Tonight I stopped into the local coffee house to partake in a cappuccino. On the counter was a leaflet from the local police regarding a sexual predator that had been recently released from prison, and who is living in the area. This kind of thing invokes a few responses from me. First is fear, fear for the women I know in the area, and the women I don't. Second is thoughts of the problems with sexual predators in general. Is it right for a society to hold a person in jail because they think they might commit a crime (ala Minority Report). But, how does a society protect itself from such predators. This conversation always leads me down the path of cause. Is it that these people are morally bankrupt and/or genetically flawed (nature), or is it the society that they are part of that lends itself towards the creation of such behavior (nurture)? Or, is it a nature and nature scenario, as Tam would most likely argue.

I once listened to an interview with the psychological pathologist who worked with Jeffrey Dahmer, and he believed that Jeffrey, and people like him, were not violent per say, but had sexual perversions that they are unable to fulfill within the bounds of normal society. I found it interesting that this psychologist was dismayed by the killing of Jeffrey Dahmer, and really believed that Jeffery was a sick man that didn't deserve to die that way. I imagine many would feel otherwise, and many felt that he was a monster and deserved his fate. I'm not so sure. I have never been one for the eye for an eye kind of punishment. To me, killing is wrong no matter what the justification, or who is killed.

This leads me to the discussion of evil in general, and it seems relevant to the current political climate. Is a person evil in heart, or do they become evil because of circumstances. Again, we can get in a nature verses nurture conversation. I prefer the philosophy of Herman Hess's Siddhartha:

Siddhartha tells Govinda that in order to teach about the world, Buddha had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, into illusion and truth, into suffering and salvation. But the world is not divided. It is neither wholly Samsara nor wholly Nirvana, just as man is never wholly a saint or wholly a sinner, nor is life wholly suffering or wholly salvation. A sinner can become Brahma and attain Nirvana. Siddhartha picks up a stone and tells Govinda that previously he would have considered it a thing of no value belonging to the world of Maya. Now he sees the rock as belonging to the cycle of change; within time, it may become a plant, animal, or man. The stone is part of the unity of the world, containing God and Buddha.

We are all the sinner and the saint...