Judith Shklar asked this question in a talk she gave in 1981; and it’s true that when you read about acts of brutal and consequential cruelty it’s hard to resist a feeling of hatred.
Yet when considering the two Rutgers freshmen who secretly filmed a fellow freshman – a gay man – having sex, and then broadcast it all over the internet, and when considering the student’s response to this exposure — he killed himself — the hatred rather rapidly gives way.
In its place is sorrow for him, and contempt for his tormentors. His tormentors’ youth and stupidity created a toxic brew; and UD has no trouble with the thought of both of them reflecting, for a couple of years, from a jail cell, on what they’ve done.
September 29th, 2010 at 8:14PM
I hope that some day these folks run into a gay or lesbian person who is the proverbial salt of the earth – and there are quite a few. Perhaps one of their own relatives…
October 4th, 2010 at 9:38AM
I wholly agree about the cruelty here, and share the contempt for those who made and released the video. But jail seems a bit extreme – unless a custodial sentence is normal for secretly making a video, which I suppose is possible in this country. But the suicide is the responsibility of only one person: the one who did it. I think the same way about the school bullying case in Mass. at the moment, where a young Irish girl was badly bullied and killed herself. The alleged bullies are up on a whole range of charges, some quite serious. Their conduct was shocking and immoral, but hardly unknown. Same here. It’s the suicide that makes it more, and criminal. I’m a bit uncomfortable with that.