(with apologies to Mr. Nietzsche)
I have been watching TV and watching the many protest
against police brutality.
but let us, as a thought experiment, try this…
what exactly are we protesting? the police…
and why? because they cause a man to suffer…
suffer and then die…
it is felt that this attack upon Mr. Floyd caused him to needlessly
suffer and that it caused his death…his death, his suffering…
that is why protesters are daily walking the streets…
so far, so good…
we see his death as suffering… he suffered…
another way to put it is, that his suffering did not match his crime……
he may or may not have passed a counterfeit $20 bill, but is that
“crime” worth him suffering unto death?
we are attempting to find “justice” for Mr. Floyd…
I have stated, more then once, that justice is equality…
that to have justice, we must treat everyone equally,
and clearly in this case, we didn’t treat Mr. Floyd equally…
for he suffer unto death…and a white person would not have
been treated this way… this not speculation but fact…
that there is clear and systemic racism in America is not
in dispute… were white men put into slavery before the civil war?
or were white made to suffer under the Jim Crow laws of the south?
Was it white people who suffer educational before Brown vs Board of
education?
the very history of modern America is a large sign of this
systemic racism in America…….
the causing of suffering to a people because of the color of
their skin……
the point was to make them suffer because they were black…
not us…
the common theme here is suffering…
Jesus was made to suffer on the cross…
when someone commits a crime, they are made to suffer
in some fashion…
an eye for an eye is the judicial system in America……
unless of course you are wealthy or powerful or have a title,
then justice is clearly not equal… a policeman with his title,
can commit crimes for which he isn’t made to suffer…
he claims it to be self defense or somehow protecting the
community…his badge protects him from suffering from crimes
that you or I would go to jail for…
so we still have injustice in America… that is to say, people
aren’t being treated equally for equal crimes… different
forms of punishment/suffering for the same crime…
and that is the point of the idea of justice in America,
to make one suffer for their crimes… an eye for an eye…
but let us be bold and daring and ask an obvious question…
has all this suffering, and we know our jails and prisons are full
to the brim, to make people suffer from their “crime” against society…
do we have less crime in America despite this attempt to make
people suffer because of their “crimes”?
the real question to ask is this, is all this suffering actually
doing anything? is it accomplishing anything?
do you feel safer when others are made to suffer?
one might argue that those who suffer from actions
taken, such as jail or prison, they “deserve” their punishments,
their suffering…….
if the point of justice is to make people to suffer, then
lets do suffering right… let us make them suffer by
torture or cutting off their limbs, as they did in the old days,
when a state really knew how to make people suffer for their crimes…
the Buddha thought all of existence was about suffering…
the point of our existence was to escape suffering…
so we train and work to escape suffering…
which to the Buddha meant being reborn…
to avoid the suffering of old age, disease, and finally death…
so the point of existence as to no longer be reborn into this
existence… to become one with the all and escape being
reborn…to be reborn, that was suffering to the Buddha…
to Jesus, to avoid suffering meant to “accept the savior”
and be reborn… not quite what the Buddha had in mind?
and once again the key word is suffering…
to many philosophers, the key to wisdom was through
suffering…the ancient Greeks, the cynics for example,
thought suffering was alleviated by achieving mental
clarity or lucidity… in other words, freedom from
false beliefs or mindlessness or folly or conceit which
are the real cause of suffering…
Epicurus advocated we avoid suffering which is done
by not pursing vain, worthless pleasure…
such as seeking pointless pleasure like excessive sex or food
or wine which would bring temporary pleasure but later
would bring on suffering…a hangover for example…
In modern philosophy, Nietzsche for example thought that
suffering in life is productive… to say yes to our greatest pain
and suffering…
our society, in various ways and means, condones and even
practices suffering as a societal method to contain crime…
is the act of causing people to suffer from crimes, really the
best use of our time, money, effort and energy?
is an eye for an eye really the model we should use
for our justice system?
if one causes suffering, should we in turn cause them to suffer?
sounds pretty barbaric to me……
we are, as I have stated on many occasions, going from
animal to animal/human on our way to becoming human…
so how does causing people to suffer lead us to becoming
human?
do animals cause other animals to suffer when a crime is
committed?
no, because animals don’t have any idea about the concepts of
crime, justice, suffering……. try telling your dog about an
eye for an eye as a judicial system?
and all that dog is thinking of is, when the hell is dinner?
so, is our being elevated above animals really meant to
be causing our fellow human beings suffering?
even animals don’t use that concept… so why should we?
how do we reach becoming human if we still apply such
barbaric standards to our judicial system as “an eye for an eye”?
so, what is justice? what is equality? so what is the point
of suffering? do you suffer and does it do you any good?
if suffering has any value, what is that value? what is the point of
suffering?
does suffering do you or the society/culture any good?
what is suffering?
Kropotkin