Personally, being outside of the entire context and situation can easily say that I agree with this punishment. Perhaps that makes me a cruel person, but having actually come from a country where these attacks happen makes me feel a little more justified in feeling that way.

There is no way that he could be surprised with the sentence (other than that he must have been expecting to get away with it) because it is not necessarily abnormal in that culture in the context of eye-for-an-eye. His actions were taken in a certain context, and so his sentence must also be taken in a certain context.

That, and men have gotten away with a lot in such countries, and have in some ways been supported by the law. While it’s not exactly what I would call progressive, at least there is some kind of movement towards justice for women.

It must both satisfy and teach in a dialogue with the community, lawgiver, and transgressor. It has to be pulled into being from ethical traditions, social mores, and the feelings of the people involved in the circumstances.

Madoff gets justice of house arrest.

Some nobody who shoplifts a pizza slice gets a third strike and gets hard time.

What little I objected to of Jill’s post is entirely by implication–as some here have stated. I know Jill said nothing about justice here or anywhere else, and I know she was talking explicitly about cruelty.

However, she spoke in terms *loaded* in norms that reflects our legal and cultural norms–without really clarifying what they are. That ambiguity, such as “punish in a fair and humane way” is utterly oxymoronic, given that punishment is inherently directed cruelty, unless we accept the premise (guided by norms of her supposed audience) that says that prison is not cruel, whereas acid in the eyes are.

That bugged me, so I replied in terms of accepted practices, asking for alternatives, and trying to increase the awareness of the situation. Look, acid-throwing is a hate crime. It’s meant to be a symbol that represses other women’s freedom. It’s meant to be a fate worse than death–where once you were pretty, now you are repulsive. Where you once had resources to family and friends, you are reduced to begging for the pity of strangers. All the time you are alive as a monster, you live in a dim and blind world wracked by pain. That was the intent, freely confessed, of the man who threw that acid on the woman in the story. To deter this monstrosity, we should know all about it. Moreover, we *must* respond in a signal appreciable by those tempted to such an action.

Doing that means knowing that this is a crime mostly committed by lower-class men, often for non-financial reasons. It means that we are aware that the traditional legal penalties of fines are unlikely to be effective. Sharia law has a provision for these circumstances, and like the cruelty or not, this was a evolved response to what are, for all intents and purposes, a symbolic hate crime which didn’t just start happening in the 20th century US South. It has evolved as a clear way to standardize responses in rural areas. Most other responses that we in the west would consider “humane” asks that the local authority (in nearly lawless areas) seek creative ways to exert authority. That risks greater injustice. Simple and clear ways helps the community buy into idea of justice. When one is poor, one recieves poor justice, but it is better than none!

I do not like cruelty, because I believe it is addictive. Still, the real world doesn’t permit us not to be cruel. We eat plants and animals. We exert social norms. A byproduct of these things is the death and suffering of others. This is unavoidable. Thus, what matters is that there is a system, and that it is *responsive*. That both the rich and poor, not to mention people of all types, has procedures that aren’t ad-hoc, and are fair.

What she asked for was justice, in the way that the courts in her community dispense justice.

This doesn’t make her any more vengeful or bloodthirsty than anyone else in that community who turns to the courts after being assaulted.

Framing the issue as if she was somehow unusually bent on revenge seems to suggest that, as a woman, she should be more forgiving than a man who was similarly assaulted. And that it is somehow unusully vengeful and inappropriate for a woman who has been assaulted by a man romantically interested in her to demand that the courts treat the assault as they would any other assault.

She’s a woman who demanded that the courts of her community treat an assult against her the way they would treat a simlar assult against a man. If the punishment is vengeful and barbaric, it is because the courts are vengeful and barbaric, not because she is somehow a vengeful monster for wanting a gender-based crime against her to be taken as seriously as any other crime in her community.

Everyone here thinks acid throwing is a terrible crime, but it is important not just because throwing acid in people’s faces is wrong but because it is a form of violent domination directed at women. Jill was arguing that the state using it’s power to torture someone, even someone who had imposed a similar torture on another, was wrong. Whether there is some correlation between class and acid throwing is simply not relevant to any of the discussions that were going on because fundamentally this was a discussion about what kinds of social revenge cross the line. Men of all classes abuse women of all classes in a depressingly diverse array of ways; the discussion was primarily about how closely their offenses can match the punishments meted out for them.

Making a comment about class and acid throwing was out of place, and a statement that out of place had implications which offended at least several people here. When they called you out on it, you decided to call them stupid and accuse them of backbiting. You decided to make a discussion on the internet personal, to attack people because they disagreed with your or took offense at something you said. You chose to forgo any understanding that might have been gained (even if you ultimately disagreed) for schoolyard name calling.