Spectacles

     I suppose it’s a matter of taste. Some like Chopin, others like hip-hop. Some like William Faulkner; others like Dan Brown. Some like weddings; others like…

     Executions? Really?

     Apparently so.

* * *

     If you haven’t yet read the news – lucky you – you may not be aware that the execution of Fort Hood mass murderer Nidal Malik Hasan is to be “livestreamed.” Some are aghast; others are cheering. Some feel it’s offensive; others… no, let’s not do that again. The general attitude, as is so often the case today, is “whatever floats your boat.”

     There are serious thinkers who hold that publicly executing the worst of our criminals is edifying to the general public. Not only do they see that justice has really, truly been done; they’re reminded of the possible consequences of a heinous action. And it is inarguable that murder contributes to a degradation of the proprieties. To that effect we have the words of Thomas de Quincey:

     If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.

     And let that be the last drop of humor I drip onto this subject.

     So the public is invited to watch the snuffing of Nidal Hasan on December 3 of this year. As Hasan was a major in the U.S. Army, he will face a firing squad. It’s possible that millions will witness the event.

     At least no one will be “tailgating” it.

* * *

     Executions were once routinely public. Hangings, the “preferred” method of execution in the 19th Century, were held in the open air and often heavily attended. That became less common as the century dwindled. The last public hanging in the United States took place in 1936.

     Executions are still witnessed, of course. Regardless of the method employed, a few dozen people are always present to watch the termination of the condemned man’s life. As grisly as the notion seems, there are sound reasons for it, including transparency and the maintenance of legal standards.

     But I wouldn’t care to see such a thing. I don’t grasp why anyone would, except out of a desire for vengeance. We cannot create a human life; the desire to see one ended by human artifice strikes me as a kind of hubris. Which is not to say that some criminals don’t deserve to be put to death.

     Respect for human life, even the life in the body of a total villain, seems to me to trump any considerations of “closure” or “public edification.” If a man must die, let him be put to death, but why make a spectacle of it? The desire to see such a thing speaks to something unworthy lurking in one’s heart.

     Of course, there are people who delight in seeing others suffer. Perhaps they hope that the procedure will be botched, as was the case recently in Tennessee’s attempted execution of Christa Pike. There were a number of botched electrocutions before that method was abandoned. No doubt some of the onlookers were gratified to see the switch thrown over and over.

     I simply don’t grasp it. Does that mean I’m soft? Over-civilized, as they say?

* * *

     I stand between opposed poles. Despite the teaching of my Church, I agree that there are persons whose conduct merits a speedy dispatch from this life, and who should receive exactly that. But to make a spectacle of it for others’ entertainment? No, that I can’t condone.

     If we must kill for any reason, I’d prefer that we be squeamish about it. Let it be done privately, albeit with the appropriate representatives of the justice system for witnesses. Let it be sanitary and as painless as it can be made. It’s quite possible that there are better ways of sending a condemned man to his final reward than the methods used today. But I can’t see inviting millions of people, the great majority of whom are completely uninvolved with the criminal and his deeds, to watch it done.