The Prescription
An entry from the protagonist's journal:
I agree with the Mayor's statement on his channel that the acceptance of bribes is not what constitutes as corruption, but the very idea that one could be offered, that too with impunity. Of course, he went on how accepting it is just as bad, but he did make a good point on the unproportional amount of blame put out on the receiver. The comments section was mostly negative. I left a sentence in agreement with his opinion. A couple of hours later, this is the reply I received:
"It is true that the lack of proper machinery in our jurisprudence emboldens the section of society who dabble in such bureaucracy. It is also true that the brazen abatement of such actions by the granter of the crime is not looked down upon hard enough. But let me ask you this, how much is enough? Would you be satisfied when all the family members of the miscreants who accept infidel wealth are also roped in during sentencing? Or, or, when all officers chosen to uphold the structural integrity of the engine that powers society are surveilled 24/7, their every action carefully monitored and peer reviewed, will it then be enough for our moral compass to start working again?"
I was taken aback. Out of fear I could not understand, I deleted my comment; its message, I don't know what to make of it. I get what this character is saying, like, little bit. All we mostly do is shame the corrupted and never check to see if the corruptor is corrupted or not? And then maybe the point next raised would be does the corrupted hold any responsibility for succumbing to such transgressions, and if so, to whom and on what account? If the answer is Yes, then to what extent is the gullible to behave? Should they resist an infinite number of times? If yes, then what is so important that only an infinite number of requests will result in victory? Shouldn't such sensitive things be stored somewhere more safe? I mean, I just run a substandard print media organization solely by myself, what do I know about such things?
But if the answer is no, shave your head and get a hair transplant. The recovery time, alone, will distract you from harassing a person who is only trying to make a little extra - probably for the family. The problem with answering 'Yes' is that you, yourself, have to prove your command over the knowledge that grants you such wisdom. And if you have the supreme knowledge then all whose soul got poisoned should be - by definition - innocent? If they didn't know, like actually don't know anything, how is it their fault? And the supreme knowledge must have some addendums about going easy on the ignorant, or else, those learned beings are threats to our civilised society. If they show no empathy then what keeps them from coming to the conclusion that They are superior than everyone around them. Maybe, that's how corruptors are born. Maybe, that's why nobody ever bothers anything with them. The people see themselves in the corruptor, they even may resonate with them, want to be like them but can't, so in their vitriol, they take it out on the accidentally righteous. You know, knock 'em down a peg, keep them humble. Decorum has to be maintained amongst the meek, don't ask too many questions or else you will get the likes of #hennythingispossible314 hounding at your wake.
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