One of the enduring tropes that keeps on coming up in stories, is the idea of the redemption arc. This is because one of the things that we expect of stories, is a contained narrative that has some kind of central conflict which resolves itself and we can go away happy. A protagonist (and sometimes a villain) will go through some kind of narrative progression and learn something about themselves or other people, which changes them; presumably for the better. They will learn something about the power of teamwork or friendship, maybe discover some kind of inner strength or perhaps learn about the very thing which made them so horrible. The idea of the redemption arc is a nice story structure because it speaks to our somewhat blind and stupid hope that people are generally nice; despite and perhaps in spite of the evidence that the kosmos presents.
So ingrained is the idea of the redemption arc, that we apply narrative structure to the real world and expect that the world will conform to our presupposed and designed idea; when that clearly is not the case in so many instances.
When Will Smith punched Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars, he instantly became in the eyes of the public, an identity of notoriety or an otherwise bad person. His use of violence and his employment of angry and bad language, more than overcame the almost forgotten fact that Chris Rock had been deliberately offensive in the name of getting cheap laughs. I am not by any means condoning the actions of Will Smith but I suspect that there will be a passage of time, where an announcement is made that he is undergoing anger management training, and then at some point will be restored into the Hollywood firmament as a slightly different but still brightly shining star.
Will Smith is deemed as the kind of person who can go through a redemption arc because the presumption before this was that he is generally a nice person. Thus, he will disappear for a while in the same way that Russell Crowe did after the telephone throwing incident and then probably appear in another Hollywood film, after having being embraced by the movie community by about 2025. This is different to Mel Gibson who is still deemed to be irredeemable, after making anti-Semitic remarks.
In 2020 during the opening of the COVID-19 pandemic, sport around the world had been shut down and about the only sports which could try and present something which resembled a normal sporting broadcast was motorsports who jumped on the virtual/esports bandwagon. Various drivers from series all over the world, migrated to simulator rigs at home and this is what got one driver in trouble.
NASCAR driver Kyle Larson who was participating in a series which wasn't even broadcast, used the n-word online and news of this leaked out into the real world. The ramifications of this were almost immediate. His sponsors left him. He was fired from his employment as a race car drive at Chip Ganassi Racing and was without a job at the worst possible time. Nevertheless, when motor racing did start up again, he drove in lesser series and went on to win loads of races.
The window of circumstance opened and Kyle Larson found himself with an opening at Hendrick Motorsport; following the departure of a seven-time NASCAR Champion. Kyle Larson made good on the faith placed in him and we went on to win a lot of races in 2021 and became the 2021 Champion. Thus, redemption arc worked out and completed itself.
The Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, did a pretty good job of covering up an affair that he was having with a staff member inside the parliament building and so good was that cover up job, that the revelation of anything going on, only came into the light when it was announced that she was having a baby.
Extramarital business has probably been going on on places of power since the invention of any form of government; so we aren't really that surprised when it does happen. The media went through its usual washing of hands, the government announced a "Bonk Ban" and Barnaby Joyce was stood down as both the Deputy Prime Minister and the leader of the National Party.
Nevertheless, after a period of time for the general public to have immediately forgotten and therefore immediately withdrawn scathing judgement, Barnaby Joyce was voted back into the position of the leader of the National Party and with it, the Deputy Premiership.
Time and time again, with sufficient passage of time and incident of immediate outrage will fade from the public consciousness until having put sufficiently far back enough in the past, it then ceases to matter of import in the present. Of course there are some actions which are so heinous which should never be forgiven of forgotten but in general, because we all have to admit that every single one of us are flawed, imperfect, stupid, obnoxious, daft, and do stupid and horrible things, we are prepared to forgive that in other people and provided it doesn't affect the present, we're fine with it.
What's also interesting is that depending on the context of the incident, something which may have been seen as really bad by one group of people, might very easily be forgiven by the general public at large.
This is why I have the question in principle about a former marketing manager and public speaker for a record label, who may have had an extra-marital affair with someone, and my question is one of how long it would take for that person to disappear from the public eye and then return in some kind of redemption arc. This thing is perhaps too close in the memory that it will happen in 2022 but if the parliament goes full-term, then we will be next back to the polls in 2025. From here that seems like an eternity away and so that's perfect if we are talking about a redemption arc. Is three years a sufficient amount of time for the public to conclude that they have served their time in the wilderness and that the people of the area might consider him to be their elected representative in parliament?
The problem with the redemption arc being applied to the real world is that life often doesn't resolve itself that neatly. Events and circumstances which led to someone being sent into the wilderness for a period are often changing for not only the person in question but changing of the world which is immediately around them. Sometimes the consequences of someone's actions are so horrendous that a redemption arc is simply not sensible.
The other problem the redemption arc being applied to the real world is that is that statements made by the person who have gone into the wilderness for a period might be untrue. The person might protest that they have changed and learnt something but if that is patently untrue, then restoring a person who has not changed their ways might inadvertently cause future damage. Character is a very deep thing which is formed over decades and unless an event is shattering to the person who has been sent into exile, then they will mostly be the same person and perhaps galvanised after the event.
Having said all of this, I think that moral imperatives to forgive people stem from the unavoidable fact that without exception, everyone is terrible. By extending forgiveness to someone who has done an awful thing, we in part build character and decency in ourselves because in doing so, it demonstrates that terrible people are at least semi-capable of being our better selves.
That possibility that we actually can be better selves, is probably the thing which fuels and powers our blind and stupid hope that people are generally nice; despite evidence to the contrary. I suppose that our blind and stupid hope that the world will conform to our presupposed and designed idea of the redemption arc, probably also contains the corollary that if we ourselves were to do something horrible and awful enough that we would be banished to exile in the wilderness, that we too would go through a redemption arc but that is contingent on the kosmos, or rather the people in the kosmos, who are also terrible people, extending forgiveness to us. That might be one of the hardest paradoxes in the kosmos to unravel.
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