AN ESSAY
I grew up in a ferociously pro-choice household. From my earliest memory, my mother told me that abortion was a woman's right. It was her choice to decide what to do with her body. Those ideas filtered into my mind. I never thought much about it. I never thought abortion amounted to murder. In fact, I remember my mother used to say: "It's nothing but a clump of cells. It's not even a person. You're not hurting anyone when you pull it out of there."
I was satisfied with her explanation. It passed my empirical scrutiny. After all, I had no memory about my own life before I was three years old, let alone memory about my time in the womb. I recalled no pain from that time. In that light, I perceived no moral problem in terminating a pregnancy: It just didn't hurt anyone.
I could not identify with a fetus; I may have once been a fetus, but if someone had rooted me out before I was born, I would not have known the better. There seemed to be no suffering in abortion. I had no problem with it.
When I was a little older, my mother told me that she had had an abortion three years after I was born. That made me understand why she so fiercely advocated abortion rights: She had needed an abortion and she got one. She told me she could not have supported another child. I completely agreed with her. I did not want another sibling, either. I liked my mother's undivided attention. So we both had some self-interest in our beliefs about abortion. I never regretted the idea that I "may have lost a brother or sister." I supported my mother's decision. In fact, I fully endorsed her main argument: That no one has a right to tell a woman what she should do with her own body.
I carried these beliefs with me to law school. They informed my understanding about the Constitution. I read Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), as if I already knew what it said. In essence, Roe held that a woman has a constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy at any time before "viability." It reaffirmed my own belief that the State has no right to interfere with a woman's reproductive choices because we all have a right to "privacy" in our bodies.
But there were people in my class who strongly disagreed with Roe. They thought that abortion was a crime. They thought that there was such a thing as "potential life," and that the State had a right to protect "lives that did not yet exist." My own values clashed with that argument. I had always believed--thanks to my mother's explanations and my own empirical conclusions--that fetuses were not people. They were just "clumps of cells." I did not consider them "alive." And even if they represented "potential life," that concept was far too nebulous for me to defend.
Still, many people vociferously believe the opposite. In fact, there are probably some people out there who would kill me for my belief that abortion is acceptable in virtually every circumstance.
In recent years, I have been obsessed with death. When my father died suddenly in 2006, it forced me to reevaluate every assumption I had about life. I pondered life's meaning, its "rewards" and its expectations. After all, I saw that life can end without warning. And all the things that we learn to expect from life can evaporate in an instant. We are all just going to die--in fact, we might even die tomorrow--so why stress out about little things, like careers and money? What do they gain us in the end? Why waste time on them? Why waste a single day on something unappetizing? If all we have are our bodies, why torture ourselves doing things we would rather not do?
I developed a contempt for life. I am still quite contemptuous about it. What does life really have to offer, anyway? Food? Sleep? Orgasms? Comforts? Feather beds? Money? Joys? Is this everything? Are we mere slaves to our senses until the day our senses cease functioning? What difference will food and orgasms make once we die? None, none, none. In fact, those are only the good sensory things that can happen to us in life. More often, life inflicts unbelievable sensory suffering on us. We endure physical pain and emotional turmoil. We endure heartache, delay, disappointment, rejection, boredom, stress, betrayal, mockery, abuse and frustration. The bad moments usually far outnumber the good ones. Then we die. Taken as a whole, then, life is a losing proposition.
That's not to say that I do not sometimes like living. It feels good to eat, sleep, have sex, talk with friends, love people, be loved, sit in a comfortable chair, listen to music and read books. I like being alive in those moments. But is this all there is? And do I have to endure all the bad stuff for these few good moments?
Many others have come to these same sad conclusions about human life. In Brian de Palma's Scarface (1983), drug kingpin Tony Montana achieves the height of earthly success. He has a beautiful wife. He has untold riches. He has a huge villa in Florida. He has a massive hot tub. He throws mammoth parties. He wants for nothing. Yet after an argument at an expensive restaurant one night, he turns to his best friend and despondently says: "Is this it? Is this what it's all about, Manny? Eating, drinking, fucking, sucking, snorting, then what? You're 50 with a bag for a belly."
Tony Montana developed a contempt for life. He did not care about what it had to offer, even though he had it all. And he did not mind dying after he saw how little life really matters.
Shakespeare's Hamlet thought the same thing. In several scenes, Hamlet rues the crude banality of human existence. Like Tony Montana, he says: "What is a man,/ If his chief good and market of his time/ Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more." Hamlet, Act IV, sc. iv, l. 31-33. Hamlet understands--as I do--that life's so-called "good things" add up to little more than "[b]estial oblivion." Act IV, sc. iv, l. 38. In fact, Hamlet grows so disenchanted with life's petty potential rewards that he prefers death to living: "O that this too too solid flesh would melt,/ Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!/ Or that the Everlasting had not fixt his/ Canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!/ How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable/ Seem to me all the uses of this world!/ Fie on't! O, fie! 'tis an unweeded garden/ That grows to seed; things rank and gross in/ nature/ Possess it merely." Act I, sc. ii, l. 129-138. Later, he dismisses the world as "no/ other thing [] than a foul and pestilent/ congregation of vapors." Act II, sc. ii, l. 308-309. And he dismisses man, too: "What piece of work is/ man!...what is/ this quintessence of dust?" Act II, sc. ii, l. 309-310, 314-315.
Is this what it's all about, Manny? A "quintessence of dust?" "Bestial oblivion?" An existence "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable?" "An unweeded garden that grows to seed?" "A foul and pestilent congregation of vapors?" Taken in the abstract, Hamlet is dead on. Life pretty much sucks. And even the good stuff is a pretty poor palliative for the endless difficulties it inflicts upon us.
I am permissive toward abortion because I really could care less whether another person enters this brutal world. After all, earthly life offers little more than "bestial oblivion," anyway, so why should I care whether some new beast gets to eat, sleep or feed? It just doesn't matter to me. If a woman chooses to end her pregnancy, good for her: She's saving the little tyke a whole lot of trouble.
But what about abortion opponents? They must have different expectations from life than I do. They must not really ponder human existence. They must genuinely like what life has to offer. They must really like eating, sleeping, fucking, sucking and snorting, even if they wind up with bags for bellies. After all, they are willing to kill doctors in order to defend potential life. Let me say that again: Potential life. They like life so much that they are willing to commit murder so that a clump of cells may one day eat, sleep, fuck, suck and snort. They are committed not just to an existing person's right to eat, sleep, fuck, suck and snort. They are also committed to a non-existent person's right to do so. Now that shows real dedication to earthly life. It's a dedication I certainly do not share. To each his own, I suppose.
In my experience, life is no bowl of cherries. It is hard. It is full of misery and pain. When we do enjoy good moments, they are precious. But how rare they are! And viewed in the abstract, how petty! Is this why we're alive, then? To undergo endless difficulty punctuated by a few slender moments of bestial joy? We cling to life like any other mammal. We fear death because we do not know what awaits us. So, as Hamlet says, we "bear those ills we have/ [rather] than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i. l. 83-84.
We are the only ones who can create meaning in our lives. Hamlet found meaning by finding a purpose: Taking revenge for his murdered father. He did not seek mere "bestial oblivion" or "worldly comfort." He impressed his soul on his existence to transcend his "mortal coil." His life took on greater significance. And fittingly, he died in the process.
I have not died yet. I know that life does not offer much. Yet I try to do what Hamlet did. I am trying to live for something greater than bestial oblivion. I like bestial oblivion as much as the next man (beast). But my real joy flows from the idea that I am doing something beyond the flesh: Writing. I had to find something to make this maddening journey bearable. It was my choice.
Even then, I do not hold my own life in high esteem. On the whole, life is more trouble than it's worth. Only instinctual self-preservation holds me in check.
So from my view, so what if a woman gets an abortion? I have no philosophical problem with any activity that saves another from this harrowing sphere of pain.
Showing posts with label Shakespeare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shakespeare. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
MY TEETH ARE DOOMED
AN ESSAY
I am getting older. Every day, time leaves new marks on my body. When the light shines a certain way, I notice time's inscriptions. Lines emanate away from my eyes, especially when I smile. I have more wrinkles on my forehead. My hands are starting to look cracked, crooked and worn. Hair is sprouting up in places I'd rather not discuss. And my teeth aren't so pearly white anymore; in fact, I can feel them getting weaker by the week.
Our bodies doomed to decay. That's the problem with bodies. Beauty and youth please us. But we understand how fleeting they are. We understand that time is never on our side. When we see a beautiful person, we know they won't be so forever. It's all just a matter of time before remorseless months and years erode even the supplest beauties.
Aging is a natural process. But that doesn't make it any more appealing to us. Death is a natural process too; and very few people like death, either. Still, natural processes can be both scary and reassuring. They are scary because no one wants to get old and die. On the other hand, they are reassuring because everyone reliably knows they will happen. Just as everyone knows a flower will wilt and turn brown, so too does everyone know that we all will die one day. That is just what happens in nature. You can see it. And you can apply it to your own life. It is rhythmic. You can count on it.
But let's get back to the scary part. While nature might provide us analogies to understand what will happen to us in the end, it is no less unpleasant to consider. We are, after all, rather vain creatures. We do not like the idea that our youth and appeal may one day fade. We do not like the idea that our beauty will wilt like the flowers in the garden. We experience so many pleasures in youth. And God forbid that time will steal them from us. It is not a pleasant thought.
Still, we must confront it. I confront it a little bit every day when I notice the new little injuries time has left upon me. In a strange way, it makes me reflective. When I notice something going wrong with my body, it makes me remember how long I've been here. It makes me remember how much I've seen and experienced. I go back through the years and I remember the times when my body did not ache the way it does now. I remember when there was no hair in the places it grows now. Our bodies are like fossils; and our memory confirms to us how long we have been here. Although I do not like the idea that I am decaying, I can at least take some pride in the idea that I have made it this far.
Having said all this, my teeth are doomed. I think they are even more doomed than the rest of my body. My constant coffee abuse, advancing age, lack of insurance and insufficient funds portend a dental disaster of unspeakable magnitude. Last year, I managed to scrape up enough money to get an examination, along with a cleaning and whitening (I am still paying interest on the visits). The dentist scraped unbelievable amounts of plaque from places in my mouth I barely knew existed. Then she flossed mysterious cracks in those unknown regions. She drew blood almost every time she hit the gum.
Toward the end, she said: "It's been a while since your last visit, hasn't it?" Then she offered me some Tylenol.
My poor, doomed teeth. It does not help that I have English ancestry. Genetically, the English have bad teeth. My own circumstances make my naturally bad genetic situation even worse. Every day, I notice my gums getting whiter. There are stains between a couple teeth that were not there before. And I can feel my teeth moving in my gumline in a way I have never felt before. Plus, they tell me I have impacted molars that must be removed before they burrow into my nerves. Put simply, I am in dire dental trouble.
But this is what happens when you get older. Time brutally flogs our bodies. There is little we can do about it. It just happens. Sure, we can live as healthy as we possibly can. We can eat right, exercise and even think positively about the future. But these are mere salves: Nothing can stop time's slow, steady, corrosive assault on our flesh.
It would be nice to escape our bodies for a while. While our bodies might offer numerous ways to experience the world's pleasures, they are also enormously restrictive. They can produce as much pain as pleasure. Time's corrosion is just another terror our bodies must confront. Still, it is so easy to put trust in our bodies. It is banal in the truest sense. We know our bodies better than anything else in our lives. We are stuck with them. We see them every day. We monitor them and scrutinize them. We must endure their chemical tempests and painful discomforts. They matter to us because they place insistent demands on us: Feed me; relieve me; give me rest; make me comfortable; make me feel pleasure. If we ignore them, we suffer pain for it. And we learn from earliest memory that pain is not good. So we slavishly pander to our bodies.
It is no accident that the law targets the body. Almost everyone cares about his own body. If there is something no man wants to experience, it is bodily discomfort. So the law threatens to inflict bodily discomfort on anyone who transgresses its commands. While some exceptional people hold their bodies in contempt, they are too rare to make a difference. The law concerns itself with efficacy: It knows that almost everyone fears bodily punishment, so that is what it threatens to maintain order.
So we spend our lives worrying about our bodies until time slowly eradicates them. It is quite a pathetic lot if you think about it. Still, it is completely natural. As living organisms, we want to stay alive. To stay alive, we must preserve our bodies. We fear death largely because it means we can no longer enjoy what life has to offer our bodies. We know that we will die in time because we see what time does to others' bodies. So we fear aging, because we know what it leads to.
But what about life beyond the body? Is it possible to achieve some mental satisfaction without worrying about the body's inevitable decay? Throughout history, we find examples of men who did not put all their faith in bodily comfort. There have been men who lived for something beyond placating their bodies and avoiding death. In fact, we tend to revere men who lived beyond their bodies because they are so rare. It is no accident that Jesus Christ is the central hero in Western Civilization: He gave up his body so that others could enjoy theirs. There is a nobility in life beyond the body because so few people can effectively ignore their bodies. Most people fear aging and death. Most people simply live to experience the pleasures the body can give. Love it or hate it, that is just how we are.
I am no martyr. I am just as worried about my body as the next man. But I fear pain more than I fear death. I wish I could hold my body in contempt. Yet the body is rapaciously insistent; it is difficult to ignore its demands for long. No matter how strongly I believe in abstract principles and ideas, I cannot say whether I could maintain my commitment to them in the face of torture, hunger or agony. I am worried about my hair and my teeth, for goodness' sake; imagine how I would feel if confronted with genuine bodily scourges?
But death is different than pain. Pain is about the body and its limitations. Death is about existence and non-existence. Death rules out the body altogether. In that light, it is easier to romanticize non-existence than pain. In fact, non-existence lends itself much more to abstract principles than mere contempt for the body. Death frees us from concern about the body. Death liberates us from the body's incessant demands and penalties. True, death might cut short our ability to experience the body's joys. But it also forecloses the body's ability to torment us any longer. There is some objective, rational appeal to that possibility. If bodily life--on the whole-- appears to offer more pain than pleasure, why go on living at all? It is better to cease to exist in order to avoid pain than to exist for nothing more than pain.
Yet this broaches another conundrum: What if death does not end our pain? After all, no one has ever reported to us what death is like. No one has come back from that "undiscover'd country from whose bourn/ No traveler returns." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 80-81. We have all seen aging and pain because living people experience aging and pain. We see what happens to them. They can tell us how bad they feel.
But no one has experienced death and lived to tell about it. Who knows what awaits us there. That is what makes people fear death: Unknowability. Maybe something dreadful happens once we die. No one knows. No one can know. No one can sense anything once they die, let alone communicate what they sense. And that is why death continues to terrify us. So as bad as bodily life may be, we choose to "bear what ills we have,/ [rather] Than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 82-83.
I have argued before that it is unreasonable to fear death because death cuts short our bodily ability to sense anything. http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-we-fear-death.html. But once again, we see that humans are not invariably reasonable. They fear death even though death eliminates their sensory capacities--including the capacity to experience pain--because they fear the unknown. That fear is not reasonable because reason is based in human sense. Death obliterates sense, so it is not reasonable to fear it.
It is actually more reasonable to fear aging than death. We can sense our bodies aging. We can feel our bodies weakening. We know that aging will bring us more pain and less bodily satisfaction. We can sense all these things. Our reason has something to grasp in that situation.
I reasonably worry about my teeth. I have every reason to believe they are doomed. And I know it's going to hurt.
But with death: Who knows what I'll feel? That is strangely reassuring.
I am getting older. Every day, time leaves new marks on my body. When the light shines a certain way, I notice time's inscriptions. Lines emanate away from my eyes, especially when I smile. I have more wrinkles on my forehead. My hands are starting to look cracked, crooked and worn. Hair is sprouting up in places I'd rather not discuss. And my teeth aren't so pearly white anymore; in fact, I can feel them getting weaker by the week.
Our bodies doomed to decay. That's the problem with bodies. Beauty and youth please us. But we understand how fleeting they are. We understand that time is never on our side. When we see a beautiful person, we know they won't be so forever. It's all just a matter of time before remorseless months and years erode even the supplest beauties.
Aging is a natural process. But that doesn't make it any more appealing to us. Death is a natural process too; and very few people like death, either. Still, natural processes can be both scary and reassuring. They are scary because no one wants to get old and die. On the other hand, they are reassuring because everyone reliably knows they will happen. Just as everyone knows a flower will wilt and turn brown, so too does everyone know that we all will die one day. That is just what happens in nature. You can see it. And you can apply it to your own life. It is rhythmic. You can count on it.
But let's get back to the scary part. While nature might provide us analogies to understand what will happen to us in the end, it is no less unpleasant to consider. We are, after all, rather vain creatures. We do not like the idea that our youth and appeal may one day fade. We do not like the idea that our beauty will wilt like the flowers in the garden. We experience so many pleasures in youth. And God forbid that time will steal them from us. It is not a pleasant thought.
Still, we must confront it. I confront it a little bit every day when I notice the new little injuries time has left upon me. In a strange way, it makes me reflective. When I notice something going wrong with my body, it makes me remember how long I've been here. It makes me remember how much I've seen and experienced. I go back through the years and I remember the times when my body did not ache the way it does now. I remember when there was no hair in the places it grows now. Our bodies are like fossils; and our memory confirms to us how long we have been here. Although I do not like the idea that I am decaying, I can at least take some pride in the idea that I have made it this far.
Having said all this, my teeth are doomed. I think they are even more doomed than the rest of my body. My constant coffee abuse, advancing age, lack of insurance and insufficient funds portend a dental disaster of unspeakable magnitude. Last year, I managed to scrape up enough money to get an examination, along with a cleaning and whitening (I am still paying interest on the visits). The dentist scraped unbelievable amounts of plaque from places in my mouth I barely knew existed. Then she flossed mysterious cracks in those unknown regions. She drew blood almost every time she hit the gum.
Toward the end, she said: "It's been a while since your last visit, hasn't it?" Then she offered me some Tylenol.
My poor, doomed teeth. It does not help that I have English ancestry. Genetically, the English have bad teeth. My own circumstances make my naturally bad genetic situation even worse. Every day, I notice my gums getting whiter. There are stains between a couple teeth that were not there before. And I can feel my teeth moving in my gumline in a way I have never felt before. Plus, they tell me I have impacted molars that must be removed before they burrow into my nerves. Put simply, I am in dire dental trouble.
But this is what happens when you get older. Time brutally flogs our bodies. There is little we can do about it. It just happens. Sure, we can live as healthy as we possibly can. We can eat right, exercise and even think positively about the future. But these are mere salves: Nothing can stop time's slow, steady, corrosive assault on our flesh.
It would be nice to escape our bodies for a while. While our bodies might offer numerous ways to experience the world's pleasures, they are also enormously restrictive. They can produce as much pain as pleasure. Time's corrosion is just another terror our bodies must confront. Still, it is so easy to put trust in our bodies. It is banal in the truest sense. We know our bodies better than anything else in our lives. We are stuck with them. We see them every day. We monitor them and scrutinize them. We must endure their chemical tempests and painful discomforts. They matter to us because they place insistent demands on us: Feed me; relieve me; give me rest; make me comfortable; make me feel pleasure. If we ignore them, we suffer pain for it. And we learn from earliest memory that pain is not good. So we slavishly pander to our bodies.
It is no accident that the law targets the body. Almost everyone cares about his own body. If there is something no man wants to experience, it is bodily discomfort. So the law threatens to inflict bodily discomfort on anyone who transgresses its commands. While some exceptional people hold their bodies in contempt, they are too rare to make a difference. The law concerns itself with efficacy: It knows that almost everyone fears bodily punishment, so that is what it threatens to maintain order.
So we spend our lives worrying about our bodies until time slowly eradicates them. It is quite a pathetic lot if you think about it. Still, it is completely natural. As living organisms, we want to stay alive. To stay alive, we must preserve our bodies. We fear death largely because it means we can no longer enjoy what life has to offer our bodies. We know that we will die in time because we see what time does to others' bodies. So we fear aging, because we know what it leads to.
But what about life beyond the body? Is it possible to achieve some mental satisfaction without worrying about the body's inevitable decay? Throughout history, we find examples of men who did not put all their faith in bodily comfort. There have been men who lived for something beyond placating their bodies and avoiding death. In fact, we tend to revere men who lived beyond their bodies because they are so rare. It is no accident that Jesus Christ is the central hero in Western Civilization: He gave up his body so that others could enjoy theirs. There is a nobility in life beyond the body because so few people can effectively ignore their bodies. Most people fear aging and death. Most people simply live to experience the pleasures the body can give. Love it or hate it, that is just how we are.
I am no martyr. I am just as worried about my body as the next man. But I fear pain more than I fear death. I wish I could hold my body in contempt. Yet the body is rapaciously insistent; it is difficult to ignore its demands for long. No matter how strongly I believe in abstract principles and ideas, I cannot say whether I could maintain my commitment to them in the face of torture, hunger or agony. I am worried about my hair and my teeth, for goodness' sake; imagine how I would feel if confronted with genuine bodily scourges?
But death is different than pain. Pain is about the body and its limitations. Death is about existence and non-existence. Death rules out the body altogether. In that light, it is easier to romanticize non-existence than pain. In fact, non-existence lends itself much more to abstract principles than mere contempt for the body. Death frees us from concern about the body. Death liberates us from the body's incessant demands and penalties. True, death might cut short our ability to experience the body's joys. But it also forecloses the body's ability to torment us any longer. There is some objective, rational appeal to that possibility. If bodily life--on the whole-- appears to offer more pain than pleasure, why go on living at all? It is better to cease to exist in order to avoid pain than to exist for nothing more than pain.
Yet this broaches another conundrum: What if death does not end our pain? After all, no one has ever reported to us what death is like. No one has come back from that "undiscover'd country from whose bourn/ No traveler returns." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 80-81. We have all seen aging and pain because living people experience aging and pain. We see what happens to them. They can tell us how bad they feel.
But no one has experienced death and lived to tell about it. Who knows what awaits us there. That is what makes people fear death: Unknowability. Maybe something dreadful happens once we die. No one knows. No one can know. No one can sense anything once they die, let alone communicate what they sense. And that is why death continues to terrify us. So as bad as bodily life may be, we choose to "bear what ills we have,/ [rather] Than fly to others that we know not of." Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 82-83.
I have argued before that it is unreasonable to fear death because death cuts short our bodily ability to sense anything. http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2009/05/why-we-fear-death.html. But once again, we see that humans are not invariably reasonable. They fear death even though death eliminates their sensory capacities--including the capacity to experience pain--because they fear the unknown. That fear is not reasonable because reason is based in human sense. Death obliterates sense, so it is not reasonable to fear it.
It is actually more reasonable to fear aging than death. We can sense our bodies aging. We can feel our bodies weakening. We know that aging will bring us more pain and less bodily satisfaction. We can sense all these things. Our reason has something to grasp in that situation.
I reasonably worry about my teeth. I have every reason to believe they are doomed. And I know it's going to hurt.
But with death: Who knows what I'll feel? That is strangely reassuring.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
WHY WE FEAR DEATH
AN ESSAY
Everyone fears death. The word alone strikes fear in us. It is the worst thing that can befall us. When we die, we are no more. No one can talk to us; no one can hear us tell our stories. We see nothing more. We hear nothing. We taste nothing. We touch nothing. We smell nothing. When we die, we can no longer experience anything. Pain no longer terrifies us. But nor does pleasure beguile us. Death cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses. And we humans are overwhelmingly sensory creatures. When we die, our bodies cease to be—along with all our senses—leaving our flesh to slowly decompose and turn to dust. No one wants to die. No one wants to leave the world of earthly experience.
Or do they? If we assume that death merely cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses, then death is not a bad option to someone whose earthly experience is unbearable. Because death and experience intertwine, our attitude toward death should depend on whether our experience in life is largely good or largely bad. Yet very few people consider death with such measured detachment. Death is an intellectual roadblock. It befuddles us because we really do not know much about it, at least metaphysically. No one can tell us “what it is like.” We can only speculate. We cannot plan our response to death because no one can provide us with accurate information about it. Death casts us into uncertainty. Human beings always fear things they cannot know.
Beyond uncertainty, we always think that death deprives us of something. Death makes it impossible for us to see our loved ones again. Death takes away our ability to experience joy and contentment. Even if our lives have little joy, we always hold out hope that one day our fortunes will change. Death, however, robs that hope. It completely precludes us from future joy. No matter how bad our lives may be, if we die, we deny ourselves the possibility of a “dramatic turnaround.” Once we die, it is all over. Again, death terrifies and stultifies us because it drives us into uncertainty about our own decisions. Even if our lives truly will bring us no further joy, we cannot certainly know that at the moment we die.
We also associate death with pain. We live our lives to avoid pain. By avoiding pain, we necessarily try to avoid death. When it comes to pain, our fear increases with the quantum of pain we believe we will face. In other words, we fear serious pain more than minor pain. Similarly, we fear terrible anguish much more than serious pain. We know only what we see, and when we see others die, we typically see them experiencing pain before death. We cannot talk to them after they leave us. We cannot know whether that pain continues after death. Again, uncertainty plays a role in our fears: We associate death with pain, and we cannot certainly know whether death ends that pain. Thus, while it appears that death brings peace to the writhing body, we fear the “undiscover’d country, from whose bourn/ No traveler returns.” Hamlet, Act III, sc. i.
But are our fears about death entirely reasonable? Can we use our reason to stay our fears about death? I think we can, at least to some degree. Let us begin with Hamlet. Hamlet’s speech about death provides an excellent overview of the issues a reasonable man confronts when contemplating death. It also reveals that uncertainty plays a central role in any assessment about death.
Hamlet analogizes life—with all its “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,” “heart-ache,” “whips and scorns of time,” “[oppressors’] wrongs,” “pangs of despised love,” and “the law’s delay,”—to “waking.” “Waking life,” in other words, exposes our senses to bad experiences, from sheer “bad luck” to every imaginable health problem, emotional hardship and degrading personal insult. Against “waking,” however, Hamlet contrasts the “sleep of death:” “To die,--to sleep;--/ To sleep! perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;/ For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,/ When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,/ Must give us pause.” Hamlet agrees that “sleep” metaphorically puts an end to all the evils that can befall us while we are “awake.” But uncertainty about “the dreams” that lurk in that “undiscover’d country” checks his enthusiasm for death. His uncertainty about death forces him to choose life, remarking that “conscience does make cowards of us all,” prompting us to “bear those ills we have rather than fly to others that we know not of.” See generally, Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 56-90.
Hamlet decided against death based on an assumption. He used his reason to understand why he feared death. He allowed his fear to conquer him and he preferred to suffer the “ills we have” in life rather than accept “others we know not of” in death. I argue that his assumption was not entirely correct. While Hamlet understood that human beings are sensory creatures who experience pain, joy, humiliation and the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” while they are awake, he did not grasp that their senses also function while they are asleep. We know from common experience that we are alive while we are asleep. We do not experience as much while we are asleep, but no one will dispute that our senses still function. We can still smell things. We still awake when a bug lands on our foreheads because our nerves transmit the stimulus to our brains. We still feel heat and cold. And we still see things in our sleeping minds, even if our eyes do not register them. Our dreams reflect our senses, even if they are not working at “full speed.” Put simply, we must be alive in order to dream.
But when we die, our senses completely cease to function. They do not function at “half speed,” or even residually. We cannot dream when we are dead. To dream, the body requires living brain tissue, living nerves and a living circulatory system. If we are dead, we do not have these things. In that sense, Hamlet is wrong to fear “dreams in the sleep of death.” Death may look like sleep to the outside observer, but the outside observer possesses his senses. The dead man does not. We cannot speak for the dead man, because we do not know what it is like not to have senses, nor has a dead man ever reported to us what it is like. Hamlet could well argue that we do not certainly know what awaits us when we die, so perhaps we truly can dream without the literal sensory capacity to do so. But this is pure speculation. Applying reason alone, we can say with some certainty that dead people sense nothing, and sensory capability is necessary to dream. Now, this does not completely resolve the question about “what awaits us when we die.” Still, it does provide us a reasonable foundation upon which to temper our fears about death. Hamlet’s reasoning only works if we assume that there is some otherworldly “sleep of death” that completely eludes human sense and inference. That requires some faith and speculation. Reason rejects such entreaties. A reasonable man may still fear death, but he certainly can rule out “dreaming” while he is dead.
So what is death like? And if we cannot dream “bad things” when we are dead, why do we fear it? I think that death is probably very much like dreamless sleep. When we sleep or fall unconscious, our sensory capacity drops to a minimum. Time loses all meaning because our senses convey nothing to us, nor does our brain transmit memories, impressions, emotions or impulses. We are essentially “inert matter” awaiting a sensory recharge. Dreams reflect at least some activity in the brain while we are unconscious. But if we do not dream while we are unconscious, we are truly “out of it.” Nothing frightens us. Nothing moves us. Nothing troubles us; nor does anything please us. All these emotions require functioning senses and living tissue. Sleep temporarily stays the senses and tranquilizes the tissue. Death does this permanently. Dreams may interrupt sleep because the senses and tissue reactivate in a reduced way. But death blocks all sensory function. In that light, we can safely infer that, as a matter of common experience, death and sleep reflect states of unconsciousness. We know what it is like to be unconscious. From a reasonable perspective, then, death only differs from sleep in the sense that we will never come to.
This is what we can reasonably fear: We will not wake up. In fact, this is less fear than bitter disappointment. If we know that we will never wake up from death, we will never get to experience all the good things life can offer us. Our fear stems from the certain knowledge that we will no longer experience anything with our senses. After all, death cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses. The earthly world can delight our senses as long as we are alive. Death eliminates that possibility. That disappoints us, because we like to delight our senses with earthly stimuli. It gives us joy. When we are asleep, we cannot see our loved ones or go on vacations. Neither can we see our loved ones or go on vacations when we are dead. Nonetheless, who really minds sleeping? People all enjoy peaceful sleep. Perhaps they enjoy it more knowing that their senses will reactivate in the morning. But when they are asleep they are not complaining about anything, especially if they are not dreaming. In a word, sleep—like death—cuts off our ability to experience things, both good and bad. This is not entirely a bad thing.
In past satires, I stressed that we should not fear death because eliminating our ability to experience earthly life with our senses rules out a lot of horrible things. First and foremost, death defeats pain. As mentioned, human beings fear death because they associate it with pain. But pain—like Hamlet’s “whips and scorns” and “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”—depends upon functioning senses, nerves and living bodily tissue. When the senses no longer function, pain disappears. Death cuts off the ability to experience everything, including the pain that flows from tortured nerves. Death defeats pain because pain depends on the senses, and death shuts down the senses. We can rightly fear pain if we know we will live to experience it. But we should not think that death is painful, because death precludes our ability to experience anything, including pain. In my view, anything that rules out our human capacity to experience bodily suffering is a good thing. While we might permanently forgo the opportunity to positively stimulate our senses when we die, we also permanently lose our ability to suffer negative sensory stimulation. If our lives are full of pain, worry, anxiety, agony, humiliation and hopelessness, death will deny our bodies the sensory capacity to continue tormenting us. In that sense, death is actually an outcome to be wished, not an end to be feared. Sensory experience is a two-edged sword. It can both delight and torture us. Death denies our ability to experience both. If sensory experience in life tortures us more than it delights us, then why should we fear death?
Reason tells us that death is a neutral event. Applying our senses, we can reasonably infer that death looks like sleep. We can also infer that we must be alive to dream. Thus, we can rule out any suggestion that we dream when we are dead. Continuing this reasoning, we also know that we must be alive—with functioning senses—to experience both positive and negative sensory stimulations, from inexpressible ecstasy all the way down to unimaginable agony. Similarly, we can infer that we can experience neither positive nor negative sensory stimulations when we are dead. We can conclude that death cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses. If reason is our guide, we are left with only two real reasons to fear death: (1) We permanently forgo the chance to experience positive feelings later in our lives, even if current circumstances are bad; and (2) Something happens after we die that eludes all reasonable explanation.
Ay, there’s the rub. Here we encounter the real problem; here we see the real uncertainty. Unless we truly believe that reason answers all our questions, we can never say with certainty whether anything exists or happens beyond reason. Some people believe we must choose between faith and reason. Personally, I believe in reason to the extent that human sense can answer a particular question. My senses tell me that corpses do not possess any sensory capacity. Medical science confirms that a dead brain has no function. My senses also tell me that the senses do not function without a functioning brain, and functioning senses are necessary to experience the earthly world. But my senses cannot tell me whether something happens to us after death, just as my senses cannot tell me whether God exists, or whether my life was fated to move down a particular path. There are unexplainable things in the world. Sense cannot grasp them. We fear them precisely because we cannot know them. Still, I am prepared to trust reason on all questions in which it provides a valid way to answer them. From an abstract perspective, that helps me cope with death.
But we can reasonably fear death if we posit that reason does not give us the whole picture about life. How can we know whether there is a state of consciousness beyond the senses? No living person has ever told us about it. When we die, perhaps we enter some hitherto unknown dimension in which our understanding about experience and sense no longer apply. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Nonetheless, now I am speculating. On this point, I take comfort. When it comes to pure reason, I can prepare myself for death. It is mere sensory shutdown. When it comes to faith, however, I am as lost as everyone else. If there is existence beyond sense and experience, I cannot comment about it. All I can say is that I do not know about it.
Everyone fears death. The word alone strikes fear in us. It is the worst thing that can befall us. When we die, we are no more. No one can talk to us; no one can hear us tell our stories. We see nothing more. We hear nothing. We taste nothing. We touch nothing. We smell nothing. When we die, we can no longer experience anything. Pain no longer terrifies us. But nor does pleasure beguile us. Death cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses. And we humans are overwhelmingly sensory creatures. When we die, our bodies cease to be—along with all our senses—leaving our flesh to slowly decompose and turn to dust. No one wants to die. No one wants to leave the world of earthly experience.
Or do they? If we assume that death merely cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses, then death is not a bad option to someone whose earthly experience is unbearable. Because death and experience intertwine, our attitude toward death should depend on whether our experience in life is largely good or largely bad. Yet very few people consider death with such measured detachment. Death is an intellectual roadblock. It befuddles us because we really do not know much about it, at least metaphysically. No one can tell us “what it is like.” We can only speculate. We cannot plan our response to death because no one can provide us with accurate information about it. Death casts us into uncertainty. Human beings always fear things they cannot know.
Beyond uncertainty, we always think that death deprives us of something. Death makes it impossible for us to see our loved ones again. Death takes away our ability to experience joy and contentment. Even if our lives have little joy, we always hold out hope that one day our fortunes will change. Death, however, robs that hope. It completely precludes us from future joy. No matter how bad our lives may be, if we die, we deny ourselves the possibility of a “dramatic turnaround.” Once we die, it is all over. Again, death terrifies and stultifies us because it drives us into uncertainty about our own decisions. Even if our lives truly will bring us no further joy, we cannot certainly know that at the moment we die.
We also associate death with pain. We live our lives to avoid pain. By avoiding pain, we necessarily try to avoid death. When it comes to pain, our fear increases with the quantum of pain we believe we will face. In other words, we fear serious pain more than minor pain. Similarly, we fear terrible anguish much more than serious pain. We know only what we see, and when we see others die, we typically see them experiencing pain before death. We cannot talk to them after they leave us. We cannot know whether that pain continues after death. Again, uncertainty plays a role in our fears: We associate death with pain, and we cannot certainly know whether death ends that pain. Thus, while it appears that death brings peace to the writhing body, we fear the “undiscover’d country, from whose bourn/ No traveler returns.” Hamlet, Act III, sc. i.
But are our fears about death entirely reasonable? Can we use our reason to stay our fears about death? I think we can, at least to some degree. Let us begin with Hamlet. Hamlet’s speech about death provides an excellent overview of the issues a reasonable man confronts when contemplating death. It also reveals that uncertainty plays a central role in any assessment about death.
Hamlet analogizes life—with all its “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,” “heart-ache,” “whips and scorns of time,” “[oppressors’] wrongs,” “pangs of despised love,” and “the law’s delay,”—to “waking.” “Waking life,” in other words, exposes our senses to bad experiences, from sheer “bad luck” to every imaginable health problem, emotional hardship and degrading personal insult. Against “waking,” however, Hamlet contrasts the “sleep of death:” “To die,--to sleep;--/ To sleep! perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;/ For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,/ When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,/ Must give us pause.” Hamlet agrees that “sleep” metaphorically puts an end to all the evils that can befall us while we are “awake.” But uncertainty about “the dreams” that lurk in that “undiscover’d country” checks his enthusiasm for death. His uncertainty about death forces him to choose life, remarking that “conscience does make cowards of us all,” prompting us to “bear those ills we have rather than fly to others that we know not of.” See generally, Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 56-90.
Hamlet decided against death based on an assumption. He used his reason to understand why he feared death. He allowed his fear to conquer him and he preferred to suffer the “ills we have” in life rather than accept “others we know not of” in death. I argue that his assumption was not entirely correct. While Hamlet understood that human beings are sensory creatures who experience pain, joy, humiliation and the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” while they are awake, he did not grasp that their senses also function while they are asleep. We know from common experience that we are alive while we are asleep. We do not experience as much while we are asleep, but no one will dispute that our senses still function. We can still smell things. We still awake when a bug lands on our foreheads because our nerves transmit the stimulus to our brains. We still feel heat and cold. And we still see things in our sleeping minds, even if our eyes do not register them. Our dreams reflect our senses, even if they are not working at “full speed.” Put simply, we must be alive in order to dream.
But when we die, our senses completely cease to function. They do not function at “half speed,” or even residually. We cannot dream when we are dead. To dream, the body requires living brain tissue, living nerves and a living circulatory system. If we are dead, we do not have these things. In that sense, Hamlet is wrong to fear “dreams in the sleep of death.” Death may look like sleep to the outside observer, but the outside observer possesses his senses. The dead man does not. We cannot speak for the dead man, because we do not know what it is like not to have senses, nor has a dead man ever reported to us what it is like. Hamlet could well argue that we do not certainly know what awaits us when we die, so perhaps we truly can dream without the literal sensory capacity to do so. But this is pure speculation. Applying reason alone, we can say with some certainty that dead people sense nothing, and sensory capability is necessary to dream. Now, this does not completely resolve the question about “what awaits us when we die.” Still, it does provide us a reasonable foundation upon which to temper our fears about death. Hamlet’s reasoning only works if we assume that there is some otherworldly “sleep of death” that completely eludes human sense and inference. That requires some faith and speculation. Reason rejects such entreaties. A reasonable man may still fear death, but he certainly can rule out “dreaming” while he is dead.
So what is death like? And if we cannot dream “bad things” when we are dead, why do we fear it? I think that death is probably very much like dreamless sleep. When we sleep or fall unconscious, our sensory capacity drops to a minimum. Time loses all meaning because our senses convey nothing to us, nor does our brain transmit memories, impressions, emotions or impulses. We are essentially “inert matter” awaiting a sensory recharge. Dreams reflect at least some activity in the brain while we are unconscious. But if we do not dream while we are unconscious, we are truly “out of it.” Nothing frightens us. Nothing moves us. Nothing troubles us; nor does anything please us. All these emotions require functioning senses and living tissue. Sleep temporarily stays the senses and tranquilizes the tissue. Death does this permanently. Dreams may interrupt sleep because the senses and tissue reactivate in a reduced way. But death blocks all sensory function. In that light, we can safely infer that, as a matter of common experience, death and sleep reflect states of unconsciousness. We know what it is like to be unconscious. From a reasonable perspective, then, death only differs from sleep in the sense that we will never come to.
This is what we can reasonably fear: We will not wake up. In fact, this is less fear than bitter disappointment. If we know that we will never wake up from death, we will never get to experience all the good things life can offer us. Our fear stems from the certain knowledge that we will no longer experience anything with our senses. After all, death cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses. The earthly world can delight our senses as long as we are alive. Death eliminates that possibility. That disappoints us, because we like to delight our senses with earthly stimuli. It gives us joy. When we are asleep, we cannot see our loved ones or go on vacations. Neither can we see our loved ones or go on vacations when we are dead. Nonetheless, who really minds sleeping? People all enjoy peaceful sleep. Perhaps they enjoy it more knowing that their senses will reactivate in the morning. But when they are asleep they are not complaining about anything, especially if they are not dreaming. In a word, sleep—like death—cuts off our ability to experience things, both good and bad. This is not entirely a bad thing.
In past satires, I stressed that we should not fear death because eliminating our ability to experience earthly life with our senses rules out a lot of horrible things. First and foremost, death defeats pain. As mentioned, human beings fear death because they associate it with pain. But pain—like Hamlet’s “whips and scorns” and “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”—depends upon functioning senses, nerves and living bodily tissue. When the senses no longer function, pain disappears. Death cuts off the ability to experience everything, including the pain that flows from tortured nerves. Death defeats pain because pain depends on the senses, and death shuts down the senses. We can rightly fear pain if we know we will live to experience it. But we should not think that death is painful, because death precludes our ability to experience anything, including pain. In my view, anything that rules out our human capacity to experience bodily suffering is a good thing. While we might permanently forgo the opportunity to positively stimulate our senses when we die, we also permanently lose our ability to suffer negative sensory stimulation. If our lives are full of pain, worry, anxiety, agony, humiliation and hopelessness, death will deny our bodies the sensory capacity to continue tormenting us. In that sense, death is actually an outcome to be wished, not an end to be feared. Sensory experience is a two-edged sword. It can both delight and torture us. Death denies our ability to experience both. If sensory experience in life tortures us more than it delights us, then why should we fear death?
Reason tells us that death is a neutral event. Applying our senses, we can reasonably infer that death looks like sleep. We can also infer that we must be alive to dream. Thus, we can rule out any suggestion that we dream when we are dead. Continuing this reasoning, we also know that we must be alive—with functioning senses—to experience both positive and negative sensory stimulations, from inexpressible ecstasy all the way down to unimaginable agony. Similarly, we can infer that we can experience neither positive nor negative sensory stimulations when we are dead. We can conclude that death cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses. If reason is our guide, we are left with only two real reasons to fear death: (1) We permanently forgo the chance to experience positive feelings later in our lives, even if current circumstances are bad; and (2) Something happens after we die that eludes all reasonable explanation.
Ay, there’s the rub. Here we encounter the real problem; here we see the real uncertainty. Unless we truly believe that reason answers all our questions, we can never say with certainty whether anything exists or happens beyond reason. Some people believe we must choose between faith and reason. Personally, I believe in reason to the extent that human sense can answer a particular question. My senses tell me that corpses do not possess any sensory capacity. Medical science confirms that a dead brain has no function. My senses also tell me that the senses do not function without a functioning brain, and functioning senses are necessary to experience the earthly world. But my senses cannot tell me whether something happens to us after death, just as my senses cannot tell me whether God exists, or whether my life was fated to move down a particular path. There are unexplainable things in the world. Sense cannot grasp them. We fear them precisely because we cannot know them. Still, I am prepared to trust reason on all questions in which it provides a valid way to answer them. From an abstract perspective, that helps me cope with death.
But we can reasonably fear death if we posit that reason does not give us the whole picture about life. How can we know whether there is a state of consciousness beyond the senses? No living person has ever told us about it. When we die, perhaps we enter some hitherto unknown dimension in which our understanding about experience and sense no longer apply. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Nonetheless, now I am speculating. On this point, I take comfort. When it comes to pure reason, I can prepare myself for death. It is mere sensory shutdown. When it comes to faith, however, I am as lost as everyone else. If there is existence beyond sense and experience, I cannot comment about it. All I can say is that I do not know about it.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
A TRAITOR'S DEATH
Several weeks ago, I wrote about the distinction in English law between murder and treason. Murderers and traitors both forfeited their lives under law, but for different reasons. Traitors received the ultimate penalty--to be hanged, drawn and quartered--while mere murderers simply hanged. Murderers were violent toward their fellow man; but traitors did something far worse: They betrayed loyalties. In the law's view, disloyalty was worse than violence, even if disloyalty did not lead to anyone's death. That explained the differential treatment for murderers and traitors. And it revealed the common law's nod to dominant social values. Put another way, the law was as much concerned with maintaining established systems of dominance and subservience as it was with deterring behavior that physically harmed other people.
Interestingly, Shakespeare thought that murder and treason occupied the same ground. "Treason and murder ever kept together,/ As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose, / Working so grossly in a natural cause, / That admiration did not whoop at them." King Henry V, Act II sc. ii. Although traitors typically murder--or attempt to murder--their sovereign, the historical record reveals that conviction for treason required far less than trying to kill the King. I noted in my previous essay that English statutes constantly expanded the reach of "high treason," so that even mere coin-counterfeiters could be condemned as traitors "for offenses against the King's currency." The same horrible penalty applied whether the traitor smelted a coin or stabbed the King.
And what gruesome penalties! Today I read about an English nobleman named "George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence" (1449-1478) who was "condemned to the Tower of London for compassing the death of the King by necromancy." He was slated for beheading, but before the sentence could be carried out, the King's henchmen "murdered him by drowning him in a butt of Malmsey wine." See Article at http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/clarence.htm.
I have read about many executions. But I had never heard about forced drowning in wine.
I often criticize the death penalty because I think it reveals the antiquated moral state of our civilization. We show our colors as a civilization when we stoop to physical barbarism toward our fellow men, no matter how contemptible they are. Although men will always be beasts to one another, governments aspire to something higher. Governments profess to maintain dignity, reason, justice and constitutional ideals. Thus, when government kills, it shows its own evolutionary handicaps. Worse, it descends into outright hypocrisy. It is no excuse to say: "Well, these are the worst people in our society. They broke the law and we should treat them the same way they treated their victims." But government has an obligation to rise above brute revenge. In fact, when government stoops to physical barbarism, it violates us all. Jesus' words come to mind: "Whatver you do for the least of these my brothers, you do it to me." Matthew 25:40. In other words, the mere fact that a criminal is "contemptible" does not entitle us as a society to brutalize him in a manner that we would condemn in other circumstances.
Capital punishment presents extremely difficult social and philosophical questions. Without going into great detail today, I believe that--in America, at least--the death penalty is heir to a barbaric past. I do not believe that government has an obligation to use brutal violence against criminals. Government has an obligation to obey rational principles, not to yield to bloodthirsty urges for revenge. Nor do I think that government should so sanguinely invoke "tradition" to justify the death penalty. After all, that "tradition" once drowned people in wine, tore their intestines from their bellies while they were still alive and publicly displayed their mutilated corpses until the vultures picked them clean. That is not a tradition of which 21st Century governments should be proud. If anything, a government dedicated to advancing ideals and dignity should try its best to disavow such a sordid legacy.
Death penalty defenders say that contemporary execution methods "are nothing like" the barbaric practices of old. But that argument misses the mark. The question is more abstract. It does not matter how government kills; it matters that government kills. And it matters that government-sponsored killing is heir to a gruesome tradition. If principle carries any weight with governments, it should command them to abandon captial punishment on "evolutionary" grounds. In short, we should be ashamed to continue a tradition that once empowered State officials to lash living people to wheels and smash their joints with mallets. No matter how much the methods have changed over the centuries, one fact remains: Government kills. Individual citizens may want bloody revenge, but government has an obligation to rise above individual outrage. Government must follow reason, not passion.
Interestingly, Shakespeare thought that murder and treason occupied the same ground. "Treason and murder ever kept together,/ As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose, / Working so grossly in a natural cause, / That admiration did not whoop at them." King Henry V, Act II sc. ii. Although traitors typically murder--or attempt to murder--their sovereign, the historical record reveals that conviction for treason required far less than trying to kill the King. I noted in my previous essay that English statutes constantly expanded the reach of "high treason," so that even mere coin-counterfeiters could be condemned as traitors "for offenses against the King's currency." The same horrible penalty applied whether the traitor smelted a coin or stabbed the King.
And what gruesome penalties! Today I read about an English nobleman named "George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence" (1449-1478) who was "condemned to the Tower of London for compassing the death of the King by necromancy." He was slated for beheading, but before the sentence could be carried out, the King's henchmen "murdered him by drowning him in a butt of Malmsey wine." See Article at http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/clarence.htm.
I have read about many executions. But I had never heard about forced drowning in wine.
I often criticize the death penalty because I think it reveals the antiquated moral state of our civilization. We show our colors as a civilization when we stoop to physical barbarism toward our fellow men, no matter how contemptible they are. Although men will always be beasts to one another, governments aspire to something higher. Governments profess to maintain dignity, reason, justice and constitutional ideals. Thus, when government kills, it shows its own evolutionary handicaps. Worse, it descends into outright hypocrisy. It is no excuse to say: "Well, these are the worst people in our society. They broke the law and we should treat them the same way they treated their victims." But government has an obligation to rise above brute revenge. In fact, when government stoops to physical barbarism, it violates us all. Jesus' words come to mind: "Whatver you do for the least of these my brothers, you do it to me." Matthew 25:40. In other words, the mere fact that a criminal is "contemptible" does not entitle us as a society to brutalize him in a manner that we would condemn in other circumstances.
Capital punishment presents extremely difficult social and philosophical questions. Without going into great detail today, I believe that--in America, at least--the death penalty is heir to a barbaric past. I do not believe that government has an obligation to use brutal violence against criminals. Government has an obligation to obey rational principles, not to yield to bloodthirsty urges for revenge. Nor do I think that government should so sanguinely invoke "tradition" to justify the death penalty. After all, that "tradition" once drowned people in wine, tore their intestines from their bellies while they were still alive and publicly displayed their mutilated corpses until the vultures picked them clean. That is not a tradition of which 21st Century governments should be proud. If anything, a government dedicated to advancing ideals and dignity should try its best to disavow such a sordid legacy.
Death penalty defenders say that contemporary execution methods "are nothing like" the barbaric practices of old. But that argument misses the mark. The question is more abstract. It does not matter how government kills; it matters that government kills. And it matters that government-sponsored killing is heir to a gruesome tradition. If principle carries any weight with governments, it should command them to abandon captial punishment on "evolutionary" grounds. In short, we should be ashamed to continue a tradition that once empowered State officials to lash living people to wheels and smash their joints with mallets. No matter how much the methods have changed over the centuries, one fact remains: Government kills. Individual citizens may want bloody revenge, but government has an obligation to rise above individual outrage. Government must follow reason, not passion.
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