innocence redefined

Lexicon Webster’s defines innocence as the state of being “free from guilt, knowing nothing of evil, naïve or simple-minded, harmless, benign and in a rhetorical sense, devoid.” Such a positive description for a word, which, in the same context as love & hate, connotes several meanings, results in fixing the perception of the majority on innocence as anything but bad. When a young child shatters an expensive jar he doesn’t receive the same punishment a mature child gets for breaking the same jar, since the young child after all doesn’t know what he is doing compared to the mature one. This type of innocence is naïveté. On the other hand conventional innocence speaks of a person proven to be not guilty in a trial accusing him of murder. Through these examples, one can infer that innocence saves you from punishment, criticism and to an extremity, condemnation. This kind of belief is known as the “Pontius Pilate mentality,” derived from the New Testament politician who sentenced Jesus Christ to death. In the Bible, Pilate believed that Christ did no wrong as opposed to the high priests who accused him of blasphemy. Still, in fear of the crowd, Pilate “unwillingly” condemned Jesus, and then washed his hands so as to say to everyone including God that he was not responsible for Jesus’ death. However, after Christ rose from the dead and has sent the apostles to all ends of the world, Pontius Pilate became known all over as the one who put Jesus to death.
What then, does this say about innocence? In this age when the truth can easily be manipulated with a snap of a finger, the last thing you may want to happen is to have yourself proven guilty for a crime you did not (or did) commit. Because of this, people tend to abuse their innocence in more ways than one. You bear witness to secretive drug dealing between two students in your school, but for fear of being involved or for no reason at all, you kept silent thinking that there’s no wrong in being quiet about it; as the weeks ensued, the school found out that half of your classmates have been doing drugs so ALL of them were expelled. You cheated on your mathematics examination yet it was your seatmate (who was the unwary victim of your cheating) who was punished by the faculty; still you persisted you had nothing to do with it so your seatmate was suspended. It was New Year’s Eve and you lit up your fireworks then threw them at a dark corner so as to welcome the new year; when the fireworks exploded everyone heard a scream as an old man got his limbs amputated due to the explosions, still you claim you did no wrong as you did not know there was a person walking on that corner. Yes, these scenes are downright ugly and further abuse of innocence can do things worse than the cited examples. While both wrong naïveté and deception of the “guiltless” can cause serious damage, it is the other kind that’s the most dangerous. This kind of innocence is known the world over as indifference- the feeling of nothing, the sin Pilate committed. If there is something God hates more than committing sin, it’s refusing to do good acts. Had you told the teachers about the drug dealing, then your classmates would have been spared from the expulsion and the effects of drugs. Had you called the police when you saw your neighbor beating up his wife, she wouldn’t have been killed. The danger of being indifferent and “innocent” is that one person is bound to suffer; in the same way the complainant grieves as the suspect is found “not guilty.”
I’m not saying however that innocence leads to evil, as it is up to the person on how he uses it. It is of vital importance therefore that one should not remain indifferent to the needs of others. After all, one man’s innocence is another man’s casualty.