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Wow this is a beautiful story, in some ways at least. I do agree our culture seems far more strict and less forgiving than it used to be.
Somewhere, someone that used to post here has a lovely little blog post about the gracelessness of "computer says no" type systems. Forgiveness, grace, is the product of trust and common culture. Or divinity.
Leaving that last option aside, our culture no longer has that kind of trust and common culture, the strong ties and little platoons that made that kind of forgiveness and tolerance possible.
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I think Decarlos Brown Jr. is a pretty good example of the problem with being too forgiving.
Weirdly we seem more forgiving in a legal context and less forgiving in a social context.
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