Crime and Punishment

In the Scandinavian mysteries I've been watching they give someone a ludicrously short jail sentence for killing somebody. Don't they give a shit? That was my reaction, but then I saw it differently.

It means that they understand that society is implicated. It is more individualistic, I soon understood, than the mythological, American view. It sees people as they are, incomprehensible out of context.

And dependent on the circumstances of their lives. Real individualism is rooted in realism. Real individualism understands that autonomy can only exist with a strong social system for support.

Real individualism is about balance.