Forgiveness

As a society, we have become exceptionally bad at forgiveness. How much does anyone really deserve? Are they remorseful? What if they’ve changed? We barely know where to start anymore.But now that social media has been around for long enough that people who rose to infamy early on have, in many cases, had enough time to ‘grow up’, it’s important to decide how we judge others. So, when Lauren Southern — a free-speech activist or an alt-right neo-fascist, depending on your source — returns to the public eye seeking to revive ‘meaningful, sane conversation,’ how should she be treated?

In the fall of 2018, 31-year-old Lee Carter – a member of Virginia’s House of Delegates and a self-described socialist – took to Twitter to expose just about all the proverbial skeletons in his closet. His rationale: he wanted to air it before it showed up in opposition research. Some of it, such as his custody battle over his kid and an arrest for assault at Marine boot camp that was ‘quickly ruled self defense’ was the sort of thing that could have been used against any politician going back for generations. But other admissions were very specific to his having grown up in a world where everything is digitized – possibly permanently.