An Eye for An Eye

"An Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth":

is a popular phrase used to explain the law of retaliation. When wrong is done to one person a similar wrong should be afflicted upon the person who first went about doing the wrong.  This is similar to the idea of do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

One example of the principle of an eye for an eye is the White Bear film.  In the film, a woman wakes up and starts her day not knowing "who she is".  Once she realizes that something is wrong she goes outside to try to find someone who can help her recollect some of the things that are going on. Upon her quest for help, she notices that people are not really responding to her but yet are just taking pictures and videoing her every move. The people continue to do this even in instances where her life is endangered. She begins to notice the repetition of this symbol and believes the symbol has been broadcasted and as a result is brainwashing people and causing them to become "instant bystanders". Ever time she sees the symbol she has a vision of her husband, but from each vision she gets the same exact pieces of information that are never quite clear or understandable. When she starts piecing trying to piece the information from her visions with everything that has happened, she figures that the symbol that she remembers is from White Bear. White Bear is believed to be the only place that will provide her a solution to stop the broadcast of the symbol that has been brainwashing the people. Once, she gets inside the tower she then tricked and placed in chair where she is put in front of an audience of people who are making mockery of her and taking pictures.  She doesn't really understand what's going on so the people, begin to explain to her that she was an accomplish to her husband in the death of a little girl they kidnapped.  They explain to her that her act of video taping the event makes her a criminal just like her deceased ex husband. So, this was the reason that the people had been following her around and not helping to let her feel some of the feelings of being lonely, afraid, and confused like the little girl had been.  Once they tell her what happens they then take her to the house and set her in a chair and erase her memory.  They then mark the day off the calendar and prepare to do this again.


The whole idea of the White Bear film poses the question that even though, the lady is somewhat receiving the same treatment for the things she did to the little girl,  Is it Just ? Just is a word defined as what is morally right or fair. Would the ladies punishment of having to watch the film everyday in solitary confinement afflict the same pain that she had associated with the actions in White Bear ? Sometimes we have to question our selves if two wrongs don't make a right, then the affliction of the same things that a person did doesn't always make it right. The people from The White Bear Torture Park based their actions on the idea of the "eye for an eye" principle when it came to what they believe was a "just" punishment, but that doesn't mean that is was the best or most affective way of getting the point that what she did was wrong. Similar to the people from the White Bear Torture Park,  our American justice system bases its form of punishment of what the majority thinks is just.  If this is right is it fair to say that people are the best judges of what actions in society are just and unjust ?!