The Exonerated, Response to Ming

I was struck by Ming’s response to The Exonerated, especially her exploration of Jon Stewart’s idea of the “one-to-one,” the self-contradiction and disingenuousness of political commentary. I wanted to think of this idea, the “one-to-one,” in a different context. While reading the play I could not help but be struck by the way that all of my reactions of moral indignation—what Lionel Trilling called the preferred emotion of the middle class—relied on my perception of the innocence of those sentenced to die. My moral indignation required the injustice of the innocent being charged as guilty. Yet, I can’t help but wonder if it may be more productive to think of the problem in terms of a logical indignation, in which the very problem of a legal system that can change its mind or make two opposite rulings on the same case, can also be seen as the source of the problem. Although, on a personal level, especially for those represented in the play, the question of guilt and innocence is of the utmost importance, it need not be for a discussion of the systemic problem of American law and law enforcement. In this view the “one-to-one” is a problem within the very structure of the legal system itself.