Elizabeth Bruenig reflects on the emotional weight of witnessing executions in her July cover story for The Atlantic. Through her personal accounts and conversations, she examines the dual themes of mercy and revenge involved in capital punishment. Despite the graphic nature of her recounting, she emphasizes the importance of immersing the reader in the reality of death row, challenging the often abstract anti-death penalty arguments by grounding them in lived experiences and personal connections to the condemned.
I think when you're trying to convince a reader to oppose the death penalty, it's important to put people in the room to give them a sense of the personal experience.
In a 2020 New York Times article, you observed that arguments against the death penalty tend to be abstract, while arguments for it are visceral.
Collection
[
|
...
]