Assignment 3

The idea of good vs evil is (arguably) most easily identified in a biblical sense, as in God vs Satan, angels vs demons, and Heaven vs Hell. It is a tendency for our brains to want an answer for everything, and this is the easiest way to do it. One side is good, the other is bad, they fight and the good guys win. Life is not so definitive, though. Nike may use child labor in Nepal, but without Nike there may be thousands of children without a job, without a family able to support them, and unfortunately without food. Does this make child labor "good"? Maybe not, but it's certainty how society in many third world countries works. In fact, it's how humans have lived for hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of years.

While we always try to find the easy way out, there usually isn't one. If we can't easily label things, we must go about them on a case by case basis. Recently, a teenager named Justin Carter was put into the media for a comment he wrote in response to a friend of his. The friend jokingly called him crazy, and Justin responded with an obviously sarcastic, yet violent claim on a sensitive topic (shootings). Instead of viewing it from the perspective of a sarcastic 18 year old teenager on the internet with his friends, the judge of this case decided to jail him for 5 years. That's 5 birthdays in jail. This kid is on suicide watch now, because he just realized how severely he messed up his life. What he said is terrible, yes, but is that any worse than what our judicial system has done to him? He wasn't a convicted felon. He wasn't a psychopath. He was a naive kid who made a stupid joke to his friend, assuming no one else would read it literally.

Did this stop a tragedy? Doubtful. Did it ruin a life? Maybe. Is it ok to label him a threat? Not to this extend, but to what extend is it ok? That's the question, and no one really has an answer. No one can tell you what's good. No one can tell me what's bad. It's all about perspective.