One of my favorite writers is a man who writes under the nom de plume Theodore Dalrymple. He worked for years as a doctor in the British prison system so he knows a thing or two about evil, culture (and the decline thereof) and criminal justice. Some French intellectual (a professor natch) in Le Monde wrote an op-ed calling for the abolition of prisons because too many prisoners commit suicide and because French prisons are bad and humiliating for the inmates. Dalrymple has a few things to say about that:
I once had a patient who had had the words ‘Fuck off’ tattooed on his forehead in mirror writing. When I asked him for the reason for this, he said that it was to wake him up in the morning when he looked at himself in the glass. It never failed, he said.
Newspapers perform more or less the same function for me. There is always something in them to irritate me profoundly, and there is nothing quite like irritation to get the juices circulating and the mind working. Oddly enough, only the print version of a newspaper, not the online one, has this tonic effect upon me; perhaps this is a conditioned response. I am like one of Pavlov’s dogs, who salivated at the sound of a bell. I have only to hold a newspaper in my hand to feel a pleasant frisson of outrage coming on.
Whenever I am in France, I read the French newspapers (the French read fewer newspapers than any other nation in the western world, by the way). There is always plenty in them to infuriate me, and so they are well worth the reading; for it must be confessed that indignation is one of the most rewarding of all emotions, as well as one that automatically gives meaning to life. When one is indignant, one does not wonder what life is for or about, the immensity of the universe does not trouble one, and the profound and unanswerable questions of the metaphysics of morals are held temporarily in abeyance.
The other day – well, on Saturday, 5th September, to be exact – I opened Le Monde to the page called ‘Debates.’ The page was devoted to prisons in France, where conditions are acknowledged by almost everyone to be very bad. The prisons are overcrowded; there is much violence between prisoners; the staff, according to Dr. Dominique Vasseur, who wrote a best-selling book about her time as a doctor working in the largest prison in Paris, are callous and often corrupt. If her book is to be trusted – and no one, I think, has suggested that she was lying or grossly exaggerating – prisons in France are far worse than those across the Channel, which themselves are by no means always model institutions.
Prison reform is an honourable cause; and while I don’t agree with Churchill, that a nation’s level of civilisation can be gauged by the way in which it treats its prisoners, I have always opposed the brutality that can so easily pervade what Erving Goffman called ‘a total institution.’ In the prison in which I worked, I insisted to the staff that their ascendancy over the prisoners must be moral rather than merely physical; and that, while they could be sometimes stern, they must always be fair. Moreover, they should always remember that, in prison, small things become large; and therefore, if they have promised something to a prisoner, they must always fulfil their promise. For otherwise the prisoner will be eaten up by a sense of grievance, and there is nothing like grievance to prevent a man from examining his own responsibility for his situation.But half the page of Le Monde was taken up with a plea for the greatest reform of prison of all: total abolition. It was written by a teacher of philosophy at a lycee, one of the elite state schools of the country; and if it were not for the fact that many young people tend to believe exactly the opposite of what their teacher teaches them, I would have said that he must be a corrupter of youth. It is odd that a man who presumably has spent a large part of his life on abstract questions should show such little capacity for critical thought. In him, at any rate, the Cartesian spirit is dead.
The article’s title is: “An absurd system in a modern democracy.” The headline continues: “Over and above humiliation, it has become more murderous than the death penalty.”
What’s French for throwing the baby out with the bath water?
Here’s the kicker… and there’s a whole lot more at the link above…
What would our author have instead of prisons? He says that he would build institutions designed by men and women who really wanted to look after wrongdoers, not institutions built by ‘betonneurs,’ those who construct in raw concrete. (Here, in his contempt of those who build in concrete, I agree with him.) But what kind of institutions would these be?
Here we come to the heart of his outlook, and that of many like him. He says that those prisons that are salubrious as buildings should be converted into ‘places of social reintegration,’ not only for those who have committed a crime, but for those ‘socially disintegrated people’ who have committed no crime: tramps, perhaps, or schizophrenics in need of rehabilitation. In other words, criminals are not to be marked out from any other people with difficulties of one sort or another, or treated differently from them.
The desire to blur limits and boundaries, in order to overturn society, has long marked out a certain kind of leftist. Because in social phenomena there are always borderline cases, they wish to undermine the very idea of categories. They are like people who would deny that anyone is tall because there is a fine gradation between tallest and shortest. Thus, because some things were considered crimes that are so considered no longer, and some things that were once legal that are now deemed criminal, they deny that the crime is anything other that an arbitrary social construction. A criminal is someone who merely has difficulty in his relations with society as some men have difficulties in their relations with their wives (and vice versa). What more natural, therefore, than that they should all attend the same day care centre, where they will be cured of their difficulties by psychological means?
‘It is necessary,’ says the author, ‘that the punished person should understand his mistake.’ Prison is obviously not the place for this; he comes out with as little understanding of his ‘mistake’ as he went in with. He therefore needs some kind of psychotherapy until he gains the requisite insight. We can see the Socratic paradox underlying this: that no man does wrong knowingly. There is no such thing as a wicked man.
This does violence not only to our knowledge of the behaviour of others, but to our self-knowledge. Which of us has never done wrong knowingly? Indeed, under most jurisdictions, a person is not guilty of a crime unless he has the requisite mens rea, a guilty mind, which implies the ability to have acted differently if he had so chosen.
There is no recognition whatsoever in the article that the purpose of the criminal law is to protect the population from criminals, not to make criminals better people. Of course, it would be nice if they became better people, as indeed they often do with the passage of time; but criminal justice is not group therapy. It is, moreover, preposterous, and deeply condescending, to suggest that criminals do not know what they are doing, and that what they need is therefore some kind of help to know it. As for calling crimes a ‘mistake,’ equivalent, shall we say, to putting the wrong postage on a letter or forgetting to put salt in the soup, it empties the world of all moral meaning whatever.
There is in the article a moral exhibitionism, which is generosity of spirit at other people’s expense. This, I think, is one of the sicknesses of our age, the desire to appear more-compassionate-than-thou. I suspect that, in his heart of hearts, the author does not believe a word of what he says: a common thing among intellectuals.
I’ve often wondered if intellectuals actually believe the crap they spout because some of it so against common sense and experience as to be beyond fairy-tale level thinking. Which of course begs the question — “To what end would someone of above average intelligence suggest such an obviously ludicrous and damaging idea?” Is it really merely a love of hearing oneself talk? That would be the ultimate in that greatest of sins — pride.
There’s a scene in Stanley Kubrick’s film Paths of Glory where Adolphe Menjou’s character says “There are few things more fundamentally encouraging and stimulating than seeing someone else die.” Kirk Douglas’ character Col. Dax looks at him incredulously and says “General, do you honestly believe any of the things you’ve just said?” Of course Menjou’s look says it all… but proceed with the execution he does. It seems Paul Johnson was right — Intellectuals are people who love ideas (especially their own) more than people.
Print
Digg
StumbleUpon
del.icio.us
Facebook
Yahoo! Buzz
Twitter
Google Bookmarks
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
MSN Reporter
MySpace
Orkut
Ping.fm
Reddit
RSS
Slashdot
Technorati
Tumblr
Webnews.de
Nice to come across another Theodore Dalrymple fan!
My take on the subject: Perhaps the reason why intellectuals say so many demonstrably idiotic things — I believe the technical term is “nitwittery” — stems from a rejection of a Jewish proverb that Dennis Prager often repeats on his program: “Wisdom begins with fear of God.”
Most intellectuals adhere to a fully secular, leftist philosophy that puts equality (and its cousin, compassion) above all else. And as nature is not the friend of equality (by nature, I mean the real world, as in “what exists outside the walls of academia”), equality is put above nature. Hence cultural relativism, moral relativism, relativism relativism, the sexes are the same, criminals just need a hug, etc.
But, whether I’m right or way off the mark, I do agree fully with the inimitable Paul Johnson.
Jonathan… That proverb is in Ecclesiastes and Proverbs as well I believe and that is spot on. The lack of an external unchanging standard (Standard if you will) makes “self” the highest thing… and Lord knows we’re a fickle bunch.
Dalrymple has had his life and perceptions tested through the medium of the prison system. I would have to bet that among people writing in the blogosphere, his view is probably the least shaped by wishful thinking nor belief in the perfectibility of human nature…well, perfectible after you’ve killed a few hundred million, with the rest nodding in agreement as the executioners pass by.
Notice how the Left simultaneously wants to criminalize normal activity (like not having so-called “health insurance”) while at the same time want to not punish those who commit real crimes of violence. I have no idea how to reconcile the two, and nitwits like this French author don’t either. It just assumes that the consequences of its morally exhibitionist folly will never personally affect it. (I neglected to notice the French author’s gender, and want to be properly PC…)
We had this discussion a little while ago here, based on something Obama said (was it the quote about God and Barack trying to figure things out?). The gyst was, is it better to be unaware of the inanities you are spouting (therefore being ignorant) or believing what you are saying (in his case being unbelievably vainglorious)? This post raises other options – putting forth ideas you don’t believe to hear yourself talk (the pride Floyd pointed out)or what about venting dangerous theories or plans you don’t believe in to see what the effect would be if someone believed in it or put it into action? Ideas or examples? and what would you call it?
what people like the professor never seem to understand is that there is always a Stalin in the wings. And people like the professor are the first to walk that walk along the porcelain hallway with the efficient drains.
I would love to sit in on a late night drinking session with Stalin and his cronies as they laughed at the notion that prison should be done away with.
A lot of “intellectuals” spout ridiculous ideas like this because they know there is no chance of people actually embracing them. They get to say whatever they want, sound sophisticated, and get a few mush-for-brains philosophy students hanging on their every word.
Plus, most of them have never been outside the safe harbor of academia and therefore have no real-world experiences that would have disabused them of their “lofty” ideas.
“A lot of “intellectuals” spout ridiculous ideas like this because they know there is no chance of people actually embracing them. They get to say whatever they want, sound sophisticated, and get a few mush-for-brains philosophy students hanging on their every word.”
If that is the case and the key to having one’s ego stroked, then I propose the following
1. All who make fun of someone for talking to themselves is to be shot.
2. Everyone should be required to talk to themselves.
3. Instead of prison, all convicts should be forced to watch a movie
4. Finally, everyone should be forced to sing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to me.
Kit…you are an intellectual. Congratulations
Yess!
Oh, and some more ideas:
-Everyone must stop chewing gun immediately. Penalty for chewing gum shall be torture. I MEAN IT!
No one’s allowed to smoke,
Or tell a dirty joke,
And whistling is forbidden.
If chewing gum is chewed,
The chewer is pursued,
And in the hoosegow hidden.
(Rufus T. Firefly, “Duck Soup)
+JMJ+
Kit, chewing gum is already banned in Singapore.
Then I am moving to Singapore
Though I will have to take care of my drooling problem. (I don’t like canings)
“When you talk to yourself, you are talking to a fool.”
“The difference intellectualism and ignorance is that the latter can be alleviated.” (the original quote uses “stupidity” for the first case, but is there really any difference between the two?)
Mike asked us lurkers to join & comment in his post below. So now I join. I am also a fan of Mr. Theodore Dalrymple who has posted his observations for many years now regarding the underclass and the people he has encountered while a doctor in the British prison system. Thomas Sowell commented in his most recent column about Oliver Wendell Holmes who said “Think things, not words”. Mr. Dalrymple has posted about “things” for awhile now.
well…if you want to see why we’re done…see this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDtR2QybB58&feature=player_embedded
that squeal you heard was Paul Krugman and Tom Friedman.
I thought at first this was a commercial for AmeriCorp.
While the bottom is falling out on their manufacturing sector…
The Soviets did this all the time. It’s a classic propaganda tactic.
Dalrymple has been knocking out great articles for years now but has sadly left our shores…Englands loss.
+JMJ+
Has anyone read Samuel Butler’s Erewhon? (Note: that’s “nowhere” spelled backwards.)
It was assigned reading in a Lit paper I took on Dystopian Fiction. Basically, the main character/traveler stumbles upon a world in which disease is treated as a crime and crime is treated as a disease. It was published in 1872 and considered a fantasy.
Fast forward 150 years . . . It turns out that the traveler didn’t have to go to Erewhon; he just needed to come to us!
A good friend of mine is German, and his mom spent her entire career working in prison rehabilitation in Germany. The idea – as they explain it – is that while there are some people who simply can’t be released – cannibals, murderers, etc – the majority of people in prisons are guilty of fairly minor crimes, and the reason *most* of them turned to crime is because of a lack of economic opportunity, and that’s generally caused by a lack of access to education. So what she’s done for the last 40 years or so is teach the cons skills so they can go out, get real jobs, and not end up as wards of the state yet again. It doesn’t work in every situation, but it does work in – they say – more than half.
They’re quick to point out that this whole concept is an American one what we originated.
@ Enbrethiliel: I’ve read both Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited. Even reviewed ‘em on my website, if you’d like the link!
+JMJ+
Republibot, I found your review of Erewhon Revisited. Thanks! You’ve just saved me two or three days of reading more Butler that I will never be able to get back.
Did you know that Butler’s father was (if I remember correctly) a clergyman in the Church of England? The night the younger Butler set sail for New Zealand was the first night he didn’t say his prayers before going to bed. I don’t think he ever prayed again.
Funny. If I were setting off for New Zealand in a wooden ship tomorrow, I’d make extra sure to say my prayers tonight!
Enbrethiliel,
I’d forgotten it, but I knew it once. He strikes me as a very odd guy. His main stated purpose was to lambast evolution, but he ended up coming up with an exceptionally good explanation of how it works, and never seems to have realized it. His weird ‘religious banks’ thing was next to impossible for me to follow. Also, his characterization of female characters was…well, suffice it to say that there’s nothing in either book that’s overtly homosexual, I came out of it thinking that Butler was gayer than a french horn.
He had an intermitent gift for the written word, though, the early passages of Erewhon are beautiful, and there’s a lot of random quotes I’ve grabbed from the books and used on my site.
What is gay about the French Horn?
It’s an old figure of speech. “Gay” means “Happy and joyful” – as in “Make the yuletide gay” or in the Flintstones “You’ll have a gay old time.” French horns have a very bright, happy sound, so saying “It’s as gay as a french horn” is a pun, playing on the double meaning of “Happy and Joyful” and the more modern slang useage as “Homosexual.”
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gay