"An eye for an eye will make the world blind"?

Question

This is a debate topic, and I'm against the motion.

Any help? I'm not getting many ideas here.

Answer 1

I presume that you are talking about retribution.

To the extreme,  for example a person was killed for raping a girl, then relaltives will avenge the death of the person who raped the girl, then when a relative of the said girl was killed as a retribution, girl's relative avenge the death so on and on. Until it becomes a family feud, where each members of both family no longer care what is the root cause.  I agree with the saying that "An eye for an eye will make the world blind".

jade

Answer 2

It sounds like that the assumption is that if we humans continue to seek equivalent retribution for personal affronts, we will eventually kill ourselves off.  I tend to agree with that premise to a point.

The other side of the coin is the notion that if we don't punish the transgressor in some manner, he will tend to be emboldened by the perceived inaction and thus strike out in bolder and more dysfunctional bursts.

The solution, to me, is to always assume that our fellow humans are good and trustworthy until they prove to be otherwise.  That way, we never need to be the aggressor in any given situation.  We only need to react when someone forces our hand.  However, our response doesn't need to begin only after a grievous transgression has occurred.  We need to abort dysfunctional behavior before it reaches a chaotic stage.

A good example of the inadequacy of not responding to dysfunctional behavior is the European's inaction when Hitler overran Poland.  They needed to act then, not after Hitler had conquered all of Europe.

So, to me, we must respond positively and promptly to abhorrent and/or aberrant behavior in order to squelch that type of virus before it gains momentum and becomes out of control.