Should a person be rewarded or punished for the actions of another?
This question shouldn't prove that difficult. Yet, when my daughter had to answer it for school I was hard pressed to find a good answer. I was confident in my stance on this but to put it into words and argue it was a whole other matter.
At first you want to answer no. It doesn't seem fair. Why should someone else's actions cause me to be punished? That is when I realized that this answer cannot be answered as a strict yes or no. Like most things in life, it is not as cut and dry.
When a person joins a team, they agree to be part of a body. When one person messes up, it effects the whole team. When one person rolls a strike or hits a home run, the team feels the same effects. The rewards and the punishments do effect everyone else. No one screams that it is unfair. It is accepted as part of being a member of a team.
When a member of a family breaks the law, should the family also suffer the same punishment? Now, that is a different matter isn't it? When one person wins the lottery, should everyone get a piece of the pie? Though we want to say yes, it is not fair. In these situations, we would say no to that question.
How far should the results reach? I could now argue that when a person breaks the law, the family does suffer. They might not have to go to jail with them, but they do suffer. They do feel the pain. They do not escape. When someone wins the lottery, life changes. Other people are effected.
We might not all suffer the same fate and at times we just might. But we never get to avoid it totally. The actions of one person always effects someone else. Even the actions done in secret effect others and can destroy them. Why? Because we do not go through life alone. We are not solitary islands. We are all one body. We might be part of a family, a culture, a team, a church, but in the end we are part of mankind.
Should we receive punishment or reward for others actions? Yes, because we are together as one.
