"white bear"

This week, we watched an episode called “White Bear”. Within the film, the main character was tortured every day for at least 3 weeks for committing a crime. The crime was helping her estranged boyfriend kidnap and murder a little girl. She claimed to be “mesmerized” or manipulated into helping him. The community in which she lived decided to “mesmerize” her every day by making her forget who she was, thinking the community was all hypnotized by a radio signal that flashed across all TVs and radios, and having her think she was able to save herself. It was a full production called “The Show”.

While she was captured and shown the truth, she begged for them to kill her to put herself out of the misery. After they showed her the truth, they took her back to the house and repeated the process. Now, the questions are “Is this just? And Is this moral?”. My initial thought was yes it is just, but no it is not moral. My reason for that initial reaction was that yes she deserves punishment for what she did, but not using that method. It is cruel to repeatedly punish someone under mental torture.

After I looked at is in a different way, my opinion changed. To me, because it is immoral, it is also unjust. If it is not acceptable under morality, it also should not be accepted under the law. Yes she committed a horrific crime, but should we be the people to punish her mentally? I feel as if she should be put in jail. If she is put in jail, she would have plenty of time to think about what she has done and essentially punish herself. Mental torture is something human beings should not be able to use for punishment because humans are faulty.