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> it is obviously no less repulsive than the crime, Hard disagree. There are people who deserve death, and it is a good thing when it happens. It's just really dangerous to give the state such a power.
I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)? I believe Camus is arguing that you would, giving his father as example of someone who similarly changed his mind.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)? I believe Camus is arguing that you would, giving his father as example of someone who similarly changed his mind.
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> it is obviously no less repulsive than the crime, Hard disagree. There are people who deserve death, and it is a good thing when it happens. It's just really dangerous to give the state such a power.
I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)? I believe Camus is arguing that you would, giving his father as example of someone who similarly changed his mind.
Anyway, there are a great many videos online of murders and other death scenes, and famously there were VHS tapes available pre-internet called "faces of death" showing such events. A great many people actively seek out and watch such things, seemingly with no negative reaction to them. So there are a lot of people who would presumably be even less affected by a guillotine execution than I was.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> I saw a question once on Quora asking why the poor don’t rip the wealthy out of their houses and the top reply was “Nazi!” with hundreds of upvotes. This seems odd because it usually goes the other way: people complaining about the rich typically tar them as the "Nazis". For people against destroying the rich, the usual epithet for those who want to do so would be "commies"...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)? I believe Camus is arguing that you would, giving his father as example of someone who similarly changed his mind.
I have always actively avoided all the videos online of beheadings or other types of death, because i'm squeamish and don't want such images in my head. However, while not in person, I did actually witness a guillotine execution video. Admittedly it was filmed at a few hundred feet away, so it lacked any gore or closeups of the corpse. It was a shocking process - how quickly it happened (30 seconds from the appearanc…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)? I believe Camus is arguing that you would, giving his father as example of someone who similarly changed his mind.
I have always actively avoided all the videos online of beheadings or other types of death, because i'm squeamish and don't want such images in my head. However, while not in person, I did actually witness a guillotine execution video. Admittedly it was filmed at a few hundred feet away, so it lacked any gore or closeups of the corpse. It was a shocking process - how quickly it happened (30 seconds from the appearanc…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)? I believe Camus is arguing that you would, giving his father as example of someone who similarly changed his mind.
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Not casually and not for "minor crimes" (by the standards of the time) like the killing of a child.
The overly performative hung, drawn, and quartering variations were reserved for high crimes of treason, regicide, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)? I believe Camus is arguing that you would, giving his father as example of someone who similarly changed his mind.
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Your comment is below the intellectual and interpersonal standard that makes HN a good place to be.
I don’t doubt your sincerity and I can abide your opinion, but you should be restrained in ascribing such points of view to others.
> it is obviously no less repulsive than the crime, Hard disagree. There are people who deserve death, and it is a good thing when it happens. It's just really dangerous to give the state such a power.
Camus believes that state sanctioned revenge just breeds more violence. The death penalty is not a deterrent, it is something that offends the senses, and it is ultimately served on the platter as a criminal getting their just punishment in revenge.
Either such a revenge is public, to declare that justice has occured, or it does not happen at all. What revenge is a secret and supressed lethal injection? By all accounts, revenge should be public and furious, it should be there for the victims to see.
>Indeed, one must kill publicly or confess that one does. not feel authorized to kill. If society justifies the death penalty by the necessity of the example, it must justify itself by making the publicity necessary (Camus).
Thus, revenge is not a sufficient reason for capital punishment due to the abhorence we have to see death in public. Camus adds that such public exetions only harden the ones who need to be softened and offend the soft. He uses the example of pickpockets. A large majority of pickpockets who were sentenced had viewed the execution of a pickpocket before. Revenge only perpetuates violence.
Camus doesn't think that a muderer _doesn't_ deserve a punishment, but rather that a murder in any case cannot be accepted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have always actively avoided all the videos online of beheadings or other types of death, because i'm squeamish and don't want such images in my head. However, while not in person, I did actually witness a guillotine execution video. Admittedly it was filmed at a few hundred feet away, so it lacked any gore or closeups of the corpse. It was a shocking process - how quickly it happened (30 seconds from the appearanc…
I mean, hangings and torture used to be done publicly and people would gather to watch in large crowds, even bringing the whole family. There are still people who travel to witness death-row executions for no apparent reason than their own pleasure. This kind of morbid obsession with violence and trivialization of it as a spectacle has become much less common as people have become more civilized with time, but I doub…