to punishing the thieves by making them
repay the value of the items they stole to the victim of the crime. The thieves
are not just put to death, but forced to live out their punishment and learn to
abandon a life of crime. It is more just in my opinion because death is the easy
way out and the criminal faces no punishment. Granted, the criminal can’t see
family members or live anymore, but that’s not the point here.
Many people believe that in order for penance to be accepted ones punishment must fit their crime. It goes along with the saying an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. If someone kills someone else is it really fair to take their life in return? Shouldn't the circumstances surrounding their crime be taken into consideration or should the punishment be dealt on the crime alone and not what lead up to it? I believe that the punishment should fit the crime but that the crime should be examined in a way that is not as black and white as it is color. It is very rare that crimes are committed without motive and when dealing out punishment I believe that motive should be taken into account.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people steal? It is because they want something they do not have. This can be food, or it can be wealth. Our western society applauds people for the skills they are good at. If you are smart, you become a doctor, if you are fast, you become a runner. Isn’t thievery just another skill? Each man uses his trade to ‘steal” from another. The corporate CEO cuts everyone else’s paycheck so that he may get more, while he isn’t directly stealing a wallet; he is doing the same thing. What about casino owners? Or even small scale businesses. The whole goal of our western society is to exchange two goods, but you get more out of the process. You have to be earning a profit. But how is it, that everyone can earn a profit? If the only way to survive is to be in the green, there must be an equal number of losers are there are winners in our society. Therefore, thievery is just another trade. It’s just another way to distribute wealth, as Robin Hood would say. But by keeping 50% in the green, and the 50% in the red are better thieves than businessmen, then there is no reason not to steal.
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