But... What is the point?

After watching and discussing the episode of Black Mirror, “White Bear”, I was left with one nagging question. That question was simply, “what is the point?” The whole point of punishing someone is that they know exactly what they did and why they should feel remorseful for the action. That was exactly the problem with this woman’s punishment. Her mind was wiped (in a seemingly very painful manner, by the way) at the end of every day. She didn’t remember what she did and therefore this amounts to some bizarre version of punishment that was in reality, ninety-nine percent torture. Even more gruesome, White Bear was set up in a manner that resembled some kind of grotesque theme park. Different people were brought in everyday, every morning to pretend to live in this complex. They were instructed not to talk or to approach the woman. Instead the “patrons”, as I have decided to call them, were just told to record her every move and post everything they recorded to social media. Again, what is the point? This woman seems to be forever trapped in White Bear with no internet access. This means she can’t even be truly shamed by the people wishing to shame her. The only real form of punishment she receives is at the end when they reveal to her what she did which is a completely pointless exercise because the wipe her mind of everything a few hours later.

            This scenario, as set up by whoever wrote this episode, creates more questions than just “what is the point?” Another question that needs to be asked is who is even innocent anymore in this scenario? Yes, this woman committed a horrific crime and deserves to be punished. She recorded and partly participated in torturing, killing and then burning what was left of a child with her now ex-boyfriend. There are very few crimes that can compare to the horror of what she and her boyfriend did. But the people at the park aren’t much better. They are actively taking joy in torturing someone who has no idea what they did or why they are in this predicament. No, they haven’t killed her or set her on fire but they are torturing this woman, make no mistake. In the sense of justice, everyone has blood on their hands which means no actual justice has been served or ever will be served as long her “punishment” continues.

            The final sub question I would like to ask present is, as is usual with me, could this ever actually happen? I don't doubt the ability to devise something so cruel as this is within human kind, but we have institutions in place to keep those parts of humanity at bay. They are called governments. Would any government ever allow this? I personally don't think so. Especially not in the UK where this was set. Not to mention that, even though there are people in society that could come up with this awful “punishment”, there are far more people that would see the issues that I have laid out and rise up to make sure something like this could never actually happen.