There is no sort of wrong deed

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There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can’t isolate yourself and say that the evil that is in you shall not spread. Men’s lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe; evil spreads as necessarily as disease.

George Eliot

4 thoughts on “There is no sort of wrong deed”

  1. Quarantine has long been the first method of stopping contagion. Is Eliot suggesting we quarantine those infected with evil? If so, who judges what is evil?

    Prisons quarantine evil. Are we agreed that all prisoners are evil?

    We take prophylactic measures with disease. Should we take such measures with evil? Will such measures carry us into PKD’s vision of precrime?

    • I’m guessing he is referring to Philip K. Dick.

      Antares, I would suggest that prisons don’t effectively quarantine evil. Instead they teach the lesser incomers new depths, which they then practice on society when they emerge.

      • JM Ney-Grimm, Prisons do effectively quarantine evil. When prisoners are released — ’emerge’ — they are no longer quarantined.

        And, yeah, PKD = Philip Kindred Dick.

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