我們應該承擔道德責任

　　8月31日BBC聽力：咱們應當承當品德義務

　　Sometimes an event in the news can suddenly resonate with a religious text and make youthink more deeply. This past Saturday in synagogue we were reading a strange law from thebook of Deuteronomy. It says that if someone is found murdered outside a town the elders ofthe nearest town have to undergo a penitential ritual and say a prayer for absolution thatcontains the words, “Our hands did not shed this blood.”

　　It’s odd because no one was accusing them. But what the Bible is really saying is, did we createan environment in which such a crime could happen? Did we give the victim shelter? Did weprotect them? Did we do all we could to make sure the roads were safe at night? We weren’tlegally responsible for their death but were we in some larger sense morally responsible? Can wereally say, our hands did not shed this blood?

　　As I say, it’s an odd law. But then two days ago we were shocked by the terrible murder of atelevision journalist and a cameraman in America while their programme was actually on air. Ourfirst thoughts clearly must be with their families, their colleagues and their grief. And of coursethe explanations for the crime have been forthcoming. The killer was a man who thought he hadbeen dismissed from the station because of prejudice and he was determined to takerevenge. Having done so, he then killed himself. Case closed. And in a legal sense, it is.

　　But sometimes we have to ask the wider question of moral responsibility. It’s not just theabsence of gun control in the United States. Ten years ago it was estimated that an averageAmerican child will see 16,000 murders on television by the age of eighteen. Two weeks ago, theAmerican Psychological Association issued a report claiming a connection between violent videogames and aggressive behaviour. And it’s not just America. As I was checking these facts onmy computer, a pop up ad for a game repeatedly came on showing a man spraying machine gunbullets. Worldwide we live in an age in which spectacular acts of violence have become thequickest way of commanding attention, and in an age of information overload, that’s thescarcest commodity of all.

　　Which brings us back to the Bible. When a society condones the glamorization of violence, wehave to think long and hard before we can say, Our hands did not shed this blood.

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