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RealityVsUnreality 7 - 19 Feb 2009 - Main.JamilaMcCoy
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When Prof. Moglen was discussing the wide chasm separating between what we know about the penal system and what really transpires behind prison doors, it occurred to me that this divergence between reality and unreality certainly isn't unqiue to the criminal "justice" system, and that the failure to bridge that gap often leads to a distorted understanding of human behavior in other contexts as well. In the case of the penal system, we witness some alarming absurdities: the father who thinks jail time will "shape up" his son, the politician who pads his resume with convictions, the prosecutor whose political ties pervert her duties as a public servant, and a community which thinks itself safer despite rising rates of incarceration and crime. These symptoms are no doubt worrisome, but I believe the same social forces operate in other cases as well. | | | I have to say those this is an interesting thread. My friend teaches in the Bronx (as I mentioned in another thread), and her kids truly have awful stories to tell about their home lives. Clearly they have some sort of choice about where they end up, but really, how much?
-- AaronShepard - 19 Feb 2009 | |
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On your first point, I think there will be "free riders" but if society made the choice to allocate it's resources differently, maybe it wouldn't be such a problem. Think of our astronomical defense and prison budgets. I think that "free riders" are the least of the problems. Think of the costs of ignoring those in need: the un-nurtured talent and crimes of desperation and circumstance. I don't have anything empirical to back me up on this claim, but how much have we gained from our wars and by incarcerating our citizens? How much have we lost by allowing poverty to persist over generations? I don't think we've been allocating our eggs to the right baskets.
On your second point, sometimes roses do grow from concrete, all too often society kills them before they have a chance to grow, but I'm glad you do acknowledge that they can break the cycles of poverty. I think it’s good to strike a balance between acknowledging the circumstances that lead to undesirable behaviors but also to avoid throwing pity parties that are detrimental to an empowered mindset.
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RealityVsUnreality 6 - 19 Feb 2009 - Main.AaronShepard
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When Prof. Moglen was discussing the wide chasm separating between what we know about the penal system and what really transpires behind prison doors, it occurred to me that this divergence between reality and unreality certainly isn't unqiue to the criminal "justice" system, and that the failure to bridge that gap often leads to a distorted understanding of human behavior in other contexts as well. In the case of the penal system, we witness some alarming absurdities: the father who thinks jail time will "shape up" his son, the politician who pads his resume with convictions, the prosecutor whose political ties pervert her duties as a public servant, and a community which thinks itself safer despite rising rates of incarceration and crime. These symptoms are no doubt worrisome, but I believe the same social forces operate in other cases as well. | | |
- A right to decent housing is also completely undiscussable because it would be socialism.
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While I agree with much of what has been said, I think a little Devil's Advocate needs to be played.
1. If you give everyone free housing, how do you avoid free riders? I guess that is sort of the curse of socialism, despite all of its theoretical advantages.
2. As someone pointed out, we do have choices; there are people who rise 'above' their environments. Clearly the point made here is that you may have a much tougher start if you start with an abusive family life, and that is something that certainly is not as widely acknowledge as it should be.
I have to say those this is an interesting thread. My friend teaches in the Bronx (as I mentioned in another thread), and her kids truly have awful stories to tell about their home lives. Clearly they have some sort of choice about where they end up, but really, how much?
-- AaronShepard - 19 Feb 2009 | | |
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RealityVsUnreality 5 - 18 Feb 2009 - Main.EbenMoglen
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When Prof. Moglen was discussing the wide chasm separating between what we know about the penal system and what really transpires behind prison doors, it occurred to me that this divergence between reality and unreality certainly isn't unqiue to the criminal "justice" system, and that the failure to bridge that gap often leads to a distorted understanding of human behavior in other contexts as well. In the case of the penal system, we witness some alarming absurdities: the father who thinks jail time will "shape up" his son, the politician who pads his resume with convictions, the prosecutor whose political ties pervert her duties as a public servant, and a community which thinks itself safer despite rising rates of incarceration and crime. These symptoms are no doubt worrisome, but I believe the same social forces operate in other cases as well. | | | It seems to me there is only one way to eradicate homelessness. Free Housing for everyone who needs it. If you want better housing, you can go pay for it. But if you don't have money, free housing for you, no question asked.
-- XinpingZhu - 18 Feb 2009 | |
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- This is the same as establishing a right to housing. Declaring such a right seems fairly straightforward, but any step towards implementation of the right is fraught with difficulties. To pick only one, where do people have a right to be housed? Does everyone have a right to live on Manhattan, or are some people entitled to be housed in Vermilion, South Dakota only? Societies that subsidize housing often have a system of residency permission, which means that if one has a right to live somewhere, one has no right to live anywhere else. Such a system may appeal to those otherwise too poor to have decent housing anywhere, but will likely be objectionable to those with sufficient surplus over subsistence to be concerned about civil liberty. Problems of at least equal complexity lie in every other direction from the starting point.
- A right to decent housing is also completely undiscussable because it would be socialism.
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RealityVsUnreality 4 - 18 Feb 2009 - Main.XinpingZhu
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When Prof. Moglen was discussing the wide chasm separating between what we know about the penal system and what really transpires behind prison doors, it occurred to me that this divergence between reality and unreality certainly isn't unqiue to the criminal "justice" system, and that the failure to bridge that gap often leads to a distorted understanding of human behavior in other contexts as well. In the case of the penal system, we witness some alarming absurdities: the father who thinks jail time will "shape up" his son, the politician who pads his resume with convictions, the prosecutor whose political ties pervert her duties as a public servant, and a community which thinks itself safer despite rising rates of incarceration and crime. These symptoms are no doubt worrisome, but I believe the same social forces operate in other cases as well. | | |
-- PetefromOz - 18 Feb 2009 | |
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It seems to me there is only one way to eradicate homelessness. Free Housing for everyone who needs it. If you want better housing, you can go pay for it. But if you don't have money, free housing for you, no question asked.
-- XinpingZhu - 18 Feb 2009 | | | |
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RealityVsUnreality 3 - 18 Feb 2009 - Main.PetefromOz
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When Prof. Moglen was discussing the wide chasm separating between what we know about the penal system and what really transpires behind prison doors, it occurred to me that this divergence between reality and unreality certainly isn't unqiue to the criminal "justice" system, and that the failure to bridge that gap often leads to a distorted understanding of human behavior in other contexts as well. In the case of the penal system, we witness some alarming absurdities: the father who thinks jail time will "shape up" his son, the politician who pads his resume with convictions, the prosecutor whose political ties pervert her duties as a public servant, and a community which thinks itself safer despite rising rates of incarceration and crime. These symptoms are no doubt worrisome, but I believe the same social forces operate in other cases as well. | | | | |
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< | I used to volunteer at a small organization that serves food to the homeless in Los Angeles downtown. Once, the director of the organization asked me, “Do you know what the difference is between you and the homeless?” I don’t even remember how I answered. But, his answer was rather shocking to me at that time. He said, “The only difference between you and the homeless is the family/environment you grew up.” He went on to explain with the statistics that I don’t remember quite well… That a big percentage of homeless was raised by the parents who are alcoholic or abusive… Many were orphans or from broken homes… He gave me one example. He explained that people accuse homeless as being lazy and incompetent. He said that when you are raised with a total indifference by your parents, you actually get trained to become incompetent. According to his theory, if your parents are totally indifferent whether you do well or not in school, you lose an incentive to actually study hard. You are supposed to learn by observing, remembering, and then internalizing what behavior is rewarded or punished by your parents. For example, children raised by the indifferent parents might not even be able to learn that diligence is a good thing because they were never rewarded for it. (I don’t know if I explained his “indifference theory” well.) I accepted most of his statements, but secretly I thought in a dignified way that ‘The environment does not explain everything. There are people raised from the abusive parents and they don’t all become homeless.’ I think I was uncomfortable with the fact that I could also be homeless if I were born in that situation. I would’ve liked to think that I had a choice. I would’ve liked to think the homeless that I see when I serve food had a choice. I could not accept the fact that I have less choice than I think I have… I felt far more comfortable if I could just separate my world and the homeless’s world. I felt more at ease by not being fully aware of how privileged I am compared to others and that I didn’t earn the most of it. I think I was just not comfortable to see the injustice that was manifest right in front of me. | >
> | I used to volunteer at a small organization that serves food to the homeless in Los Angeles downtown. Once, the director of the organization asked me, “Do you know what the difference is between you and the homeless?” I don’t even remember how I answered. But, his answer was rather shocking to me at that time. He said, “The only difference between you and the homeless is the family/environment you grew up.” He went on to explain with the statistics that I don’t remember quite well… That a big percentage of homeless people were raised by parents who were alcoholic or abusive… Many were orphans or from broken homes… He gave me one example. He explained that people accuse homeless of being lazy and incompetent. He said that when you are raised with a total indifference by your parents, you actually get trained to become incompetent. According to his theory, if your parents are totally indifferent as to whether you do well or not in school, you lose an incentive to actually study hard. You are supposed to learn by observing, remembering, and then internalizing what behavior is rewarded or punished by your parents. For example, children raised by the indifferent parents might not even be able to learn that diligence is a good thing because they were never rewarded for it. (I don’t know if I explained his “indifference theory” well.) I accepted most of his statements, but secretly I thought in a dignified way that ‘The environment does not explain everything. There are people raised from the abusive parents and they don’t all become homeless.’ I think I was uncomfortable with the fact that I could also be homeless if I were born in that situation. I would’ve liked to think that I had a choice. I would’ve liked to think the homeless that I see when I serve food had a choice. I could not accept the fact that I have less choice than I think I have… I felt far more comfortable if I could just separate my world and the homeless’s world. I felt more at ease by not being fully aware of how privileged I am compared to others and that I didn’t earn the most of it. I think I was just not comfortable to see the injustice that was manifest right in front of me. | | | Well… yeah… Young’s post and our discussions in class reminded me of that experience. Now I understand more why I was rather uncomfortable with the statement that the only difference between the homeless and I is “where we were born”… I also wanted to say that I am really glad to be in this class. This class is the only class that makes me “think” about things…things that actually matter. When I come home after this class, I find myself just sitting and “thinking” about what we discussed in class. So, thank you, Professor Moglen and my class mates… =) | | | It's interesting to think of these social institutions - prisons, psychiatric institutions - as a way of justifying or eliminating the discomfort that Esther mentions. If we can rationalize a person's circumstances and make them "worthy" of some kind of retributive institutionalization, then we don't have to deal with the larger questions.
-- MolissaFarber - 18 Feb 2009 | |
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At the risk of being criticized for being too politically correct, may I suggest that referring to people living rough as "homeless people" is preferable to "homeless" because it reminds both the speaker and the listener of the humanity of the subjects.
I also appreciate that this class genuinely makes me think.
-- PetefromOz - 18 Feb 2009 | | | |
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