What Does Refusing To Watch Say About Us

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Welcome to the Darrell McLean Show.
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I'm your host, Darrell McLean, independent media that won't reinforce tribalism.
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We have one planet.
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Nobody is leaving.
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So let us reason together.
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Alright, here we go.
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I got out of the hospital uh on Sunday after a few days away from the noise.
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And I happened to turn on the TV, and well, America was arguing about life and death again.
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The trigger this time is the planned execution of one Nidell Hassan.
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Justice, yes.
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Spectacle, I think not.
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Those are not the same thing.
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We've trained ourselves for decades to watch what used to be private tragedy, divorces for ratings, family implosion as daytime entertainment, humiliation as a business model.
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Then the feeds got faster, and the algorithms learned that the outrage and the violence holds our eye.
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Now we arrive at a grim pitch.
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A stake killing as programming.
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We don't need to soft pedal uh Hassan's crimes.
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Thirteen people murdered, thirteen lives stolen, families shattered, justice has to be rendered here.
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But there is a bright line between punishment and performative spectacle.
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If we turn death into content, we cross a very dangerous moral line.
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And for Christians, that alarm bell should be loud.
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Our story begins under a public execution.
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Rome made death a warning, and it made death theater.
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So we ought to be the first to say, no, not in our name.
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The prophet Ezekiel actually has God say, God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
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Let me say that for you again.
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God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
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And that would be Ezekiel 33:11 for anybody who wants to look up the context of that verse.
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Justice can be severe without becoming bloodthirsty.
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I'm not saying this to you today to settle the discussion between capital punishment for everybody.
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I'm saying this today to ask whether a society that streams death can still recognize its own soul.
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Some things decent people should actually refuse to watch, and some things decent societies should refuse to participate in.
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See you later for more of the show.
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Well, let's me go ahead and start with something today, being that we've already gone down this road.
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And I want to start in the living room because before there was a TikTok, and before there was an Instagram live, and before everybody had a camera in our pockets, the and the and the ability to broadcast the worst moment of somebody else's life to 10 million strangers, there was daytime television.
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I watched it, uh, you probably watched it.
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A whole lot of Americans watched it, and a lot of people around the world.
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You would come home, turn on the television, sit down on the couch, maybe eat something you had absolutely no business eating at four o'clock in the afternoon, and somebody else's family disaster was waiting for you to stare at.
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And television gradually taught us something.
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It taught us to look.
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That is what I want to talk about today.
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Not simply violence, not simply television, not simply the death penalty.
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I want to talk about the human appetite for spectacle.
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Because I think somewhere along the way, we stopped asking whether everything that can be shown should be shown.
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We stopped asking whether everything that can be watched should be watched.
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And more importantly, we stopped watching certain things.
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Are we stopped what watching certain things asking what that does if I'm not doing it, if I'm not watching.
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The Oprah Winfrey show went national the year I was actually born, and that was in 1986.
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And it became one of the defining programs of American television.
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Now I want to be very careful here.
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Oprah was not Jerry Springer.
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There they those two were not morally equivalent shows.
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Oprah did enormous amounts of good.
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She introduced millions of people to conversations about abuse and trauma and mental health and racism and literature and spirituality and weight and relationships and greed.
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So some people heard language for experience and to understand things they had never been able to name before.
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And that was a very important phenomenon.
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But culturally, that moment also helped shape users into something enormous.
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And that public confusion around this became even more intense because of television.
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The private being became public.
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People sat on stage and told millions of strangers things their grandparents might not have told the people sitting beside them in the church.
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Pain became something we could gather around, something compassionately talk about, something that you can vocally see, that you can ooze out of you vociferously, usually some mixture of both.
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And once television discovered that vulnerability could attract an audience, there was no putting that toothpaste back in the tube.
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That uh question became uh how much further can we go?
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Then came Jerry Springer.
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Springer we began in 1991 as a much more conventional talk program.
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It evolved into something entirely different.
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Indefinitely screaming, humiliation, fights, sexual revolution, family conflicts, security guards running on the stage while an audience chanted Jerry's names.
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And again, I watched it.
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I remember the rift and the rhythm of it all.
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Somebody cheated, somebody lied, somebody's sleeping with somebody's cousin and somebody's sisters, somebody's brought somebody else out from behind the curtain, and the audience knew its job.
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Cheer, boo, laugh, chant.
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We became the Roman crowd with commercial breaks.
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The Murray Povich show perfected a different kind of ritual.
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I know we all remember this.
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The envelope, the pause, everybody leaning forward.
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When it comes to this child, and then you are not the father, and then the whole studio exploded.
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The man might jump up and dance in the woman's face.
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The rumin run backstage, crying.
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I knew he was a father.
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The crowd roared, and at home we all laughed, called their whore, etc.
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etc.
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Murray's show ran for more than three decades.
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And the paternity tests revealed became so culturally embedded that you are not the father became almost a national catchphrase.
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But think about that when you are actually watching it.
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Think about what you are actually watching.
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A child was somewhere in the middle of this, a relationship was collapsing, a woman had just been discovered as being something devastating.
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While she's also discovering something devastating, a man has just discovered something life-changing, a family is being rearranged in real time for your entertainment, and we turned it into a game show.
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Open the envelope, cue the music, let's see who wins.
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And nobody really asks what happens when the cameras turn off.
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Because that was not the product, that was the revelation of the product.
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The humiliation was the product, the reaction was a product.
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That is an important distinction.
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Television was no longer merely telling us about human beings.
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Human beings began telling themselves to they wanted to become the programming.
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Their pain, their messages, their marriages, their secrets, their mistakes, their addictions, their bodies, their shame, their anger, their tears.
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Everything could be it converted into content.
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And I think that changed us.
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Not outright.
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Nobody watched one episode of Jerry Springer and woke up morally depraved.
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That's not how cultural changes happen.
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Cultural changes happen by habituation into a situation, by letting it cohabitate with you for long periods of times.
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You see something once and it shocks you.
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You see it ten times, now it interests you.
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You see it a hundred times, and now you're watching it while you eat dinner as it all happens.
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This is how conscious can become colossal and massaged slowly and callously, quietly over time.
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One remote control click at a time.
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The people on the shows were not aliens from another planet.
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They were you, they were me, they were us.
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Human beings have always been fascinated by scandal.
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There's a reasons crowds gather in town squares when somebody's fighting.
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There's reasons crowds once gather in twown squares for public punishments.
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There's a reason for public hangings and how they drew spectacles.
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There's a reason Rome built colosseums.
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There's a reason gossip is older than writing.
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We look like we love to view into what is forbidden.
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We like to see what happens behind closed doors.
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We like to see somebody everything.
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We like watching somebody else lose control because for a few minutes it allows us to believe we have our control.
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The instinct did not begin with television.
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Television didn't simply come along and all of a sudden it just made us into what we are.
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Television simply industrialized something that was always deep inside of us.
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It packaged it, it sold advertising about it, it put theme music underneath it, and it delivered it directly into our homes.
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And I think this is where our story begins today.
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Not with the Nadal Hassan thing I talked about earlier, not with firing squads, not with politicians.
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It begins on the couch.
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It begins with a quiet cultural lesson.
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Keep watching.
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If you are into those types of beautiful classical songs, which I am, I find them very peaceful.
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But at any rate, let's get back to the show.
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And what I'm going to talk about now is when I'll just say when therapy and pain and combat became our programming, the television spectacle that evolved.
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So we moved simply from watching chaos to putting professional linguistic language around it.
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Dr.
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Phil was my go-to.
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He debuted in uh 2002 after Phil McGraw became a family presence through the appearances on Oprah.
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And again, I don't want to flatten all these things together.
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These people are very different.
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And there were people who watched Dr.
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Phil and learned something.
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There were families who received resources.
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There were conversations about addictions, abuse, parenting, marriage, and mental health, and that previous generations might have just buried.
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But something else happened too.
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Therapy became television as format.
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And that's something we cannot deny.
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Family dysfunction became an episode.
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And then Dr.
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Drew took that logic into addiction treatment.
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Celebrity rehab, with Dr.
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Drew uh premiered in 2008, and that followed people through addiction treatment, uh, detoxification therapy, and relapses in front of television cameras.
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Now stop there for a second.
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Rehab, rehabilitation, treatment, those are some of the most vulnerable environments a human being can ever enter.
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I have worked around counseling, I understand what it means for somebody to sit down and say, I am not okay, I need help, I have done things I'm not ashamed of, I'm addicted, I have trauma, I am afraid, I don't know how to fix myself.
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There is something almost sacred about that kind of disclosure.
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And yet, we found a way to put the cambras in the room with the person and their vulnerability.
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And again, I understand the argument.
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Maybe showing addiction helps destigmatize the addiction.
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Maybe somebody watching realizes that they need treatment.
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That is possible, but there's still a question underneath all of that.
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What does witnessing suffering do for you?
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When does witnessing suffering become consuming suffering?
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When does awareness turn into nothing more than voyeurism?
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When does somebody cease to be a patient and become a character?
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And televisions kept pressing that boundary.
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Reality television exploded, everything became a contest.
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You have to be chosen to be on this television show.
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You you could host your own television show.
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Your wedding could be on television, your voice could be on television, your divorce could be on television, your family could have a television show.
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Your weight loss can be a television show.
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Your addiction can be a television show.
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Your dating life could be a television show.
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Your non-dating life could be a television show.
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Your career success can be a television show.
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Your career failure could be a television show.
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Your nervous breakdown could be a television show.
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Your next week's preview is coming up.
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And then that's where the logic met sports.
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Now, this is part is personal for me because I'm a combat sports guy.
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I wrestled, I spent years in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and black belts.
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I understand fighting.
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I love combat sports, and I want to make this distinction clearly.
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I do not think MMA is barbarism in and of itself.
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Two trained athletes voluntarily entering a contest under the established rules is not the same thing as public executions.
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Those are completely different moral categories.
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We have to understand that go again.
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But the television packaging around combat sports is an important part of this cultural story.
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When I was growing up, we had a good show that I used to watch called WWE Tough Enough.
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Now that came on TV in 2001, putting expiring professional wrestlers together and turning the process of becoming a performer into a reality competition.
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The ultimate fighter premiered after that in 2005, putting fighters together in houses, filming their personalities, conflicts, training, arguments, and eventually their fights.
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UFC itself still credits that first season and especially the forest Griffin Stefan Bonner finale with helping their propose, the the the you know the polarizing thing of that uh propel the organization into the mainstream.
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And I watched that uh season and I loved it, and I watched that stuff uh still.
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I love The Ultimate Fighter.
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I love Tough Enough because now you didn't just get to watch the fights, you didn't just get to watch a wrestling match, you got to watch what happened before the match.
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You saw the weight loss, you saw the arguments in the house, you saw the training, you saw the injury, you saw who actually hated whom, you saw the emotional breakdowns, and then by the time the cage door closes, you were so emotionally invested, you actually had a team aside.
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And that was the brilliance of television.
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But it also we have to culturally notice the pattern.
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Seeing that event was no longer just sufficient.
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We needed to have access to the fighters, to the wrestlers.
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We needed to have intimacy, we wanted behind the scenes, we wanted the locker room, we wanted the argument, we wanted the trauma, we wanted the confession, we wanted the footage that normally would have belonged only to the people who were there.
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Everything we wanted it to become penetratable, everything we needed it to become public, everything had to become available.
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And once that became our expectation, privacy starts looking very suspicious.
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If you're famous, why shouldn't we know?
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If you committed a crime, why shouldn't we see?
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If a war happened, why shouldn't we be able to watch?
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If someone died, why shouldn't there be a video?
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Video.
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The appetite just keeps growing.
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And technology eventually caught up to our appetite.
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Because for a long time, television had to be controlled by networks that still controlled the gate.
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Some producer somewhere could still call and say, no, hell no, we're not watching that.
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We're not airing that.
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The standards department could say that footage is too graphic.
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The camera could cut away.
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The audience could be protected from its own self.
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Then the smartphone arrived, and then suddenly there was no gatekeeper.
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Every human being became a own personal television production studio.
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Every tragedy became potentially live.
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Every stranger became a cameraman.
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And every person with the phone became both the audience and the distributor.
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And something happened in that moment when the spectacle escaped the studio.
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Now, this is where we are now.
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Because the show uh never just ends without me trying to get you to think about something.
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There is no closing theme here, and there is no we'll be right back.
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There is no television schedule.
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Much stuff is free for purpose.
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You wake up to the spectacle and it's already waiting beside the bed.
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You pick up your phone, and somebody is fighting, and somebody is crying, and somebody has been arrested, and somebody has been shot, and somebody's marriage has ended, and somebody has overdosed, and somebody got punched in a parking lot.
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Somebody is having a psychiatric, a psychotic, psychiatric episode on an airplane.
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And before another human being has even decided whether that person needed help, somebody has already started recording.
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That is the instake now.
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Not should I help?
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But where is my phone?
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We have created an entire economy in which human beings are being rewarded for capturing the most extreme thing they can find.
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The algorithm does not have a conscience.
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The algorithm does not ask, is this dignified?
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Is this person someone's child?
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Should this be private?
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Will showing this cause harm?
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The algorithm asks the one question.
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Will people stop scrolling?
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That is it.
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Attention.
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And human suffering is extraordinarily good at capturing.
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Violence captures attention.
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Sex captures attention.
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Fear captures attention.
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Humiliation captures attention.
00:27:44.609 --> 00:27:46.289
Rage captures attention.
00:27:46.529 --> 00:27:58.049
So those things spread not necessarily because everybody is evil, but because the mission of the machine is to reward those things.
00:27:58.289 --> 00:28:02.129
And over time we adapt to the machine.
00:28:02.289 --> 00:28:04.049
We become our own producers.
00:28:04.609 --> 00:28:10.129
Somebody is lying on the pavement, bleeding, and people are holding up their phones.
00:28:10.609 --> 00:28:15.009
That is about how strange this has gotten.
00:28:15.329 --> 00:28:19.169
Think about how weird that is.
00:28:19.889 --> 00:28:22.209
Not helping recording.
00:28:22.529 --> 00:28:26.049
Imagine explaining it to somebody from a hundred years ago.
00:28:26.209 --> 00:28:28.849
Well, this person may be dying.
00:28:29.009 --> 00:28:30.049
Are you helping?
00:28:30.369 --> 00:28:30.689
No.
00:28:30.929 --> 00:28:32.769
Are you calling somebody?
00:28:33.089 --> 00:28:33.409
No.
00:28:33.809 --> 00:28:34.689
Well, maybe.
00:28:34.929 --> 00:28:35.969
What were you doing?
00:28:36.129 --> 00:28:39.249
Well, I'm filming it so strangers can watch it later.
00:28:39.569 --> 00:28:46.929
We have normalized behaviors that should be insane if we describe them out plainly.
00:28:47.249 --> 00:28:55.409
And as far as war goes, the war trajectory has followed us on the exact same path.
00:28:55.569 --> 00:28:59.409
When I was a child, war came through network news.
00:28:59.649 --> 00:29:06.529
We saw edited packages, reporters stood somewhere, a correspondent explained what happened, more than likely lying about it.
00:29:06.689 --> 00:29:10.609
There were images, certainly, but there was distance.
00:29:11.089 --> 00:29:14.209
Now war unfolds in our hands.
00:29:14.529 --> 00:29:31.569
Drone footage, helmet camera footage, missile strikes, destroy buildings, bodies in streets, soldiers posting clips, civilians live streaming bombardment, propaganda accounts, editing deaf music, one side post a strike, the other side post retaliations.
00:29:31.729 --> 00:29:35.489
People quote tweet cardage like they are arguing over football games.
00:29:35.649 --> 00:29:44.689
And it gets very easy to forget that every little figure moving around the screen is an actual human being.
00:29:45.089 --> 00:29:46.769
That is what spectacle does.
00:29:46.929 --> 00:29:48.289
That's what it's supposed to do.
00:29:48.449 --> 00:29:51.969
It collapses personhood into imagery.
00:29:52.209 --> 00:30:04.769
People become symbols, the person is the enemy, that person is a terrorist, that child becomes collateral damage, that soldier becomes content, the corpse becomes nothing more than evidence.
00:30:05.009 --> 00:30:11.329
And once we reduce the human being to a category, cruelty becomes easier.
00:30:56.689 --> 00:30:59.569
What is the human being worth?
00:31:00.129 --> 00:31:06.209
What do we owe one another merely because the other person is a human?
00:31:06.529 --> 00:31:10.449
That is the question civilization exists to answer.
00:31:10.689 --> 00:31:17.489
Because if the answer is nothing, then the only thing that matters is who's stronger at the time.
00:31:17.729 --> 00:31:19.569
Strength always wins.
00:31:19.809 --> 00:31:26.449
If the answer is nothing, then populism always wins because the bigger crowd always wins.
00:31:26.689 --> 00:31:33.809
If the answer is nothing, whoever has the power to decide whose suffering counts is who always wins.
00:31:33.969 --> 00:31:40.769
And if human history shows us anything, where that road goes is a dead end.
00:31:41.409 --> 00:31:45.649
This is why I push back when people say, well, they deserve it.
00:31:45.969 --> 00:31:48.289
Maybe they do deserve the punishment.
00:31:48.449 --> 00:31:50.929
That does not answer every question.
00:31:51.169 --> 00:31:54.449
A murderer deserves punishment.
00:31:54.849 --> 00:31:56.609
That's pretty easy.
00:31:56.929 --> 00:31:59.889
Does that mean I need to go get the popcorn?
00:32:01.009 --> 00:32:02.289
It does not.
00:32:02.849 --> 00:32:06.209
Those are actual two different propositions.
00:32:06.449 --> 00:32:09.249
A terrorist deserves justice.
00:32:09.489 --> 00:32:10.129
Fine.
00:32:10.529 --> 00:32:13.649
Does that mean his death should be marketed?
00:32:14.129 --> 00:32:16.369
Again, two different propositions.
00:32:16.689 --> 00:32:25.569
We have lost the ability to distinguish to distinguish justice from enjoyment.
00:32:25.889 --> 00:32:28.369
Justice asks, What is owed?
00:32:28.529 --> 00:32:30.209
What does the law require?
00:32:30.369 --> 00:32:32.049
How do we protect society?
00:32:32.289 --> 00:32:33.809
How do we honor victims?
00:32:33.969 --> 00:32:35.969
How do we establish accountability?
00:32:36.289 --> 00:32:39.089
Spectacle asks, can I watch?
00:32:39.569 --> 00:32:41.729
That is a very different appetite.
00:32:41.889 --> 00:32:51.489
And sometimes I think we hide the second question inside of the first one because admitting the truth would make us uncomfortable.
00:32:51.809 --> 00:32:59.809
We say we want justice, but sometimes what that really means is we want to see him suffered.
00:33:00.209 --> 00:33:03.969
Those things are not the same thing.
00:33:04.129 --> 00:33:09.249
And this matters, especially when the state gets involved.
00:33:09.649 --> 00:33:17.889
Because governments possess a power that no television producer has: the power to kill lawfully and unlawfully.
00:33:18.049 --> 00:33:22.849
That power should frighten us even when we think it is justified.
00:33:23.009 --> 00:33:27.569
In fact, maybe especially be when we think it's justified.
00:33:27.729 --> 00:33:31.009
A serious society shouldn't.
00:33:33.329 --> 00:33:39.729
A serious society should never become casual about the state's power over life and death.
00:33:39.969 --> 00:33:45.889
If you're on my side of the fence, I don't think society should even have the right to kill its own citizens.
00:33:46.049 --> 00:33:53.009
Just because I am born somewhere does not mean you have the capacity and the capital to take or sustain my life.
00:33:53.249 --> 00:33:58.449
So you can support capital punishment and still believe execution should be solemn.
00:33:58.689 --> 00:34:02.849
You can believe the law permits death and still believe nobody should cheer.
00:34:03.089 --> 00:34:09.730
You can believe a murderer has forfeited his own life without believing his final moment should become entertainment.
00:34:09.969 --> 00:34:13.329
And that brings us to where this conversation started.
00:34:14.130 --> 00:34:17.730
Fort Hood and the Dal Hassan.
00:34:18.849 --> 00:34:23.809
And the possibility that America may cross another boundary.
00:34:24.610 --> 00:34:32.289
The Dal Hassan murdered 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009 and wounded 32 other people.
00:34:32.849 --> 00:34:36.449
There's no need to sanitize what cannot be sanitized.
00:34:36.690 --> 00:34:43.329
There's no need to turn him into some sympathetic figure in order to ask the moral question about what should happen next.
00:34:43.570 --> 00:34:51.090
The Army has scheduled the execution by firing squad for this year of December the 3rd at Fort Hood.
00:34:51.489 --> 00:35:00.369
The Pentagon's Secretary of War, Pete Heg, announced plans to live stream the public execution.
00:35:00.610 --> 00:35:05.090
As of this morning, however, the live stream itself is not finally settled.
00:35:05.250 --> 00:35:13.650
President Trump has said the ultimate decision on whether the execution will actually be broadcasted belongs to him, and he has not yet made a final decision.
00:35:13.969 --> 00:35:17.409
Okay, because we need to talk about this.
00:35:17.570 --> 00:35:20.050
And I want to say something crystal clear.
00:35:20.369 --> 00:35:25.570
This is not primarily an argument over whether capital punishment should exist.
00:35:26.130 --> 00:35:32.849
I know Christians who support the death penalty, I don't know why, but I know that they do.
00:35:33.090 --> 00:35:35.329
I know Christians who oppose it.
00:35:36.210 --> 00:35:39.650
And I don't know why, but I know that they do.
00:35:39.889 --> 00:35:41.409
I understand my own position.
00:35:41.489 --> 00:35:43.489
I understand my own just war theory.
00:35:43.650 --> 00:35:47.889
I understand my own moral theology, etc.
00:35:48.289 --> 00:35:50.849
I understand myself intimately.
00:35:51.170 --> 00:35:54.849
I understand the biblical arguments people make on both sides.
00:35:55.170 --> 00:36:00.369
Romans 13 talks about governing authorities bearing the sword.
00:36:00.690 --> 00:36:08.690
Genesis speaks about the bloodshed and accountability, and all of the old canon certainly contains capital punishment.
00:36:08.929 --> 00:36:12.289
I know those texts wrestle with them all the time.
00:36:12.610 --> 00:36:21.170
But even if I grant every argument for the death penalty, the live stream remains a separate moral question.
00:36:21.650 --> 00:36:23.889
Why do we need to see it?
00:36:24.289 --> 00:36:25.650
That is the question.
00:36:25.969 --> 00:36:28.289
Why do you need to see it?
00:36:29.009 --> 00:36:30.530
For deterrence?
00:36:31.409 --> 00:36:38.369
Are we arguing that somebody prepared to commit mass murder will suddenly reconsider it because they can catch another murderer die online?
00:36:39.009 --> 00:36:41.009
Maybe somebody believes that.
00:37:02.050 --> 00:37:03.410
Others may not.
00:37:03.809 --> 00:37:12.130
In fact, family members connected to the Fordhead attack have publicly objected to turning the execution into entertainment.
00:37:12.369 --> 00:37:13.889
So what is left?
00:37:14.690 --> 00:37:16.130
The spectacle.
00:37:16.610 --> 00:37:19.650
The people who want to watch it.
00:37:20.050 --> 00:37:26.210
And that is where the Christian in me becomes particularly uneasy.
00:37:27.170 --> 00:37:39.889
Because Christianity, for me, is a religion whose central image is a execution, a public one at the hands of the state.
00:37:41.010 --> 00:37:41.889
Think about it.
00:37:42.690 --> 00:37:52.369
The cross is so familiar to us, at least in the West, that we've domesticated it.
00:37:53.090 --> 00:37:58.849
We wear little execution symbols around our necks.
00:37:59.010 --> 00:38:03.490
We hang it on churches, we put gold around it, we put diamonds down it.
00:38:03.970 --> 00:38:07.650
But Rome did not see the cross as jewelry.
00:38:08.930 --> 00:38:14.769
The cross was state-sanctioned violence, public state violence.
00:38:15.010 --> 00:38:18.610
Crucifixion was intentionally humiliating.
00:38:18.769 --> 00:38:22.369
It wasn't simply designed to kill.
00:38:22.690 --> 00:38:24.849
Rome had easier ways to kill people.
00:38:25.170 --> 00:38:27.410
Crucifixion was communication.
00:38:27.570 --> 00:38:32.930
It said, look, look at what happens when a person defies Rome.
00:38:33.250 --> 00:38:38.210
Look at their bodies, look at the weakness, look at the shame, look at the suffering.
00:38:38.690 --> 00:38:40.210
And people watch.
00:38:46.849 --> 00:38:58.210
That should give every Christian pause before we enthusiastically merge execution and audience again.
00:38:58.530 --> 00:39:06.130
Because we worship the man who was on the wrong side of the crowd at the time.
00:39:06.849 --> 00:39:07.889
Remember that.
00:39:08.369 --> 00:39:11.010
The crowd shouted, crucify.
00:39:11.650 --> 00:39:17.730
The state acted, people watched, and Christians say God was hanging there.
00:39:18.530 --> 00:39:22.210
That changes how I understand public suffering.
00:39:22.930 --> 00:39:24.289
It has to change.
00:39:25.329 --> 00:39:31.250
When Jesus says, I was in prison and you visited me not.
00:39:33.490 --> 00:39:36.210
He does not add the footnote.
00:39:36.610 --> 00:39:39.730
Provided the prisoner was sympathetic to you.
00:39:41.490 --> 00:39:48.210
Christian anthropology does not begin with deserving.
00:39:48.690 --> 00:39:50.610
It begins with creation.
00:39:51.490 --> 00:39:56.050
Human beings bear the image of God.
00:39:57.090 --> 00:39:59.889
The murderer bears it badly.
00:40:00.369 --> 00:40:03.010
The terrorist desecrates it.
00:40:03.329 --> 00:40:06.050
The tyrant contradicts it.
00:40:06.369 --> 00:40:08.849
The sinner corrupts it.
00:40:09.170 --> 00:40:14.849
But dignity does not simply evaporate when a person becomes wicked.
00:40:15.250 --> 00:40:22.849
If it does, then dignity has never had an inherent meaning in the first place.
00:40:23.010 --> 00:40:24.610
It was conditional.
00:40:25.090 --> 00:40:34.690
And if human dignity is conditional, then somebody gets to decide the conditions, and that's a dangerous amount of power to hand out.
00:40:35.329 --> 00:40:47.650
Like I said earlier, the prophet Ezekiel records God saying, He does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, but desires the wicked turn away and live.
00:40:52.289 --> 00:40:55.809
It does not say wickedness is imaginary.
00:40:56.530 --> 00:40:59.570
It does not say there is no judgment.
00:40:59.889 --> 00:41:04.530
It does not say actions have no consequences.
00:41:04.849 --> 00:41:09.170
It says righteousness does not delight in destruction.
00:41:09.490 --> 00:41:10.690
That matters.
00:41:11.010 --> 00:41:14.610
Justice without delight is suffering.
00:41:14.930 --> 00:41:17.650
Punishment without sadism.
00:41:17.809 --> 00:41:20.690
Accountability without dehumanization.
00:41:20.849 --> 00:41:28.849
Those distinctions used to be a part of what it meant to be a civilization.
00:41:29.650 --> 00:41:33.970
And this is why the language surrounding this execution bothers me.
00:41:34.130 --> 00:41:35.250
People need to see.
00:41:35.570 --> 00:41:36.210
Why?
00:41:36.610 --> 00:41:39.490
Why do people need to see a human body destroyed?
00:41:39.809 --> 00:41:45.570
What moral knowledge does a camber provide that a lawful sentence does not?
00:41:45.809 --> 00:41:49.090
What exactly are you trying to cultivate in the citizen?
00:41:49.329 --> 00:41:51.090
Reverage for the law?
00:41:51.570 --> 00:41:53.809
Or an appetite for punishment?
00:41:54.130 --> 00:41:56.289
Because those are not the same things.
00:41:56.450 --> 00:41:59.250
And history should make us cautious about this.
00:41:59.490 --> 00:42:04.369
Public executions were once a very normal thing.
00:42:04.690 --> 00:42:12.369
Families came, gathered, people sold food, people joked, people drank, executions became social events.
00:42:13.410 --> 00:42:26.050
Eventually, societies began asking whether the kind of spectacle deranged the public rather than elevated it.
00:42:26.450 --> 00:42:29.650
Maybe the person being executed was guilty.
00:42:29.889 --> 00:42:31.490
Maybe they weren't.
00:42:47.090 --> 00:42:54.849
Sometimes the question is whether the spectators are becoming worse because of what they are seeing.
00:42:55.010 --> 00:42:56.930
And that is where I land.
00:42:57.970 --> 00:42:59.889
What are we becoming?
00:43:00.450 --> 00:43:05.250
We started with talk television, tell us your secret.
00:43:06.289 --> 00:43:10.050
Then reality television, show us your life.
00:43:10.610 --> 00:43:14.289
Then therapy television, show us your trauma.
00:43:14.849 --> 00:43:21.010
Then the completion of competition television, show us your struggle.
00:43:21.329 --> 00:43:25.170
Then social media show us your everything.
00:43:25.570 --> 00:43:35.970
The fight, the arrest, the breakdown, the body, the war, the bombing, the death penalty, the divorce, the funeral.
00:43:36.690 --> 00:43:40.690
And now potentially show us the executions.
00:43:41.970 --> 00:43:46.210
And at what point do we say no?
00:43:47.650 --> 00:43:57.010
At what point does the civilization demonstrate civility by refusing to look?
00:43:58.210 --> 00:44:08.130
I'll say it this way: at what point does the civilization demonstrate it is a civilization by refusing to look?
00:44:09.570 --> 00:44:15.410
That sounds strange in a culture where we think seeing everything is correct.
00:44:16.610 --> 00:44:19.889
Maybe restraint is the correct moral act.
00:44:20.210 --> 00:44:25.809
Maybe turning off the camera can be the act of human dignity.
00:44:26.130 --> 00:44:31.170
Maybe refusing to watch can be the act of resistance.
00:44:32.210 --> 00:44:37.329
I'm reminded of something we have seem to have forgotten again.
00:44:38.130 --> 00:44:41.010
Not everything that happens belongs to us.
00:44:42.289 --> 00:44:45.730
Not everything that happens belongs to us.
00:44:46.210 --> 00:44:50.769
Somebody else's suffering is not automatically mine to consume.
00:44:51.490 --> 00:44:55.650
Somebody else's grief is not mine to share.
00:44:56.369 --> 00:45:00.690
Somebody else's breakdown is not mine to upload.
00:45:01.170 --> 00:45:05.090
Somebody else's death is not mine to replay.
00:45:05.490 --> 00:45:14.530
And yes, even the death of somebody I despise does not automatically become my entertainment.
00:45:15.010 --> 00:45:16.849
We need boundaries.
00:45:17.170 --> 00:45:25.329
We need society without boundaries around suffering to go away.
00:45:26.050 --> 00:45:32.849
Because a society without boundaries around suffering eventually becomes cruel.
00:45:34.050 --> 00:45:38.690
And cruelty rarely introduces itself wearing devil horns.
00:45:39.490 --> 00:45:43.570
Cruelty usually arrives dressed as curiosity.
00:45:43.970 --> 00:45:45.170
Just watch.
00:45:45.650 --> 00:45:47.170
Everybody is watching.
00:45:47.329 --> 00:45:48.530
You should see this.
00:45:48.769 --> 00:45:54.610
And then one day the extraordinary becomes the ordinary.
00:45:55.090 --> 00:45:58.289
The shocking becomes the routine.
00:45:59.170 --> 00:46:07.090
And the sacredness of human life becomes something we only remember when the victim belongs to our tribe.
00:46:07.809 --> 00:46:09.889
That is not a Christian ethic.
00:46:10.130 --> 00:46:15.490
Frankly, is not much of a civilizational ethic either.
00:46:15.889 --> 00:46:28.210
I said from the very beginning that I remember sitting in front of television watching people scream at one another, watching Jerry Springer and Murray Pulwic, watching people cheer, watching Dr.
00:46:28.450 --> 00:46:30.369
Phil confront somebody, watching Dr.
00:46:30.530 --> 00:46:37.650
Drew talk somebody through their addiction troubles, watching fighters train to fight, and I enjoyed plenty of it.
00:46:38.050 --> 00:46:42.769
So this is not me wagging my finger at everybody else.
00:46:43.730 --> 00:46:48.210
I am inside of this culture that I am also criticizing.
00:46:48.369 --> 00:46:50.769
And I hope that we can see that.
00:47:10.690 --> 00:47:12.369
Discipline says no.
00:47:13.010 --> 00:47:18.050
But human beings means something looking away.
00:47:22.530 --> 00:47:30.690
Not because the truth frightens us, but because dignity requires boundaries.
00:47:31.329 --> 00:47:36.369
So if the execution goes for, the state will make its judgment.
00:47:41.650 --> 00:47:48.530
But I do not need to see it with a front row seat.
00:47:48.849 --> 00:47:52.769
I don't need the link, and I don't need the clip.
00:47:53.250 --> 00:47:57.329
I don't need somebody to send me the moment the body collapses.
00:47:58.050 --> 00:48:06.210
And I hope we think very carefully before we teach a generation of children that it's simply another kind of live stream.
00:48:06.530 --> 00:48:10.530
Because I keep returning to the same stubborn conviction.
00:48:10.769 --> 00:48:14.210
Human beings are not content.
00:48:15.570 --> 00:48:18.289
Not when they are beautiful.
00:48:19.250 --> 00:48:20.930
Not when they are broken.
00:48:22.050 --> 00:48:23.889
Not when they are addicted.
00:48:24.769 --> 00:48:26.610
Not when they are humiliated.
00:48:27.250 --> 00:48:29.170
Not when they are our enemies.
00:48:29.410 --> 00:48:30.930
Not when they are guilty.
00:48:31.730 --> 00:48:36.369
Justice requires punishment.
00:48:37.650 --> 00:48:39.570
Sometimes severe punishment.
00:48:40.210 --> 00:48:42.930
But justice does not require a camera.
00:48:43.410 --> 00:48:46.769
And a decent society ought to be capable of saying that.
00:48:47.889 --> 00:48:53.490
There are some things we should refuse to turn into a TV show.
00:48:54.849 --> 00:48:58.289
There are some lines that we should still not cross.
00:48:58.930 --> 00:49:02.130
There are some things we should not watch.
00:49:02.450 --> 00:49:09.410
Because the question is not merely are not merely whether Nadal Hassan deserves to die.
00:49:10.210 --> 00:49:17.090
The deeper question is what kind of people who would we become if we gather around to watch him as he dies.
00:49:18.610 --> 00:49:24.050
And maybe that question is the question America needs to rest with today.
00:49:24.530 --> 00:49:27.010
Not can we watch?
00:49:27.490 --> 00:49:33.809
But what is happening to us if we want to watch?
00:49:35.010 --> 00:49:37.570
That's the show for today.
00:49:37.730 --> 00:49:39.730
This is Darrell McLean's show.
00:49:40.130 --> 00:49:43.650
Now let us work to try to reason together.
00:49:43.889 --> 00:49:46.450
Thank you for tuning in, and I'll see you on the next episode.