Background: plot of crime and punishment (This is not essential to understand the crime and punishment)
Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment dives into the psychological and moral descent of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished student in 19th-century St. Petersburg. Driven by a nihilistic philosophy that justifies killing for the greater good, Raskolnikov murders a greedy pawnbroker but also accidentally kills her innocent sister. Haunted by guilt and paranoia, he faces the relentless scrutiny of the perceptive investigator Porfiry Petrovich. Ultimately, driven to the brink of madness, Raskolnikov confesses to his crime. Through suffering, imprisonment, and the love of Sonya, a devout Christian woman, he embarks on a long and arduous journey towards redemption and acceptance of his punishment. The novel explores profound themes of good and evil, the psychological impact of crime, social injustice, and the enduring power of faith and human redemption.
What is a crime, and what is punishment?
Well, you can say anything you do against the law is a crime. But as you can see in any court, we have to prove a true crime is committed without doubt. And mind you lawyers of either side would argue that a true crime has never been committed, which even can be taken as true.
Imagine a true faithful friend of yours, committed a crime in front of you. And you witnessed this. He is a very good friend. Except for this crime. He had saved your life countless times, and you know he regret this day he had committed this crime. And confessed will never do it again, and you have no reason not to believe. Now after years and years later, both of you are in court. And you on the witness stand swear to tell truth, nothing but truth. And the lawyer questioned you whether you have seen your friend commit this crime or not. And you choose to lie. And your friend walks free as there is no other eyewitness and no punishment given.
It seems obvious that justice has not served, and you committed a crime by not saying the truth. The question is when did your crime occur?
Following discussion about this crime is purely hypothetical and there is no intention to attack normal laws and moral grounds of an ethical society, yet to deepen our knowledge about the world that we live in mindfully.
Roots of the crime
It seems obvious a crime had occurred when you choose to lie, in front of the court. And you will definitely be prosecuted if a third person had taken photographs of you there when the crime occurred.
In this case you will do a crime against the one who is disadvantaged because of your friends' deeds. And to the society which demands justice.
Now imagine you decide to tell the truth. And help the system to prosecute your friend. Despite knowing that he had followed the good behavior and kept his promise of not committing another crime. Yes, you are free from a crime against the society. Yet this time you have the guilt towards your good friend. You have broken that trust and the promise to keep a secret. Surely there will be only two people happy if you lied, and many will be happy if you tell the truth. But as you can see nobody in the other side has the obligation of yours towards your friend.
In fact, as you can see a court is a place where humans judge other humans. We artificially frame it as law. Basically, what you have done is become the judge yourself. Why can anyone argue that is not good. After all, the actions of your friend were irreversible. Yet he has been better since then? Nobody cried after the crime.
This also leaves the question when did the true crime occur. Is it at the time you decided to lie in the court? Or is it all the years you decided to keep it a secret? If the latter is true, then what about the times you even did not think about it consciously? What about the times you were sleeping? Obviously, there is something wrong when we argue in this way. We cannot exactly pinpoint where it is.
But there is a place where we can exactly point out. And that is the time you were witnessing your friend. I'm going to tell you what happened in detail. And trust me it is interesting.
First you saw your friend and you identified him as your friend. And you judged him a good friend.
Then you saw his action, and against the norms of the society you judged his action as a crime.
Next you weight his crime against his confession and made a decision to keep a secret.
And someone can argue that is the true crime. The true crime occurred when you judged something you observed. Every time when we judge things, we value against our likings. Or the likings of the society. Yet, the observations are neutral. I can give you a simple example from the nature.
Understanding punishment
Imagine you see a snake, trying reach chicks in a bird nest? What will you do?
If you save the Chicks, good you will do good to the birds and mind you these birds will eat plenty of butterflies in the future. And also, the poor snake will have to go hungry another day, and its unborn eggs will not get nutrients.
If you do nothing great, the snake will eat the chicks alive. And I am sure it will come as a nightmare to you that you did do nothing. Of course you let yourself witness a nature's crime. And kept silent? You will be prosecuted or pardoned as the snake is your friend?
Can you see the problem? Either way you are at nowhere when you consider your moral obligation. How can you get away from this problem?
Now you can understand when I say this is the meaning of "Sisyphean suffering of rolling the perpetual wheel of self"
Punishment occurs exact moment you value something. As the pain from negative values, and as the risk of losing from a positive value.
Mindfulness solution
And to understand it, we have to be knowledgeable about our mind. True mindfulness lets us to see it different. What you observed in the snake and bird was something neutral. The problem only occurred when we judge it and give it a value according to our parameters. And it has nothing to do with saving or not saving either. The witnessing is not the true crime. True crime is not knowing what you witnessed. Not knowing what you witnessed is a just a frame, an instance of a continuous universal function of nature which has no meaning.
Here I will stop the discussion and divert you to my article on guillotine of Crabs to show you how to apply this wisdom in a practical setup.
Thank you taking your time to read this mind clogging crap 😀
Five sentence Summary:
Crime occurs when we Judge something, witnessing is not the crime
Positive values create happiness, risk of losing is the punishment
Negative values create sadness which is the punishment
Solution is not to judge, leave it as valueless at the level of observation
Mindfulness is the key, which is another valueless observation.
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