Economica
  • Hard News
  • Kajian
  • Penelitian
  • In-Depth
  • Sastra
  • Mild Report
  • Feature
No Result
View All Result
Economica
  • Hard News
  • Kajian
  • Penelitian
  • In-Depth
  • Sastra
  • Mild Report
  • Feature
No Result
View All Result
Economica
Home Opini

Does Social Sanction Justify the Means?

by Renadia Kusuma
16 April 2020
in Opini, Umum

Social sanction is a form of public reaction towards the attitude of a person or group. When the attitude violates the social norm, the person or group usually will get backlash from society as a result of negative sanction. Social sanction is usually used to frown, humiliate, and shame the violators. It mostly takes action in society when the law seems didn’t serve the justice well.

The Reality

I never experience social sanction in real life but I’ve witnessed some that happened on the internet. One of the examples is the viral public condemnation of a FEB student. In brief, the case involved a student who was accused of ridiculing a lecturer. The case popped up when a friend of the student wrote a tweet regarding the event in a humorous tone. From there, the story spread and garnered responses, both from students and fellow lecturers alike. Many people feel sorry for the lecturer, but there are also some people throwing hatred towards the alleged scornful student.

Social sanction relates to the result of consequence. There are always consequences in every action that we choose. For instance, if I cheated during the final exam in my high school and I got caught, I would get detention and have to redo my exam. That’s the consequence that I would have to take if I violated the school rules. It is the same with this ridiculement case. There wouldn’t be hate comments if the student didn’t ridicule the lecturer by muting him in a video conference class, or did a mischievous pose afterward in the first place. If he chooses to mock someone, they will have to take care of the consequences.

If law won’t serve justice, society will do. Society took action because they thought restorative justice won’t solve the ridiculement case. Many people then condemned and denounced the perpetrator, questioning the morality of a so-called high education student. Society wanted the alleged mocker to regret his behavior by giving public humiliation on the internet. We can see that the power in society is surreal and we don’t want to be guilty or else we’ll end up in public humiliation.

When the case became viral within a day, it also reached the downfall in the same week. It turns out that the story is exaggerated and faked. The student wasn’t muting the lecturer intentionally. He was merely trying to mute himself but ended up muting the whole class, not just the perpetrator. Now that the society was already humiliating the alleged mocker which now seems like the victim too, who should we blame? Society then feels disappointed and betrayed as all the efforts to fight justice look meaningless. 

It Can’t Serve Justice in Some Ways

Social sanction seems promising at the beginning but it’s actually ironic. It is ironic because it looks more like an act of revenge rather than serving justice. Putting aside the fake news, if society really wanted justice to be served, they should’ve focused on the victim instead of humiliating the perpetrator. Humiliating or shaming the perpetrators too much means we are making the perpetrators suffer by it. Yes, it is the consequence that they have to deal with. But then, aren’t we just the same with the guilties if we serve justice by making them suffer more? 

After everything went south, social sanction in the end cannot serve justice. People feel right when they give sanction, they feel like a hero because they fight for justice. Nevertheless, these people weren’t actually fighting for justice. Sending hate comments and death threats are aimed to make the perpetrators regret their action but there is also a possibility where the perpetrators hold their grudge and may do violence in the future as revenge.

Social sanction can serve justice if it’s done rationally without being emotionally driven. Public shaming and humiliation are still needed to embarrass the perpetrators, but doing it too much won’t give us any benefit instead it only feeds our ego. For this case, I would rather see the condemned and the alleged victim to reconcile with each other and straighten up the misunderstanding.

Perhaps society wasn’t that nice, we were just the lesser evil. After all, we are the third party in this case. We aren’t relatives or friends, we were just people that were influenced by the virality of news. We are trapped in this situation where we thought we were standing with the victim but we are actually turning ourselves into one. This is where social sanction becomes tricky. There is no legal sign to show who has the rights to humiliate. It just happens naturally in our society. With that being said, legal law is still needed before executing social sanction whether in real life or the internet.

 

Editor: Philipus Susanto

Foto: Istockphoto.com

Tweet172

Discussion about this post

POPULER

  • Pancasila di antara Sosialisme dan Kapitalisme

    6365 shares
    Share 2546 Tweet 1591
  • Program dan Kebijakan Kesehatan Mental, Tanggung Jawab Siapa?

    6203 shares
    Share 2481 Tweet 1551
  • Over-socialization: Is Social Media Killing Your Individuality?

    3800 shares
    Share 1520 Tweet 950
  • Pendidikan Seks di Indonesia: Tabu atau Bermanfaat?

    3576 shares
    Share 1430 Tweet 894
  • Indikasi Kecurangan Tim Futsal Putri FT UI dalam Olim UI 2019

    3233 shares
    Share 1293 Tweet 808
  • Tentang
  • Kontak
  • Kebijakan Privasi

© 2019 Badan Otonom Economica

No Result
View All Result
  • Hard News
  • Kajian
  • Penelitian
  • In-Depth
  • Sastra
  • Mild Report
  • Feature
Situs ini menggunakan cookie. Dengan menggunakan situs ini Anda memberikan izin atas cookie yang digunakan.

Selengkapnya Saya Setuju
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT