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If you're going to 'lock them up forever,' what is the practical, meaningful difference between that and just killing them? I assume that what you mean is 'put this human person in jail now with no opportunity for release ever, they will definitely die in prison.' Which is a workaround for 'We give up on you. Go away forever.' Are we locking them up forever as punishment? That's a really loving heartless punishment. "You lose, you're done, you've gone too far to ever be redeemed. But rather than finish things, we're gonna let you die in a box a long way from us at the end of your normal lifespan, anywhere from two to eighty years from now." Are we locking them up forever to protect the outside world? That's a loving expensive way to protect the outside world, seeing as we've already established that we never, ever want them back anyway. Are we locking them up forever because we really want them gone, but there's an off chance that maybe they didn't do it, new evidence might come to light to exonerate them, and we want them around in case we have to let them back out again? That's basically the only non-evil reading that I can have on this whole thing, but holy gently caress, it's not a great one. "Yeah, we got the wrong guy and stuck you in a box for fifty years, but at least you get the last two of them out among us normal people! Hope you can relate to a society with the internet." Imprisonment is a loving terrible way to deal with people who have done wrong. Counselling and therapy might fix whatever is broken. Supervised mandatory labour would at least get stuff done. Just locking people up so that we can all forget about them is, at best, othering. At worst it's dehumanising. Look at the title of the loving thread. Monsters, Ax Murder[er]s, Pedophiles. Other people in the thread have used the word Psychopaths without loving blinking. Those aren't things people do, those are things people become, or were all along- and that's a terrible way to think about humans and human nature. The point at which we start thinking about people in terms of what they are on the inside, rather than what they've done, is the point at which all conversation about them becomes meaningless. We're no longer talking about a person, we're talking about this monstrous 'character.' Of course you lock up the psychopath! That's really loving easy to justify! All he's ever done is psychopathic stuff. He probably eats his cornflakes psychopathically. He was born a psychopath and he will die a psychopath, having spent his entire life being either a psychopath or a psychopath pretending to be normal. If you let him out he'll just do psychopathic stuff again! There's no human there. You can't rehabilitate 'a murderer.' You can certainly rehabilitate 'a person who killed someone once.' You can't fix 'a paedo,' but 'a person with paedophilic urges' can certainly be mended. 'A psychopath' is a monster to be put away forever, but 'a person with severe, violent sociopathy' has a disease that needs to be cured. So much of our hatred for people who have done crimes is based on this carefully maintained wall of 'who they really are' which prevents us from seeing the people who did the things. This sort of thinking, incidentally, is one of the major reasons that rape culture is such a nightmare to even discuss. We have an image of 'a rapist' as being this thing that a someone who seems like a person really is on the inside. And because people don't see themselves as being 'rapists,' they don't comprehend that they are able to rape. That's something rapists do. Rapists are rapists on the inside. They're not rapists on the inside, so what they did couldn't have really been rape. Yes the loving definitions are circular. But circular definitions go both ways. My former Religious Studies lecturer did a lot of work with the New Zealand restorative justice group. They worked with non-violent offences only, but quite a bit of vandalism and theft cases. Their main thing was getting the victim and the perpetrator into a meeting, in the same room, where they had to just talk. Usually about the case, sometimes about the circumstances that led to the events, sometimes about themselves. In one case, it was a hate crime- a man with white supremacist views who vandalised an immigrant's corner shop. The perpetrator had this view that the person he was attacking was 'A Foreigner,' which is another one of those wonderful characters, and he came to the restorative justice meeting with this incredible air of self-righteousness and aggression. Then after a few minutes of talking with the guy whose shop he'd damaged, he deflated. He realised he wasn't a hero talking to a villain, he was a person, talking to another person, and both of them were confused and scared and alienated. Restorative justice tends to end with a sentence for mandatory counselling, or budget management, or job training. Never imprisonment. There is no point at which we should condemn a person to being a character. No matter what they have done they are still people. People who have done monstrous things, yes. People who have a debt to pay off to society as a whole because of what they've done, absolutely. People who are at the mercy of some serious loving problems, some of which may never be fixed, definitely. But still people.
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Mar 19, 2015 12:12
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Arglebargle III posted:This is a start. C for effort I guess. So you've finally mentioned utility and proposed that the value of human life derives from social utility. Now that we've finally arrived at this point, we could start discussing the harm that "monsters, ax murders, and pedophiles." cause at least in terms of loss of value, though we still have the thorny issue of the costs of human life to approach. That's not the question that the thread is asking, though. The question that the thread is asking is whether or not compassion is possible for people who have- by definition- caused harm. You are now attempting to whether or not they have actually caused harm. That's not really relevant. The fact that they have caused harm is set. "Monsters, axe murder[er]s, and paedophiles" is a nice verbal dressing for the real meaning of "Human beings who have caused severe harm." If you disagree with that statement, you are disagreeing with the OP's definition as put forward in the first post. Murder and paedophilia were brought up specifically as examples of the wider concept of 'unconscionable acts.' That is, acts which by definition cannot be done with a clean conscience. That means acts which definitely are bad and definitely cause harm to people. Let me set forth two postulates here: 1. Human lives matter. 2. Humans can act in ways which cause irreparable harm to the lives of others. These points are necessary for any discussion on the matter of compassion for 'monsters' to proceed. Arguing the fine points of the axioms is all well and good, but you're devoting tedious pages and pages to what is really a note in the margin in terms of the discussion of compassion. Can we move on to the part where you stop this nonsensical tirade against human value and actually address the question of compassion? Oh, wait. Arglebargle III's first post posted:Obviously I don't want to be raped and/or murdered, but from an objective standpoint what's the net effect of, say, some random kid being violently and painfully killed? You are arguing that compassion is meaningless from an objective perspective that you refuse to turn on your own life. In one sentence you have destroyed the value of your argument, because you won't look at yourself objectively, but you are asking all of us to ignore that and argue about the lives of others who you then define as 'only the people who don't matter to me.' There is no point in arguing objective value with someone who sees no purpose in explaining their own objective value. Why would you take the time to explain that you wouldn't want harmless acts to happen to you? Because, obviously, you do not consider the acts harmless. But in any case, it is clear that compassion, in your mind, only works on the very personal scale, because you expect us to feel compassion for you and the harm done to you. Very well. Let us say that you, personally, were assaulted. Would you want the perpetrator to be shown compassion by others? Why or why not?
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Mar 21, 2015 12:31
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Arglebargle III posted:Do you oppose the death penalty on the grounds that killing a murderer is a harmful act? Yes. Obviously. Killing does not justify killing in return. If you had read my first post, you'd know that. You'd also know that I oppose calling a person 'a murderer' on the grounds that it makes it easier for people to justify killing them. Please note that I have answered your direct question and you have yet to answer mine. You also failed to address my suggestion that the value of human life is a necessary postulate of this discussion. You suggest that "of course" other people's lives are not valuable. I disagree. One cannot apply a single standard of right and wrong to one's own life and a second standard to everyone else's. Harm done to others does harm me. I do not read about a massive, fatal car crash on the internet and think, "Good, another nine resource-takers removed from the pool. Hope that the four-year-old dies in hospital, that'd make it a nice round ten." I think that you are arguing in bad faith, ABIII. I think that you are attempting to hijack this thread and turn it toward your own personal battle in the hopes of being able to claim a victory. This is because you are afraid of the kind of arguments that would be brought against your position of "Human life has no value" if that were the title of the thread. Instead, you are attempting to hide your theoretical argument in a thread that is about practical responses to harm, in order to avoid having to face that kind of opposition. Again, I will ask you a practical question. Please show me the courtesy I have shown you and respond to it. Let us say that you, personally, were assaulted. Would you want the perpetrator to be shown compassion by others? Why or why not?
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Mar 21, 2015 22:25
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Rakosi posted:The question is kind of a weird one. Is Tsutomu Miyazaki no longer human, in your eyes?
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Mar 22, 2015 11:16
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wateroverfire posted:Where in those basic moral principles is your outrage for the victim? The need for retribution? Those are also basic human things. I don't think there is a need for retribution, though. There is certainly a desire for it. Lord knows I've had terrible, visceral fantasies about harming the people who made my girlfriend's childhood a living hell. But what good would it do? What positive impact can there be from retribution? Once we burn off that initial rush of adrenaline, what is left but a void? Would it not be better to see someone who has done terrible things rehabilitated and restored to a place in the community? I am not calling for blank-slate forgiveness. I am not suggesting that crimes be forgotten. But I am, at present, certain that thinking of justice in terms of retribution cannot be healthy in the long run. Just because someone has been monstrous to us does not mean that we get to be monstrous in return. I'm reminded of the discussion that followed last year's botched execution in Oklahoma. The man died in utter agony, terrified, fighting, begging for mercy, of a heart attack during a failed lethal injection. It took him 43 minutes to die. In several critics' eyes, this was retribution, and it was appropriate. In fact, several suggested that executions should be handled this way- make them more painful, more vicious, to keep 'the criminal' at bay. One critic, a truly awful human by the name of Ted Rall, said that he was against all forms of state-sanctioned executions, but as long as they were around they should be made as brutal and violent as possible to allow the families to draw maximum catharsis from the proceedings. He suggested feeding murderers a thread of barbed wire and then pulling it out of them, allowing them to slowly bleed out in agony. (This, incidentally, was not meant as accelerationism bullshit, nor satire. This was his genuine suggestion of a genuine punishment.) As far as I can tell, this is basically your suggestion that there is a natural human need for retribution, which the state should cater to, taken to its logical extent. What if the state's preferred method of punishment doesn't give you enough feeling of retribution? Do you get to argue for more brutal punishments because you personally don't feel like enough harm has been done in turn? Should we bring back drawing and quartering so that public outrage can be sated? Retribution should be the last thing on the list in terms of things which our society should cater to. We already have enough problems with vigilantism and people 'avenging' perceived slights. Look at Elliot Roger. He was indulging his natural retributive urges. Look at the Columbine massacre. Look at Men's Rights Activism and the GamerGate rape threats. Retribution. Retribution. Retribution. The need for retribution is a base urge. It is unhealthy. It is addictive. It harms us all. That is why I urge both compassion and rehabilitation. Can there be a greater victory than seeing someone healed?
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Mar 22, 2015 14:10
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Smudgie Buggler posted:Why is it so hard to deal with the fact that a lot of people don't value human life and forgiveness as highly as you do? It scares the poo poo out of you, but it's the case in the here and now. It's not degeneracy. It doesn't create Hell on Earth. Because the case in the here and now led to the introduction of three-strikes laws, prison sweatshop labour, and the entire concept of a life sentence without a chance for parole. It has led to judges who put down harsher sentences to appear tough on crime so as to win re-election, even in cases when they know that the person is innocent, then immediately pardoning them as soon as that election goes against them. And it led to Elliot Rodger. Now there's someone with a strong retributive drive. Glad we had him on this planet. I don't think that the state should cater to those of us with the strongest retributive drives. I don't think it should cater to our retributive urges at all. I think we should be better than to ask for that. Is there some long-term benefit of retribution over rehabilitation that I'm missing, here?
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Mar 22, 2015 20:44
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Smudgie Buggler posted:No. What you are missing is the possibility of placing some personal value on retribution while not being anywhere near so stupid as to think it should have anything to do with criminal justice. All right. I agree. Some people value the idea of retribution. Though I do not agree with them, I sympathise with them, as I mentioned. If you believe that retribution should have nothing to do with criminal justice, then we agree on that point as well. Where to from here?
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Mar 23, 2015 00:20
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wateroverfire posted:The victims and society need closure. To deny that is unnatural. Arglebargle III posted:It is natural and necessary that we apply different standards and criteria to our own lives and to the lives of others Amazing. Two appeals to nature, like loving clockwork. "It's natural!" That does not make it beneficial. That does not make it socially efficient. That does not make it rational or logical. That does not help. wateroverfire: Your argument hinges on the idea of 'closure,' and for some reason you set that up as antithetical to compassion. Why do we need closure? Why is that a need and not a want? And could not "and then she turned her life around" not be better closure than "and then we threw her in a box for ten years of her life?" Arglebargle III: Reducing damage done by 'monsters' is not what this discussion is about. Their damage has been done. That is set. The question is whether or not we show them compassion. In this case, compassion means that the response to their actions should focus on repair and restoration rather than on punishment. Conviction is one thing. Punishment is another.
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Mar 23, 2015 07:35
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Onion Knight posted:I have a question for Somfin, mostly in regards to your first post in the thread: do you believe there are individuals beyond rehabilitation, in any meaningful sense? Definitely. There are certainly a large number of people who will simply never get better. They may be broken at a more fundamental level than we can repair, or their beliefs may be unshakeable. That does not mean we get to stop trying. We can know that there are people who will never be changed for the better. But we cannot afford to make that decision in any single case. The problem becomes, at what point do we dust off our hands and say "gently caress it, we tried, this one's busted forever?" Because that is what is happening right now in states with Three Strikes laws. As soon as we can see the absolute future and know for an absolute, unshakeable fact that no amount of treatment and therapy and rehabilitation will help this person, then we can make the decision that it's not worth the effort. Until that point, we must keep trying. I agree with you that imprisonment is better than execution, but I feel that both of them are simply more socially acceptable than trying to treat people who have been convicted of unconscionable acts as human beings. People do things for reasons. Those reasons are always valid to them at the time- they must have been, or they wouldn't have made the choices that they did. I think that people know when they have made mistakes and when they have failed. wateroverfire posted:It's only when we feel powerless that we convince ourselves it isn't. I'm gonna confess something to you, right here and now. I have no loving idea what you mean by this. Could you explain it, in terms of overall social benefit, without using the words 'powerless' or 'natural?' wateroverfire posted:"She paid the price for her actions, then turned her life around" would be better closure. The idea is that to be reintegrated into the community after a transgression requires atonement, which requires suffering. That suffering doesn't have to be jail, or execution, or etc. Ideally it would be genuine remorse. In feeling that, and in making restitution, the transgressor would essentially become a different person and could be accepted into the community free of their transgression. "Ideally it would be genuine remorse." That's a very compelling concept. I agree with this- I agree that grief and remorse can cause far more non-physical suffering to a person than can be physically inflicted on them. "She paid the price", however, is a problem. Who determines "the price"? Is "the price" different if she admits guilt? To whom does she pay "the price"? The main problem that I have with the current system is it takes suffering as an acceptable currency for the price. You can buy off transgressions simply by being in state-regulated pain for a while. Restitution, making amends to wronged parties, public service and public labour, taking measures to improve one's situation so that desperation does not lead to another transgression- these are wildly preferable to the current system of simple suffering-as-payment.
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Mar 23, 2015 09:37
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wateroverfire posted:These are also components of the justice system, though? Like, already. They are. For minor offences. There is a view that people who have done wrong above a certain threshold should just suffer for it, though. wateroverfire posted:poor victimized criminals See this? This right here? You're not actually arguing about people. You're arguing about these two teams, "Criminals" and "Society," and Criminals are the bad guys and Society are the good guys. And because you have a childish view of how justice works, you think that when a bad guy does a bad thing, they need to have an equal amount of bad stuff happen to them in order to balance the books. You think that closure only really comes from the bad guys suffering, because you see them as being fundamentally different from the good guys. Those "poor victimised criminals" are human beings, normal rational human beings, who have done things which our society has decided are wrong. Some of them are simply desperate enough to do what they do. Others see the state as being a malevolent force. Most, however, are simply people whose position in life is far less cushy than yours. You clearly see them as a subhuman animal with an inherent "desire to do whatever to whoever," which must be checked through blunt instruments which cause suffering, because you clearly believe they lack the capability to understand that what they are doing is societally destructive. Like yelling at a dog or spraying water at a cat. What is your opinion on the ongoing problem of rape in prisons?
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Mar 23, 2015 21:27
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wateroverfire posted:When a person transgresses against their community they need to be reconciled with the community, and part of that process is suffering. wateroverfire posted:Do you think if only those people were educated about the social harm they were doing they'd feel remorseful and stop doing harm? If so why do you think that? wateroverfire posted:People should not get raped and especially not in state custody. That's pretty hosed up. Wild Horses posted:That sounds fine and all and then you realise its actually rapists we are talking about. No matter of morality talk is gonna change that they're human garbage.
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Mar 27, 2015 13:37
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SedanChair posted:Fascists (the variety that sniff Pinochet's cape or others) believe suffering is purifying. I suppose, to flesh out my question, I could have written "Why are we using that process rather than one which doesn't have an arbitrary mandatory pain threshold?"
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Mar 27, 2015 14:34
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wateroverfire posted:"we could totally not do it, or something, amirite?" wateroverfire posted:It seems like you're unwilling to hold anyone accountable for what they do and that seems really weird to me. Many people will experience fear or hunger. Only a few will use them as an excuse to do something terrible. And many of those that do won't be particularly afraid, or hungry, or horny, or subject to whatever other IRRESISTABLE URGE you feel they couldn't possibly deal with in any other way. They know when they've done wrong and they don't care or believe they're justified in their choices. wateroverfire posted:We don't sentence people to prison rape, though perhaps in some ways it'd be more humane if we did that in lieu of incarceration.
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Mar 27, 2015 16:34
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