In this play, we see an interesting characteristic of the irrationality of the powerful vs the rationality of the weak. In the middle of the play we see Pentheus, a mortal man, punish Dionysus, a relatively powerful demigod, by sending the latter to the dungeon. This type of punishment would fit the supposed crime that Dionysus had committed and would thus be classified as rational. Yet, at the end of the play, Dionysus creates an elaborate plan to brutally punish Pentheus by having his own mother rip him to pieces and braggingly carry his head around as a trophy. One would be hard pressed to argue that this punishment is rational for any crime. And thus, we see the strange paradox that people with power will act irrationally while those who are weaker will generally act rationally – with respect to punishing others.
I saw this exact same phenomenon in the military. While I was a new cadet at the United States Military Academy, those in charge of me put me through some rigorous tasks. On the whole, the cadre will fairly mean, but an occasion arose in which I could have gotten my commanding officer in a great deal of trouble for a mistake that he made. In my current, “weak” status, the idea of punishing my commanding officer, who had already felt guilty enough for his mistake, seemed unfair and irrational to me. I chose to let his punishment be self-inflicted and move on with life. A few years later, the roles reversed and I was in charge of training the new cadets. A bizarre change occurred while I was in command. I had the irrational urge to punish the new cadets as fiercely as was legally permissible.
In retrospect, I link my irrational, punishment tendencies to that power that I held over the new cadets. The power turned to pride – a pride that felt tainted and slighted when the new cadets made mistakes. I felt it was a personal insult to me when they would mess up and therefor punished them severely. Whereas when I was the new cadet, void of any power, I saw no reason for excessive irrational punishment.
