The popularity of disaster movies expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.
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Guilt is often an appropriate response to wrongdoing, but punishment impedes the development of a conscience by taking away the opportunity for him to feel guilty. He has no chance to develop inner motivation.
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Before a thunderstorm there is a build-up of tension which is only relieved by the explosive force of thunder and lightning. In human affairs there must be a clear distinction between the penalties for small and great crimes. Retribution for wrongdoing must be swiftly and surely applied if greater problems are to be prevented.
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He who is present at a wrongdoing and does not lift a hand to prevent it, is as guilty as the wrongdoers.
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The gods, likening themselves to all kinds of strangers, go in various disguises from city to city, observing the wrongdoing and the righteousness of men.
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Post-Watergate morality, by which anything left private is taken as presumptive evidence of wrongdoing.
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Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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For a good cause, wrongdoing is virtuous.
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