Friday, March 03, 2006
sometimes in life, you get blamed for something you did not do. or so you think. does the reciept of punishment necessarily mean that you are being blamed for the action in question? or is there another way to look at it? is it fair to punish a group of individuals simply because one cannot specifically identify the culprit(s)? these are questions that one really seldom thinks about when nothing goes awry, but really they are quite pertinent in the way we behave everyday.quite often, we get inconvenienced because of the actions of others. for instance, teens now have a sort of restriction on the time they can spend out at night because of a specific group of teens. we dont have bubble gum in singapore because of a certain class of singaporeans who found it extrememly fun to leave remenants on mrt train doors and lift buttons. and we ask why this must happen to us for we did nothing to deserve it. it would seem like the reason would be that the authorities could not clamp down on individual offenders and hence, like broad-spectrum antibiotics, decided to target the whole class of individuals as a whole, effectively curbing the problem, while at the same time restricting the rights of the supposed innocent. but is this really fair or justified? most people would at this point say no. for sure. why should i be inconvenienced because of some other people? why should i bear the consequences when i have done nothing wrong? i i i i i. all we think about is i. if there was a time when you commented perhaps after an incident at the market, that all market aunties are mean cold and calculating, or something similar to that, then you would have done exactly the same thing. you have punished, not in the physical or even emotional sense, this group of individauls without reason. this is what we call sterotypes, and sterotyping is almost the same thing as punishment, for what has the kind auntie selling fish at a market you have never been to done to deserve your inherent disdain and disapproval? the matter of fact is, if you have at any stage, subjected an entire class of people to a form of prejudice or sterotyping, then i would say you have lost all moral highgrounds to even begin to complain abt such broad-spectrum punishments from the point of view that they affect innocent individauls such as youself. true, perhaps your action of sterotyping may not manifest itself in a form that obstruct the rights of those in question, but the fact that you have even decidely amalgamed a whole gorup of people into one, for really no good reason at all, has lost you your right to argue that en-masse punishment is morally not right because it affects the innocent. i dont know about you, but i have certainly lost it a long time ago.
anyway, i hopped over to the tv last night to catch my mum watching another dvd. it was titled [something the lord made]. and immediately i thought to myself, why in the world is she watching something religious like that? but as i watched on, i realised the story was not based on anything remotely spiritual in nature. it was a story about this african american carpenter who put down his tools to work with a young white doctor in johns-hopkins hopsital in the early 1900s (did i get the name right gerri?). and depicts the social and racial tensions of that era. based on a true story, it traces the roots of cardiac surgey to the very begining, with the blue baby operation. if you get the chance, go read up about it, or watch the show. the production is not spectacular, but nonetheless interesting and well presented. the issues raised are highlighted in a clear clean and thought provoking manner.
ok i've gotta run. japanese class awaits me. ciao!
{9:27 AM}
3 Comments:
think no hyphen... johns hopkins hospital... the one in US right?
haha... ya that one... one of the supposed best places to go and study medicine rite... haha
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12:34 PM
haha... apparently cos crime rate's the highest there, so got lots of cadavres to dissect and lotsa emergency med experiences to gain. haha... dun quote me though...