Twelve Good Men And True v Life Is Precious

Many years ago now, I watched a film, based on rather more fact than fiction and that film had a devastating effect upon me. Now all these years later, I still walk in the shadow of that film and I know that this world holds a fragile kind of justice, without which, we are as savages cut from the cloth of our own yarn. Our justice system, a wafer thin line of uprightness, deprived of which, some of us would not have a chance, no chance to meet our victims again to give a second stab, or make a second stab at life, a second chance to make amends or a seconds breath before it ends, all too soon. No-one may ultimately predict with 100% accuracy the workings of the human mind and how does one weigh justice without being party to the crime and how does one retrospectively gauge the clarity of a man’s intention?

Those invisible strands of life illustrated by our casual unchallenged breath are yet more delicately balanced than that of our justice system. If one pertinent and interlocked piece breaks down, the whole of the body of law stops being effective, in much the same way as each and every one of our bodies may too. The human that makes an error of judgement may be tried and do time for the crime and, upon reflection, could resolve to make amends. To err is human, but how to judge the workings of the human mind or their reasoning at such a time, to derive a judgement of their intention. Where laws are imposed and created by humans, that human may also make an error of judgement.

We have seen numerous cases of wrongful handling throughout the arrest process to that of the ultimate sentence. Perhaps, the reason why I find myself unable, with a clear conscience, to countenance killing anyone for justice – even an eye-witnessed criminal, is that I find myself unable to trust humanity in general and first and foremost the people who are often asked to make a ‘best guess’ based upon evidence provided, which is ultimately all that one can ask of anyone. Not just the twelve good men and true but the whole process is reliant upon the human hand and that hand is weighted only with its own, personal wealth of experience. There is no apology that resurrects the beat of the human heart, or breathes life into bones that are already turning to dust.

To kill a man in this way must make a new killer whose hand is unstable when he thinks of the enormity of what is done and cannot be undone. A fresh killer who lives with the what if …. and the hope that what was done might be the result of a body of law working at its most efficient in order to churn out a verdict without error. A new killer who will have gained more than a little insight into the delicate balance of the justice system, that will be haunted by encountering his own fragile mortality, for there, but for the grace of God, also go you or I.

Society - The herd instinct

Sometimes, a moment in time might be averted and sometimes, no matter how hard we were to attempt to avert it, that moment would always come out the same because the process of it has already been begun.

Some years ago now, I noticed the process of herding with some interest. Herding could take place between almost any faction of society and could provide the medium both disciplined or undisciplined for satisfying the herding instinct which appears to be prevalent amongst the human race. Confused by something I had previously considered only as an instinct in animals such as deer and zebra, I was surprised to realise that humans were susceptible to the invincible power which the satisfaction of this instinct seemed to evoke in them. 

In order to fully appreciate and illustrate the herding instinct, one might look to the simple games of football which are frequently marked by crowds of magnificent proportions. These illustrate the wish to congregate and witness an event as it occurs, being in the forefront as it were, along with many other individuals with the same common purpose. Such occasions as these, nestle amongst the hearts of the individuals in the group for many decades to come and are cherished and relived, as though significant turning points of history. There is often great effort made on behalf of the individuals in order to join and link up with their collective sister or brotherhood. The cohesion of the whole is sometimes enough to have them forego other important events such as hospital appointments, births and even deaths. 

Once the herding instinct has been noticed, one may see its manifestation everywhere - in the organised pressure groups standing outside the Houses of Parliament who are able to voice, as if with one vocal chord, the opinions and slogans of their group, in the historical Poll Tax riots and in the organised heinous intent behind such groups as the Klu Klux Klan, who worked as one physical group embodiment with one single intention to the detriment of other factions.

Even more recently, this same intent can be easily witnessed in the 2011 Riots:

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Society - The path less travelled by

When you force children to learn by rote, then that which they learn can be swiftly forgotten because they do not understand WHY they should remember it. 

Children like these grow up unable to think for themselves and are therefore easily manipulated. 

Imagine a world of actors in a play who only know their lines by rote and have little or no understanding of the reasoning which underpins and upholds the play. These actors would be vastly flung off course if one maverick actor took a deviant route, the path less travelled by.


Here then, should come applause for the choices taken by the parents of what is being termed the ‘lost generation’. When farmed out offspring travel only the roads known as ‘imitated by’ and ‘grow up fast’ in a one size fits all generation of generic conveyor belt mentality, they fit smoothly into a delicate balance of a society with one bland voice and represented by one banal self-conflicting image of precocious innocence.


This then, is a shallow, disparate society which falls into a terrifying bracket of unfulfilled and each individual stumbles their way upon the stormy seas of life largely unheard, unchoiced, unvoiced and unrepresented.


Each singular being, belonging to the composite, feels like an unseen and unremarkable member of the whole, the importance of WHO they are threatened and they are faced with a life affecting decision about the identity with which they define themselves - something either to be embraced and clung to in order that their lives hold meaning, or something to be released and forgotten upon the tide of selfishness which goads them to ever higher levels of deviance. When one is not held by anything, one is unbound and unrestricted and thereby ungovernable.


Ultimately, a child who is not governed properly, or later taught to be governed by themselves, from within, is a child become ungovernable. A nanny state will always be required where a child never fully fledges from childhood to adulthood and our society must ensure each component of its whole is taught to self govern by an inner code of morality and thereby given the means to fledge safely. 


Hoping your contribution to society will fledge in a balanced and worthwhile fashion.

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and so it begins …

Partially optimistic and partially scared - this is how I feel upon opening this blog. Here I will store all the thoughts in my head which I feel are of some substance and may be shared without altering the balance of the world as we know it. I hope you feel able to do the same.

Intertained x