Respectfully, I suggest a slightly different take. We tend, in most of the West at least, to see good and evil as two distinct and unrelated characteristics, and we tend also to think that we can slot people into 'good' v 'bad' in some simple binary action.
I see the death of the CEO as a tragedy. Capitalism is built on this sort of tragedy. It is inevitable. It is built into a system that reduces people to commodities, that sees people only useful for the role they can perform within the system to energise the system, produce profit, discard thsoe who are not useful.
It is a tragedy that a person can become the CEO of a company that exists to exploit the pain of others and turn that pain into monetary reward. 'How can a person do that sort of work', one may ask. And the man that killed him? We may be shocked or outraged at that act but lets be honest here, the system commits outrage every second of every minute of every day of the year. Functionaries of the system are behind the drone attacks; behind the secret and extreme rendition and torture; behind every governmet overthrown; behind every poverty stricken member of every death squad the system has ever employed.
I realise that my assertion sounds like 'society is to blame' and that individuals are not, and to an extent, yes, that is what I am saying. But I think that on a deeper level we must eventually realise that if we construct systems whose raison detre is to crush the human spirit in service of profit, then this is the sort of tragedies we get. The people who actively run the system are immune from either the despair that led to the shooting or the despair that followed the death of the CEO.
Respectfully, I suggest a slightly different take. We tend, in most of the West at least, to see good and evil as two distinct and unrelated characteristics, and we tend also to think that we can slot people into 'good' v 'bad' in some simple binary action.
I see the death of the CEO as a tragedy. Capitalism is built on this sort of tragedy. It is inevitable. It is built into a system that reduces people to commodities, that sees people only useful for the role they can perform within the system to energise the system, produce profit, discard thsoe who are not useful.
It is a tragedy that a person can become the CEO of a company that exists to exploit the pain of others and turn that pain into monetary reward. 'How can a person do that sort of work', one may ask. And the man that killed him? We may be shocked or outraged at that act but lets be honest here, the system commits outrage every second of every minute of every day of the year. Functionaries of the system are behind the drone attacks; behind the secret and extreme rendition and torture; behind every governmet overthrown; behind every poverty stricken member of every death squad the system has ever employed.
I realise that my assertion sounds like 'society is to blame' and that individuals are not, and to an extent, yes, that is what I am saying. But I think that on a deeper level we must eventually realise that if we construct systems whose raison detre is to crush the human spirit in service of profit, then this is the sort of tragedies we get. The people who actively run the system are immune from either the despair that led to the shooting or the despair that followed the death of the CEO.