More from The Marketplace:
Hawthorne gives us his take on Puritan values with this succinct phrase, describing for us, "the righteous Colony of Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine."
At first blush, this seems like a good thing. We must remember, the Puritans came to the Americas in search of religious freedom. It is supremely ironic that they became persecutors of their own in a manner worse than that which they received back in England.
One of the means of punishment of which they were so fond was public humiliation in a variety of forms. For Hester Prynne it was the initial form of being forced to stand on the scaffold for several hours while undergoing a very public interrogation and mocking. And of course, there is the eponymous scarlet letter "A" which she was required to wear on the bosom of her outer garment for the rest of her life.
Hawthorne gives us some insight into his opinion of the Puritanical methodology of chastising sinners thusly, "There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature,--whatever be the delinquencies of the individual,--no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face in shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do."
Anyone of us that has ever been "disciplined" by a "judicial committee" of elders knows full well the powerful emotional force that is brought to bear by that particular instrument of pyschological horror and control, an instrument oft wielded without subtlety or mercy by these men without compassion: public humiliation. I suppose it is an improvement over public stoning. But as horrible and barbaric as that is, the gruesome pain is but for a few moments and then it is over, at least for the victim. But then again, let us not forget, that the real audience of a public display of authority is in fact the onlookers. Carry out the sentence on the perpertrator of the crime and "justice" it is said has been executed. But it is, I believe, the real goal of those in self-appointed authority to scare the hell out of everyone else and remind them who it is that is in control and correspondingly, who is not. To that end a public humiliation is as good as an execution; perhaps it is better as it is longer lasting and thus serves as a more constant reminder.
In addressing the question of whether it is better to be loved or feared, Machiavelli writes, “The answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other; but because it is difficult to combine them, it is far safer to be feared than loved if you cannot be both.”
As did the Puritans of old, the leaders of the WTBTS have chosen the safer course and have opted to rule by the Machiavellian principle of fear because they know for a certainty that they are not worthy of love.
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