White Bear

At first, I was very confused when I watched the episode of white bear. In the episode, the woman was being  tortured by basically the whole town. They called it “the white bear justice park.” They were getting justice because the woman kidnapped and killed a child and got it all on video tape. However, I don’t believe it was true justice.

First of all, I don’t understand how they could determine that the “justice park” was supposed to be true justice. Who decides those things? Do they not have a government? To my understanding, they do this to her every single day. However, they don’t have the right. What she did was wrong but at some point there has to be a boundary for “punishment.” Plus, everyday they expect the same thing from her. I would get tired of reliving the same day and getting the same outcome. If I truly wanted justice from that woman, I would figure out a new method because that one doesn’t seem to be working.

Second, a great point was brought up in class about if their idea of punishment was really punishing her.  I don’t think she’s really being punished. I just think she’s experiencing pain because everyday her memory is erased, so to her, nothing even happened. If she had to actually deal with what happened for the rest of her life, maybe it would be punishment because it’s something that would stick with her long term. Then, she would have had time to genuinely think about how her actions affected others as well as herself.