Do we live in a vengeance society? One where laws are less important that satisfying society's bloodlust?

Hmm. I have thought that about American society often, but I don’t see either of the cases you cited as examples of this. Can you explain how these cases relate to the kind of society you are describing?

Criticism on the Internet is punishment?

That much seems obvious.

Anyone famous is free game for those who aren’t.

I do get where your coming with this,I like how some ripped apart your examples, I think for the most part yes.

For the most part, yes. People aren’t civilized enough to assume innocence before guilt is proven, or wait until the second part of the story is told. String ‘em up now, and if we’re wrong, we’ll have fun placing blame later.

It’s hysteria more than it is lust. We get swayed by the media and our brains only look at the big picture.

@dappled_leaves – without rehashing the arguments in each of those cases .. I would say that the consistent theme is jumping to conclusions and demanding punishment without being in command of all the facts.

Let me put it this way – if I were accused of something, I wouldn’t see the Fluther community (and for that matter, the media) as a making up a fair jury without preconceived conclusions.

Reactionary bullshit is what you get from the herd.

Well that’s why we have the whole trial and jury thing. In some societies, an accusation is enough to get your head cut off.

Steven Hawkings just siad recently that the biggest threat to mankind was aggression.
We are massively over populated and with that comes more aggression as in any animal society from rats to Lions. The issue isn;t society, it is mass over population that, by sheer numbers, increases aggression, mental illness and base survival instincts.
Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten.

@elbanditoroso Ok, I guess I see where you’re coming from – it wasn’t obvious to me that it was the prosecution who you saw being punished in each of these cases. Personally, I think the judge in the Quebec case was in the wrong, but I don’t know what sort of censure could possibly be brought against her. And I don’t think that the teen in the suicide case actually committed a crime, unless it was something like harassment.

Some people have certainly had excessive reactions in each case… but I’m still not sure that those overreactions qualify as “vengeance” or “bloodlust”, which seem to require violence to me. When I think of your phrase “vengeance society”, I think of things like capital punishment; what I see in these cases is more like a call for people to take responsibility for bad actions.

We’ve been this way for thousands of years. We just give it more publicity now that we have the internet and 24/7 reporting.

It’s part of human nature. There are studies into this in game theory and behavioral economics called strong reciprocity. In studies participants are paired up and given an opportunity to to divide a sum of money the researchers pay them. In one scenario, if one particpant takes more than they should the other can actually pay out of their own pocket some amount of money that will guarantee that the one who “cheated” him gets nothing. Rational economics would say that you’re better off walking away and not paying anything and allow the other guy to get away with screwing you over. Experimental evidence seems to show that human nature isn’t rational, and that we are willing to make a personal sacrifice against our own optimal economical interest to get revenge.

This isn’t directly related to your examples, but I think it speaks to how our brains are hardwired. There is strong evolutionary benefits to having societies “keep each other honest.” Even animals have been shown to have an understanding of “justice.” Here’s an interesting article on the subject with chimps.

I asked the question I did because I was curious about how people felt about it, nothing more. Hopefully you didn’t take me asking a simple question as a sign than I thought the girl should be flogged or something. Though in that case, it’s hard to imagine it was anyone but her that sent the messages and encouraged him to kill himself. I still don’t see how discussing the matter – even if people are saying she should be held responsible in ways if she is guilty – equates to outright vengeance.

I fail to see where “the Canadian judge who wouldn’t let the hijab-wearing woman testify” is an example of “society’s bloodlust”.

“No doubt, this isn’t limited to just the past week – there are any number of examples of “vengeance lust” dating back 100+ years.”
I think this might have been well addressed in William Golding’s 1954 novel, “Lord of the Flies”.

One of the rules of stoning was that no single stone could be large enough to cause death. Where would the catharsis be in that?

Nothing like a good old fashioned flogging.