Nineteenth Day

Midway along the journey of our life, I roused to find myself within a dark forest...for they told me that I had wandered away from the path of the straight and true.

Why will not Virgil come to me? Why won’t he guide me through the circles of hell and tell me what sins render what punishment? Show me what virtues result in what level of blessing? How easy life would be if we were presented with a fixed system according to which points were calculated. Telling the truth - one point. Helping an old lady across the street - two points. Going back to the supermarket the day after you shopped there to pay for a pack of chewing gums they mistakenly did not charge you for - five points. Cheating on your wife - minus ten points. Committing acts of terrorism - I don’t know.

I wonder whose decision it is that I shall still be detained. I wonder whether that person is subject to the same point-table? In that case, has he ever contemplated what number of points might be deducted for detaining someone who’s innocent? Maybe you gain immunity from point-reduction if you find a good enough justification for your actions. From one perspective, that does sound reasonable. If I kill someone in self-defence, surely that cannot result in as many deducted points as a cold-blooded murder would do. Similarly, it must of course be justifiable to detain a terrorist plotting to kill hundreds or thousands of innocent people. The initial problem is simple; they may be wrong, in which case they are detaining someone perfectly innocent. And that would certainly be wrong. A further problem arises however - how are they to know if they are right or wrong, whether their suspicions are well-founded or not. And what would follow if they made the wrong decision? If they would allow a terrorist to walk free, they could end up with many lives on their conscience, and of this fact they are well aware. If, on the other hand, they would keep an innocent man detained, they could escape criticism with an apologetic handshake and an airy explanation. And what could I do other than accept it?

I fear that this is what it boils down to - a theory of risk-minimisation. Game theory describing not the prisoner’s but the gaoler’s dilemma. A theory to justify my continued detention - the reason why the normal point system does not apply. I like to think of myself as rational, and that is, I think, the reason why I have even bothered to try and search for a logical explanation to all this. If I think about it long enough, I am even worried that I will be convinced by my own theory, by my own excuse for the actions of others. Maybe I will even reach the point where I think they are right in detaining me; I certainly must have done something wrong to end up here, and I understand if no one wants to take the risk of releasing me. It is true that I am subjecting myself to their authority, but with their experience and expertise, that must necessarily be the right thing to do… I too want to save my country from terror!

...and then I remember that actually, behind the facts and figures, hypotheses, observations and conclusions, there is, in fact, me, and I am more than just another digit in their system.