\u201cJudge Who Called Convicted Rapist a \u2018Good Man\u2019 Likely Won\u2019t Face Punishment\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The judge\u2019s comment is the sort of remark that, viewed from one angle \u2014 and especially when viewed by people seeking a cause for indignation or looking for a weapon to use in a larger war \u2014 was sure to stir up trouble:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rape is obviously not the act of a good man.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But can good men do bad things? \u00a0Can a good person act terribly? \u00a0Yes. \u00a0Sadly, it happens all the time. \u00a0And, despite the photograph accompanying the article to which I link above, which makes him look supremely smug and self-satisfied, there is apparently considerable strong evidence for good things in and about this man.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s transparently clear to me what Judge Low\u2019s point was. \u00a0Those who are going after him seem to me, in many ways, to be seeking to make him an offender for a word. \u00a0It\u2019s almost as if they\u2019re deliberately trying to misunderstand his comment.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
To me, one of the most fascinating aspects of the Mountain Meadows Massacre is that that horror was perpetrated\u00a0by ordinary, decent people who were, if anything, unusually\u00a0good and well-intentioned on most occasions and under typical circumstances. \u00a0Had they simply been thugs by nature, bad and violent people, what happened there in southern Utah wouldn\u2019t be so stunning and so baffling.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Likewise, people who aren\u2019t very good can sometimes rise to heroic virtue. \u00a0Oskar Schindler seems to have been a spectacular example of this. \u00a0Thomas Becket may have been another, in a rather different way \u2014 more like the ex-slaver-turned-abolitionist John Newton.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We shouldn\u2019t be surprised at this, really, as we\u2019re all a mixture of good and bad, susceptible to inspiration and prone to temptation.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
None of this is to minimize the terrible crime of rape or sexual molestation \u2014 though I write in full awareness of the fact that some of my critics will want, if they can, to portray me as doing so. \u00a0None of it is to suggest that this man shouldn\u2019t be severely punished for the crime of which a jury convicted him.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m not surprised at what this judge said, even if I recognize how na\u00efve and unwise he may have been to say it. \u00a0What he said was absolutely true. \u00a0And it should not be forgotten that he both described Vallejo\u2019s apparent crime as a \u201cbad thing\u201d and set the stage for a very tough criminal sentence. \u00a0In no way did he excuse the crime or brush the offense aside.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It would be easier for us to believe that criminals are utterly different from us, a distinct species. \u00a0But they\u2019re not. \u00a0That was surely one of the principal points of Hannah Arendt\u2019s classic 1963 book\u00a0Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his\u00a0The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956,<\/em> the great Russian writer\u00a0Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn makes my point with powerful eloquence:<\/p>\n\n<\/p>
\u201cIf only there were evil people\u00a0somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary\u00a0only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil\u00a0cuts through the heart\u00a0of every human\u00a0being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?<\/strong><\/span>
\n\u201cDuring the life\u00a0of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn\u2019t change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 This story generated a bit of national controversy, and understandably so: \u00a0 http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/wireStory\/utah-judge-rape-sentencing-mormon-bishop-good-man-46804715 \u00a0 See also: \u00a0 \u201cJudge Who Called Convicted Rapist a \u2018Good Man\u2019 Likely Won\u2019t Face Punishment\u201d \u00a0 The judge\u2019s comment is the sort of remark that, viewed from one angle \u2014 and especially when viewed by people seeking a cause […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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