Let’s not get tone deaf to killings

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The aftermath of the Lindsay Clancy case, with some women in the United States now insisting that they have the right to kill their children, reminded me of an incident that Os Guinness recounts in his book Time for Truth.

Professor Kay Haugaard of California had taught Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery for more than two decades. At first, the response to the story of human sacrifice was one of outrage. However, with the passage of time, the reaction in her classes changed.

One night, Professor Haugaard encountered no moral response to the story. One student who was passionate about saving whales and preserving rainforests expressed no concern at all. Another said, “If it’s a part of a person’s culture, we are taught not to judge ... .” Professor Haugaard said she eventually gave up.

This account by Professor Haugaard illustrates the moral slippage in many parts of the world. According to Dr Guinness, the notion of evil has shifted from being “’sin’ defined theologically, to being ‘crime’ defined legally, to being ‘sickness’ defined only in psychological categories”.

Atrocities such as the killing of one’s own children are no longer unequivocally condemned, as such acts now fall within shades of grey. For Jamaicans, having grown numb to the daily killings, let us not forget that the taking a life is a horrible act. The taking of the life of a child can only be horror of horrors.

S. RICHARDS