Sitting at the dinner table, for a delicious but also typical meal of chips and hot sauce, rice, beans, nachos, and tacos, the topic, after having exhausted discussions of national politics and religious philosophy, turned to the events of the day. In between chips loaded with hot sauce, and nachos with cheese, guacamole, and sour cream, we heard a rather dark tale of a small 1st grade boy who, in an effort to get ahead, had taken a set of tickets from the teacher's desk, and then lied about the theft. He claimed to have found the tickets in his desk by saying they had suddenly "shown up." When questioned, he finally admitted to the theft, the lie, and the desire to cheat the other students. It was not a good moment for the little boy.
In the discussion that evening, we tried to determine the cause for the event including the general character of the student, the students' family background, the circumstances of the day, the position of the moon in the sky, the upcoming weather change, the sinful nature of man, the lack of accountability in our modern world, the effects of media on human behavior, the disintegrating moral fiber of our current culture, and the inevitable "kids these days" cliche'. Following this enlightening conversation, we entered into various ideas for appropriate punishment with the goal of how to deter future negative behavior. Several suggestions were put forth involving physical pain, hard labor, formal apologies, suspension, time-out, and various deprivation methods. In this enjoyable conversation, we turned to Joel to get his view of the best punishment.
Joel, our autistic 17 year old son, did not know how to relate to this conversation. The whole concept of someone who would lie, cheat, or steal is difficult, maybe even impossible, for Joel to envision. Furthermore, to fabricate an appropriate set of consequences for such action is completely beyond the scope of his thought processes. After realizing that Joel did not understand most of our conversation, I asked him what he thought would happen to him if he were to lie, cheat, or steal.
The unusual expression on his face is difficult to describe. Something akin to confusion but with more emotion behind it. I was a bit surprised since Joel tends to express his thoughts without much emotion. His face revealed a form of determination and conviction as he made the statement, "It will never happen, I will never do any of those things." We laughed, knowing that a person who makes such a statement is probably lying to himself. While we, as civilized human beings, have a desire to behave according to the law legislated by the government, and hopefully use important documents such as the Bible, as the authoritative written word guiding our moral framework, it remains difficult to uphold a high standard of expectation in all situations.
One cannot help but be moved by the story of Jean Valjean, the protagonist in Victor Hugo's marvelous novel Les Miserables, sentenced to 19 years of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread in order to feed his starving family. Although it feels unjust to us to punish him for something he did out of necessity and out of compassion, at the same time we justify this in our minds by acknowledging he did, indeed, commit a crime. Did the punishment far exceed the crime? Certainly. Did he more than pay for his mistake? No question about that. And yet, his initial crime was a crime of choice in that he made the decision to take the bread knowing the possibility of the consequences of his action.
Joel does not have the ability to make those choices. He knows the rules and follows them. Stealing, lying, or cheating are mysteries to him due to not existing in his experience. Because of this, he cannot devise an appropriate punishment. The laws of cause and effect in the case of breaking the rules, are not in Joel's emotional makeup. He cannot fathom a punishment since he does not comprehend the crime. His innocence is not necessarily out of choice but rather out of natural character. The rest of us often have to work at doing the right thing, for Joel it is easy!
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