I didn’t need to know that…

I heard a horrible story on the radio this morning. The early am talk guys were discussing it with the listeners and I happened to tune in on my way to work at 4:45 AM. I’ll spare you the details, but the story was so abominably horrible that I was stunned in the car. Listeners phoned in their opinions… “They ought to fry her..” and I started to try to form mine. Then I realized I couldn’t even handle thinking about the situation. I felt that I could easily have gone to my grave without ever having known this situation happened. Here I was, stomach in a twist, questionning the exsistance of God when something like this could take place, and I realized there was really no good reason whatsoever for me to know this. There was nothing I could do to change the situation. There was nothing I could do to wreck revenge on the culprit. Why in the world did this story have to be on my shoulders now.

Sometimes I wonder about the news. Have we, over a long period of time become desensitized to the horrible? Maybe we shouldn’t get news reports of people doing awful things because maybe that triggers something in some of us that says, “Go ahead… you’re not all THAT bad… look what this person did… it was just as bad or worse than what you want to do…” And the devil whispers to the people on the edge of insanity and pushes them right over by showing them that they are not the only depraved one.

There’s strength in numbers, but numbers also have a way of making us feel less appalled at the evil around us. There is a cultural thing that keeps people on the straight and narrow. It goes past the justice system and reward and punishment. There is a cultural thing where a person doesn’t want to be “a monster” in society. But when the person on the edge reads and hears stories about the inhuman things others are doing, maybe it feels a little less wrong. Maybe they don’t feel quite so isolated and impossible.

Or maybe I’m full of sh**t and there was just as much depravity all through history, there just wasn’t as much media to spread the news. After all, I did read at one time that Alexander the Great had his enemies boiled in oil. Now I know I have had some enemies. And I know I’ve been mad at some other drivers ;-), but I don’t think I could ever have another human being boiled in oil.

Let me think… what if they hurt my kids? I still don’t think I could do it. It’s too easy to look at them and see human skin and hair and to see the little child that was once inside the person. Even if someone killed my children I don’t think I could have them boiled in oil unless I knew it would bring my children back.

On the other hand, I really believe that if we used pain as a punishment for crime we’d lower the crime levels. My husband always calls me “Ed Anger” when I start talking like that. (For those of you who have never picked up a copy of the Weekly World News, Ed is a column writer in that tabloid. He is always enraged about something and reacts in a totally outrageous way. He’s really fun to read.;-). I just think that if a person knew that we would pull a few teeth with no novacaine or would stick pins in their eyes, they would think twice about raping or killing someone. I mean when we put someone to death, we make it pretty painless and it’s over with quickly. That is not such a deterrant to a really crazy guy. But tell him that he’ll have to deal with second degree burns on his feet or something, and he may think twice about allowing himself to go completely mad.

But I diverge from the original subject… I really didn’t need to hear that story or know that information. And I think that there is some information in the world at some point, that each of us don’t need to know or hear. Although I obviously don’t yet know the stuff I haven’t heard before, I guess I should be glad that I haven’t heard more.