Teleology of The Smashing Pumpkins
Jesus was an only son
“Never let the summer catch you down / Never let your thoughts run free”
When Kevin Michael Scott killed my cousin Jeanie Diaz on July 15, 2023, I wonder what he felt when his car made impact.
When he got fucked up and plowed through the bus stop where Jeanie was waiting, I wonder if he had any presentiment of where this would take us all. Did her life flash before his eyes? Or just his own?
Today isn’t about my cousin. Today is about my rage.
“I used to be a little boy / So old in my shoes”
I’m not going to share my play-by-play reconstruction of the event. I don’t think I’m even really going to tell you about Jeanie; those memories will stay with me. I will jealously guard the summers I volunteered at the library where she worked: the corgi videos we laughed at, the silly memes we shared, the Smashing Pumpkins songs she adored.
She was a Siamese Dream type of woman. She loved Pisces Iscariot. She made me listen to Gish. Now when I dream, I dream of Crestfallen and Rhinoceros. Somewhere in our human cosmology there is a little time-loop where she’s dancing to Silverfuck over and over again.
Thanks to her, I started sneaking albums into my bedroom. Thanks to her, I learned so much about who I am — what I love, what I hate, the people I will fight for. I was viciously mocked in high school for my defense of the Pumpkins. I didn’t care. The music had already reached me.
Thanks to her, I learned what it’s like to laugh in public. Thanks to her, I learned that good is itself a force of rebellion.
“And if you’re sad, too / Until the angel sings in time she’s you”
Kevin Michael Scott initially pleaded not guilty. In March of this year, he was sentenced to 3 years in prison based on a plea deal for “criminally negligent homicide, DUII and reckless endangerment...[Scott] has access to sentence reduction programs and transitional leave, meaning this sentence can be slashed even more.”
When he emerges from prison, Scott will no longer have access to a driver’s license. He’ll need to bike, maybe. Or roller skate. Or take the bus.
Maybe he’ll have to wait at the stop where he slaughtered cousin Jeanie.
Jeanie Diaz was 43, with a long and healthy life ahead of her. Let’s be conservative and say that in another world — one where Kevin Michael Scott wasn’t so fucking evil — she would have lived to 75, less than the national life expectancy would suggest.
Basic math shows that Kevin Michael Scott will serve one year in prison for every ten he stole.
I’ve spent my first 28 years of life — fewer years, surely, than those Jeanie lost — worshiping the power of language and feeling to swap bodies. Now, in this moment, I dare not describe to you exactly how I feel.
Instead, let’s talk about the death penalty.
“Hold you up to the flames / And what do I get / For my pain?”
The state reserves the right to inflict punishment in accordance with the preservation of a system of justice. Utilitarian arguments commonly argue in favor of state-enacted criminal punishment for five purposes:
1. Incapacitation: punishment that prevents offenders from continuing their harm to society
2. Rehabilitation: punishment that prepares offenders to re-enter society once their sentence is complete
3. Restoration: punishment that ameliorates or restores injury to the aggrieved party
4. Deterrence: punishment that prevents crime through the enforcement of negative consequences
5. Retribution: punishment that is rendered because we as a society have agreed (through legislation enacted by democratically-elected representatives, through the judgments of peer-based juries, through the rulings of elected judges) that the offender deserves it.
The problem is that that last point, Retribution, is bullshit. To me, the state has no right to enforce punishment simply because the offender deserves it. To me, “eye for an eye” is a fundamentally unconvincing ideology — one that gives in to our primitive urges and denies us access to the higher-order humanity of which human beings are capable.
Human government needs laws in order to preserve the functioning of society. These laws must be enforceable by consequences. But as I see it, these are truly utilitarian arguments — not moral or ethical ones. I want the state to keep me and my property safe. I don’t want the state to enforce what is wrong or right: such an effort is a fundamental overreach of the social contract.
Kevin Michael Scott, the man who desecrated my cousin, has not been sentenced to death. Kevin Michael Scott, who took an endlessly beautiful life from the world, will serve (at most) three years in prison.
Let’s take this opportunity to go over the theory of punishment point-by-point in relation to the death penalty and explore why Kevin Michael Scott, the man who robbed life and light from my family, doesn’t deserve it.
1. Incapacitation: although a death sentence would certainly prevent Kevin Michael Scott from continuing to endanger those around him, there are other punishments that are equivalent. Such as a prison sentence. Say, 3 years.
2. Rehabilitation: a death sentence would make it difficult for Kevin Michael Scott to successfully rehabilitate and return to his prior role as a virulent parasite.
3. Restoration: we are currently limited by our collective imagination and technology. At this point in time, a death sentence for Kevin Michael Scott would do nothing to bring Jeanie back.
4. Deterrence: A death sentence for Kevin Michael Scott would certainly contribute to deterring others from committing the same crimes. For example: if Kevin Michael Scott was administered a botched lethal injection, he could easily choke out in tortured paralysis for 15 minutes or more. Or if Kevin Michael Scott was subjected to firing squad and they all missed his heart, he might bleed out with a whimpering voice that slowly fades. Or the image of Kevin Michael Scott frying his brain in the electric chair. Or the sound of Kevin Michael Scott wheezing in the gas chamber. Such punishments would contribute very well to the furtherance of deterrence.
5. Retribution: here’s the sticky one. Does Kevin Michael Scott deserve to die for what he did? That is a deeply personal question that engenders deeply personal answers. But as I mentioned earlier: it’s a question that no one — no jury, no judge, no embittered cousin — has the right to answer.
“Breathing underwater / And living under glass”
I’m writing this in my head while I water the garden. It’s a beautiful weekend morning; the sun warms my skin as the wind cools. A ladybug crawls up my shin. I’m letting the weeds and grasses grow long before I rip them from the earth.
It is better to live and die early than not to live at all.
So when Kevin Michael Scott killed my cousin Jeanie — when he turned her 43 years of life and joy into useless human meat in the span of what was, I hope, only an instant — I hope at least part of him is lost to the world forever. Then, at least, we can say a sliver of good came from such senseless, needless, and unexpected loss.
I hope that Kevin Michael Scott understands he is shielded by the uneven hand of Justice. I hope Kevin Michael Scott has to take that same bus stop when he goes to work. I hope Kevin Michael Scott has a conscience so that something in this world exists to punish him. I hope Kevin Michael Scott learns the face of a vengeful, angry god. In the balance of our shared experience, the body has done irreparable harm to itself. I hope that Kevin Michael Scott learns what it means to experience the world from a place of terrible deficit – pain whose accumulating interest is greater than he can ever repay.
Cheers, Jeanie. I miss you so much. You deserve so much better.
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Thank you for sharing this, Ethan. What a terrible, senseless loss. And how brave you are to face your emotions directly and describe them for us.
I'm so sorry for your loss. The pain is tough and never really truly goes away, but the wonderful memories of your cousin live with you.