Eternal: Chapter Six, Part 5

The ethics class Jake was enrolled in was filling up as I arrived. The classroom wasn’t huge—to be honest I was somewhat shocked. There were three rows of chairs in a semicircle around a chalkboard and a desk. From the chattering everyone was doing and the overall relaxed feeling in the room, I knew they weren’t taking a test and was grateful. A few people gave me questioning looks, shrugging it off a moment later. They had a right to be curious. I hadn’t been in this class, and I hadn’t been on this campus the last few months either; they had every right to question. I wasn’t concerned with any of them; the only person I was interested in was Jake, and I hadn’t seen him yet.

Jake walked in a minute to the bell, taking a seat on the middle row on the other side of the half circle. He hadn’t changed much other than he was taller and leaner. His hair was a shaggy gold and his eyes were a piercing blue, as though growing up had given him a harder edge. There was still a hint of youth in his smile, but it was small, hardly a glimmer. I wondered how much of that edge could be attributed to him having to hide. I couldn’t tell how much of the change was just physical either. For all I knew, he could be completely different.

The professor walked in, but the class didn’t quiet until he had settled onto the desk at the front of the room.

“Final on Tuesday next week. Twelve thirty. Be on time, or you won’t be allowed to retake it,” he began, immediately capturing everyone’s attention. “Today we’ll have another ethical debate. Two of the test questions will be essays asking you to argue a side on a major ethical debate applicable to today. They will also ask you to raise some points of an opposing perspective.” The instructor stood and divided a stack of papers into three, handing a stack to each person on the end of the row on my side. When the stack reached me, I passed it on, glimpsing over the sheet. I didn’t envy them this test.

Once the professor settled again, he said, “There are 15 possible issues up for debate. The only way to do well is to be prepared. Don’t expect to fly by the seat of your pants on this one. It won’t work.” The relaxed atmosphere of the room dissipated into tension as his students whispered to the people next to them, worriedly exchanging hopeful looks. “Today we’ll debate the issue of forgiveness. Where do we draw the line? As individuals? As a society?” he posed, leaning forward to grab a sheet from his desk. Reading, he continued, “How do we determine who to forgive and under what circumstances is it possible?” Tossing the paper back to the desk, he waited a moment as they started mulling it over. “Jake,” he called, scanning over the class, “begin.”

I watched him struggle to find the words to start his argument. There was almost too much to take into consideration with this one.

“Forgiveness is a commodity most often shown to those of petty offenses,” he began, slowly pulling together his thoughts into a clearer form. “Usually children or first time offenders of lesser laws. As a society, we aren’t so quick to forgive released convicted felons, murderers, or sexual offenders. But we’ll let rapists off for lack of evidence. We won’t convict a murderer on circumstantial evidence. Yet we’ll put a person caught peeing in public on an unforgiving list of sex offenders. We insist prisoners are ‘reformed’ but won’t give them a decent job; we can’t make people forgive them their wrongs and therefore are unable to allow them to live a decent life as a ‘reformed’ individual.

“So as a society, we don’t have a clear line of where forgiveness is. We’re more likely to forget than to forgive. Just as we won’t send the person who murdered in claimed self-defense to jail, and we’ll forget it happened eventually, but we won’t do the same for a person who murdered, admitted it, and shows remorse for the deed.”

“But if it’s in self-defense, it was kill or be killed,” a girl toward the center of his row argued. “A person is entitled to live.”

“And how do we know that it really was self-defense? It’s still murder,” he replied calmly. “No one can prove it really was self-defense, just like no one can really prove how sane a person is. But we forgive the claimed ‘insane’ as well, opting to pay for their institutional fees. And as soon as they’re deemed ‘sane,’ they either lose that forgiveness and are given a sentence, or they’re released once again on the world.”

“You’re attacking the institutions in place to protect us,” the girl continued. “They have to deal with hundreds of cases and maniacs and other people who would never dream of hurting another person. What do you want them to do?”

“I’m not attacking our institutions,” Jake insisted, remaining eerily calm and collected. “I’m pointing out that our institutions have a very inconsistent view of forgiveness, as does society in general.”

“But what else do you want them to do?” she fought, restraining herself. “They can’t look into every case and they certainly can’t solve everything. Unless you’re suggesting a Big Brother option where everyone is under constant surveillance;” she cocked her head to the side. “That would certainly solve the issue of who’s telling the truth or not.”

“Professor Rakins,” Jake asked, turning to the professor, “are we debating the issue as it is or how it should be?” His jaw was set tight and, though one of his hands was palm down on the table before him, he was shaking. I could see where he might have gained that hard edge. When you see things the way they are because you have to, it’s aggravating when others only think about how it could be worse.

The professor considered the girl and then Jake. “Natalie, he has a point. We are debating the issue as it is, not as it could be.”