White Bear reflection

           In the episode of Black Mirror titled White Bear, there are a few things that leave me completely baffled. But I feel as if one episode in particular sticks out to me.

            Following the plot line,  a young lady goes through a lot of torment in punishment for being an accessory for a murder. In essence her crime was recording the murder of a child instead of stopping it. Her punishment is to relive a dystopian society scenario over and over again. Morally speaking, anyone could see that this is wrong.

            This brings to mind the most famous of the Hammurabi Laws (not Harambe Laws) , “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". The society depicted treats Victoria's punishment as just. I know this is set in Europe, but I also know that in America this would be an example of cruel and unusual punishment. As Americans, we believe that this is unacceptable. While some people may agree that some criminals should suffer what they inflicted (the death penalty for murderers), most of us can agree that this is a fate harsher than death. Some may say that they're sure that no one is committing heinous crimes under these laws, but are the punishments for crimes under this model even more heinous? In this particular case, Victoria was a bystander to her husband’s actions and described herself under his spell. Groupthink is a psychological principle based on the idea that everyone’s individual thoughts and ideas are replaced by one group thought. Psychologically speaking, her husband could have been her influencer, but I am not making a case on her behalf. Assuming that she was in fact guilty, is this the model we want to follow? Should this scenario have played out once or more than once? Should this have even been a thing? Where do we draw the line?