As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
— John 9 1:3
I wrote about this briefly in last week’s Penguindrum post: Kanba, Himari and Shouma believe they deserve to be punished for their parents’ sins. Himari deserves to get sick and die. It’s a punishment which she earned through the accident of birth. Before, I only mentioned how this idea is nothing new. People have been bigots for over two thousand years. Can’t say I’m surprised.
Roghek wrote a response today to my comments, elaborating on the biblical treatment of inheritance of the parent’s sins. It helped me to get my own thoughts in order, and made me realize what I had wanted to say before.
The thing is, I made this idea of blaming the children sound like it’s a problem of the past. People in biblical times were jerks who blamed children for being blind. Penguindrum is just a work of fiction: no one would blame Himari in real life. Right?
