Eye for an Eye?

We all have holes in our heads, or rather in our brains, or rather in our selves.  I never could learn to play music in spite of the heroic efforts of three different piano teachers. 

There’s just some stuff we can’t do, can’t comprehend, can’t motivate ourselves to approach.  It’s like there are voids in there where there should be neurotransmitters and it’s not just about learning.  It’s about how we behave toward others.  With that in mind I therefore think that murder can be committed on both sides of the badge. 

Isn’t it varying degrees of self-centeredness, that is, a lack of bond with others, that often define the criminal mind?  Is there something missing there that prevents that person from identifying outside their own self?  Isn’t it just a matter of degree, ranging from the successful sales person or business executive who is actually indulging in a desire to hurt people by cheating them, to the hardened psychopath who commits torture and murder? 

What would happen if we shifted our thinking away from analyzing the criminal, and instead set our sights on our own behavior – those of us who have escaped public accountability for things we have done in our lives - we, the respectable and honored members of society?

Humans who are a danger to others need to be isolated until, if ever, they can function harmlessly.  That’s a given.  But in my view, the taking of a criminal’s life no matter how egregious the crime, crosses an ethical boundary and puts the executioner in a similar position to the criminal: that of intentionally taking a human life.  And the life of the criminal is not the only life taken.  That person may have a family, children, someone who actually loves them.  And the lives of those people may also be taken in part: impacted, twisted and broken by an act of ritualistic murder on the part of the state. 

I don’t see eye-for-eye as justice.  I see it as revenge, and revenge is not a Christian concept.  An eye for an eye in the Old Testament was not a requirement, it was a limitation on revenge.  Jesus taught that at some point someone has to say, “Stop!” My broken brother or sister has holes in the head.  It’s just that they are located in different places than my own.