Raoul's 1000 words

   In order to defeat evil a society must sometimes become an even greater evil. Eventually we find that every thing comes at a price, especially justice. Ironically, becoming unjust is the price that haunts societies quest for justice. It is a vicious cycle that corrupts society. Consequently, the problem lies in society’s need for a guilty man. So, inevitably society must make a choice. Does it protect the innocent man, does it insure that the guilty man pays, or does it find a balance? In Kafka’s novel The Trial, we find that our main character is wrongly accused a crime, which he has not committed. However, the government finds him to be guilty and in the end condemns him to death. In order to insure that no guilty men go free, sadly many innocent men will be condemned. On the other hand, in order to insure that no innocent men are condemned many guilty men will go free. This is an unavoidable relationship. Unlike our current American legal system’s principle “innocent until proven guilty”, the justice system in The Trial works on a principle of “guilty until proven innocent”. Kafka put this type of legal system in The Trial in order to show how it fails the individual (in his case Joseph K.).  Unfortunately Kafka fails to present a better option. The other type of system often fails to insure justice, and in an extreme scenario creates chaos. In Kafka’s damnation of the current society, he offers nothing better. Maybe the legal system we have sucks, but is there anything better? Inevitably we have to ask, where is the perfect balance of a legal system?

         In The Trial we have a legal system that insures that the guilty man pays. If we look at this type of system, we see that it deters criminals from committing crimes. In fact, if we look into the statistics, we find that countries with a legal system that insures that the guilty man pays have a significantly lower crime rate. So we must unavoidably accept that this system helps keep order in society. Truly the goal of society is to protect the masses, so by keeping order the strict legal system accomplishes the goal. However, in The Trial this system failed the individual. And in the real world this is also true. In fact, we find that on top of having significantly lower crime rates, countries with strict legal systems also have more innocent men (proven innocent after put to death) wrongly put to death (Just like Joseph K.). So Kafka was right, a system like this would inevitably fail the individual, but it would also protect the masses.

         There are also positives and negatives of a society that purely protects the innocent man. It is impossible for a society to have a perfectly protective system because that would mean that no one would ever be punished. But, we find that in a protective society, guilty men get away. This does not insure that justice in society is served; therefore, it fails the basic goal of a justice system. However, it protects the individual. The United States of America is a good example of a protective society. The United States of America is not a perfectly protective society (some innocent men are still convicted), but it is based off of “innocent until proven guilty”.  But we often have guilty men walking away free. For example O. J. Simpson, Zimmerman, Ernesto Miranda, and many more. With a good enough lawyer anyone can go free, meaning that justice is not served. But, a system like this protects people like Joseph K. from The Trial.  As a citizen of the United States of America, I do not have to worry about being arrested tomorrow morning for almost no reason. This means that I feel safe, so society is doing something correct there. But, should people like Zimmerman and O. J. and Miranda go free? No! They should have paid for their crimes.

Some people (like myself) believe that an innocent man that pays the price is just collateral damage, which is necessary in order to sustain a better society for the masses. But, in the end can wrongfully accusing someone and killing him or her be justified? In a purely Darwinian society, I believe so. Without the morality installed by religious institutions like the Catholic Church, the value of life would be much less.  For society to be most efficient it should ignore morality or emotions. Once morality and emotions have been removed for the calculation, it is easy to say yes get rid of anyone who even appears to be a virus to society. Unfortunately, it will never be that easy. Without morality and emotions, the structure of society would fall apart. So morality and emotions cannot be ignored. Therefore they are going to seriously complicate our calculations.