The Judgment of Paris
This is beyond nuts. The vast majority of North America (reportedly) cringed to hear that Paris Hilton is out! “Injustice!” some cried. “Favoritism”, moaned others. “Unfair!” “She isn’t getting what she deserved!”
Listen, don’t get me wrong. I agree that this is just one more occasion for us to be slapped in the face by the far too many dysfunctions of our justice system. Now, having said that, it is the goal of this blog to ask other questions—questions that should be obvious to us—intuitive—but are not.
Here is my question. What was the expected or prescribed role of the judicial system in the Paris Hilton case? What was our goal anyway? What would the system look like if it were really ‘just’?
It was a traffic violation—driving on a suspended license that we are talking about. It was a flagrant violation to be sure—but it was after all a traffic violation. I wonder if something else is going on in our combined souls.
Down deep, behind all of our self-righteous cries, maybe, just maybe, what we were really hoping for was finally, Paris punished for being rich and spoiled? For her ungratefulness and lack of humility. I wonder if we are objective anyway. But heres the thing. We don’t punish people for being spoiled in the US. We actually allow people the freedom to be dysfunctional—and if we were honest— all of us freely use that freedom. I wonder how much of our moral outrage is really petty jealousy? If being spoiled is a misdemeanor, wouldn’t jealousy get us in the clink as well?
Or, maybe you say, that what you really want is reasonable punishment for her driving with a suspended license? Fine. Tell me what was the societal debt that the punishment is designed to repay? Has anyone really measured the extent/cost of her crime? What does she owe? What were we hoping that her 23 days in jail actually pay back to society? What did we want it to cost her? Did this cost her something? Was the value of the cost equal to the debt to society? It seems to me that it might be better—perhaps for her to pay cash to an appropriate charity. A lot of cash.
Or maybe you say that the justice system is really interested in ‘reformation’. The system would like to think that after 23 (or 3) days in the pokey will change her heart, and now she will not drive without a license? Does anyone really believe this? I guess she may hate prison so much that she won’t—but that is fear-based. Is her heart really transformed?
This blog is trying to raise better questions. What did Paris do? What was the cost to society that needed to be paid back? What are creative means that she could pay that back? What imaginative life-changing ways can we engage her to become part of the community—involved, compassion to others, humble (loving God and loving neighbors; golden rule stuff).
Society was not better off with Hilton behind bars – or now free. I am not sure that anyone was transformed, or healed. I don’t think that the crime was even thought through. The judicial bureaucracy’s wheels turned and dysfunctionally did what they will do 10 times out of 10. It is not really working. What do you think?