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As a few others have said regarding the whole situation in the Smash community, there are two kinds of justice: remedial and punitive. Remedial justice solves the problem; punitive does nothing but make us feel better for kicking a wounded animal.
So what is the problem? People proved they couldn’t be trusted around the most vulnerable in our community. How do we solve this? Remove them from the community. Nairo, for example, has likely had his entire future destroyed and has both been removed and removed himself
from the community. This solves the problem.
What does telling him to go kill himself do? Nothing.
Righteous anger is not the same as opportunism and taking advantage of an awful situation to be cruel. Everyone is right to be angry, disappointed and heartbroken
What does telling him to go kill himself do? Nothing.
Righteous anger is not the same as opportunism and taking advantage of an awful situation to be cruel. Everyone is right to be angry, disappointed and heartbroken
but we can’t well be angry at offenders if we demonstrate characteristics like cruelty that undermine the very separation between us and them off of which we justify our anger.
Second, we should all be responsible about how we evaluate nuance. Compare Nairo to Keitaro. Based on what I read, Nairo didn’t seem to be seeking to prey upon those he perceived as vulnerable while Keitaro actively sought vulnerable girls and used this status to his advantage.
Intent matters. Is my evaluation of these two cases correct? I don’t know, but the correctness of my perception isn’t the point, rather, it’s to show that again, intent matters.
As Meru pointed out, failure to appreciate nuance has terrible consequences and sets bad precedents. If it didn’t, then we’d measure people who pocket Snickers bars by the same stick we measure armed robbers. Generalizations are, generally, not productive.
Bottom line: cruelty and generalizations solve nothing and are counterproductive. We can be stern and fair at the same time without losing out on the intended outcome of justice.
Just the other day, I got real mad because I saw a guy with Nazi symbols tattooed on all over him at a BLM protest. Would I have *loved* to see a mob beat the literal shit out of him? You bet I would have. But after he was downed and cowering, I'd get uneasy, why?
Not because I didn't enjoy seeing a sick bastard get what was coming to him, but because I know the point of justice would be far behind us and we'd be indulging the same kind of cruelty present in the kind of person we want to beat the shit out of.
