danzbar/literature

T.S. Elliot's poem read by (is it?) Michael Gough. Anyway, it's most excellent, and stuff.

From the page: "If you asked the average man what crime Goering, Ribbentrop, and the rest are to be charged with at their trial, he cannot tell you. Somehow the punishment of these monsters ceases to seem attractive when it becomes possible: indeed, once under lock and key, they almost cease to be monsters."

They cease to look like monsters after you put them in a cage, but those who have what it takes to murder innocent people in droves have already committed to a road from which there is no return in this life. Sympathy for them would be cruelty to virtuous people.

It should be stated that some German prisoners of war were badly mistreated towards the end of WW2. This, too, cannot be condoned. But sympathy for cold-hearted butchers is another kind of attack on the soul of humankind. It's not right to torture them, but--if they act like bloodthirsty animals--cage them like bloodthirsty animals. And don't reconsider it easily, because it's well known psychopaths are talented at passing themselves off.

I like Orwell a lot, but I disagree with what he's saying here. That revenge is sour, I agree with. That attacking people who are helpless is wholly wrong, I agree with. That they should be deserving of any kind of sympathy, I just don't buy at all.