I don’t think that
Stephen is entirely correct when he says that public opinion in the end will
always socially condemn a man or act, in some cases this works, like dealing
with Casey Anthony or OJ Simpson, but other times public opinion can serve to
glamorize criminal acts, in the way people like Butch Cassidy, the mafia, and
modern day gangsters have been made out to seem cool or ideal people to
be.
While we have worked to glamorize some people in their
criminal acts, I also see that society does well enough at condemning actions
to condemn most of the people responsible, but it is the people who rose above condemnation
and became “cool,” like it could be considered cool to be in a gang or the
mafia, who lead others to strive to be like them and this creates crime simply
for crime’s sake.
It seems like Mill is
saying two things at once in this quote, I was unsure of what he meant by it.
“The evil consequences of his acts do not then fall on
himself, but on others; and society, as the protector of all its members, must
retaliate on him; must inflict pain on him for the express purpose of
punishment, and must take care that it be sufficiently severe. In the one case,
he is an offender at our bar, and we are called on not only to sit in judgment
on him, but, in one shape or another, to execute our own sentence: in the other
case, it is not our part to inflict any suffering on him, except what may
incidentally follow from our using the same liberty in the regulation of our
own affairs, which we allow to him in his.”
I think he might be talking about two different forms
of crime, the first that involves others, and the second only brings harm to
himself.
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