Posted by Scott on March 31st, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
On this blog, I have posted a lot about vengeance lately. Namely, I have wanted to find ways to discourage people from engaging in vengeance. Today, I remembered a great movie that explores the destructiveness of vengeance: Changing Lanes
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Changing Lanes stars Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson. After getting in an accident on the highway, the two characters enter into a vengefully destructive spiral of revenge after revenge, fueled by the personal problems, anger and frustration the men feel from living in a stressful, competitive world.
I would not call it the best movie ever, but I like it a lot. Thinking back on it now in regards to the commonness and destructiveness of vengeance, I think the movie portrays its theme excellently. I highly recommend you watch it if you have not already.
To prevent violence and stop violent crime, I believe we need to dissuade people from vengeance because I believe most acts of offensive violence stem from anger and vengefulness. We all often become blinded by strong emotions such as anger, but we have to try to control them instead of letting them lead us to destructiveness. Thinking back, I realize the incredible value of the compelling lesson in Changing Lanes about the destructiveness of vengeance.
Do you know any other good movies, books, shows or stories that address the self-destructive nature of vengefulness?
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Posted by Scott on March 29th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Last night, I finished reading the book Are Prisons Obsolete?
by Angela Y. Davis, which someone had recommended to me after I wrote a short article about why I think society does not need prisons.
The book was not what I had expected, but I still like it very much. Rather than speculate on alternatives to prison in the book, Davis focuses on the history of prison and how it became the dominant form of punishment. She also heavily addresses the extreme amounts of racism and sexism in the prison system both throughout its history and still today.
People who have not already thought much about abolishing the prison system will probably find the book even more interesting and eye-opening than I did.
It disgusted me to learn about the amount of sexual abuse in female prisons, especially regarding the guards’ legal use of strip searches (including cavity searches) to sexually victimize the female prisoners.
Davis does a good job explaining the prison-industrial complex in the book. That includes the many ways that corporations and profiteers make money by having prisons built and filled with people.
She keeps a historical and factual tone. I think it makes the book much more powerful than one filled with opinions and suggestions, especially about an unconventional idea such as prison abolishment. While reading the book, I could tell that Davis intended to spark critical thinking about the subject rather than just tell people what to think.
Overall, I recommend the book, especially considering that it is so short. It took me two nights to read and only a few hours total. So it is easily worth your time since it will not take much of your time. Also, it’s an important topic because, with about 1 in 100 of its citizens behind bars, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world both in number and percentage, and other countries have begun adopting the United States incarceration methods.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on March 28th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
While trying to find contemporary anarcha-feminist authors today, I came across a book edited by Carl Watner and by Wendy McElroy, entitled National Identification Systems: Essays in Opposition
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When I get a chance, I may read the book. I don’t know if I will because it does not have any reviews or ratings on Amazon. Have any of you read it; do you recommend it?
I have this blog to address violent crime and victimization. Most often, government surveillance and national identification systems will be proposed under the pretense of security. However, to roughly paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, I believe that a society that gives up essential liberty to achieve safety will receive neither. I believe we can effectively reduce (and ideally come close to eliminating) violent crime and victimization without adopting excessive government surveillance or identification systems. In fact, I believe the bureaucracy and abuse in excessive surveillance systems will hinder our society’s ability to reduce violent crime.
Anyway, I think I will like the book because of my opinions on the matter. What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on March 27th, 2008 — Posted in Child Protection
I just read a story about a 14-year-old Jehovah’s Witness who refused a blood transfusion and died. The boy refused the transfusion on religious grounds. The boy’s legal guardian is also a Jehovah’s Witness.
I have heard some people call it child abuse to allow a kid to refuse needed medical treatment that would save his life. Generally, I feel a 14-year-old boy can make his own decisions. But what about a younger kid? What if an 8 year old refused treatment? Would letting an 8-year-old kid refuse life-saving treatment be considered child abuse?
At what age and in what circumstances do we leave the decision up to the child’s parents or legal guardian? What if the parents disallow a child from getting treatment due to their religious beliefs even when the child wants it? What if the child does not want treatment but his legal guardian does want him to get it?
I do not know the answers. But I think we do need to come up with consistent principles for deciding what qualifies as child abuse and what does not.
Of course, we may want to take care not to spend so much effort worrying about actions that may or may not be child abuse when we could focus on acts that are clear-cut child abuse, such as battery and sexual molestation.
What do you think?
1 Comment »
Posted by Scott on March 26th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
Sometime in April, I hope to read Ain’t Nobody’s Business if You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Society
by Peter McWilliams. The book came out in 1996, and the author died in 2000.
In the book, according to the description I read, McWilliams argues in support of the legalization of victimless and consensual crimes, such as gambling, prostitution, recreational drug usage, pornography, homosexuality, gambling, and other activities in which all participants (who are competent adults) have consented and thus nobody has been victimized against their will.
I also support the legalization of victimless and consensual crimes, so I bet I will like the book.
I define victimization as the act of one person or group hurting a second person or group against the will of the second person or group. That includes acts such as murder, rape, vandalism and robbery. I see it as a waste of resources and an unnecessary limitation on freedom for the government to criminalize victimless behaviors and expensively attack people who commit those acts. I think the criminalization of victimless behaviors increases violent crime and victimization by diverting law enforcement resources and by increasing and funding a criminal underground.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on March 25th, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
When I went to grade school, I do not remember the school offering any type of violence prevention class. I also have not heard of grade schools offering those classes on a regular basis for the general student population.
I would like to see more schools offer violence prevention classes, and I would like to see the parents and the schools encourage students to take the violence prevention classes.
With kids who have committed acts of violence, I would suggest considering forcing them into the violence prevention classes as opposed to jail or fines. Violence prevention classes would hopefully help rehabilitate those violent kids so that they do not end up hurting other people and do not end up getting themselves sent to prison later in life.
For the other kids, I personally would not want them forced into violence prevention classes–or forced into any classes for that matter–because I do not want to forcibly indoctrinate kids regardless of the supposed social benefits. But I would still support persuasively encouraging the students to sign up for violence prevention classes. If the classes are run well, then the kids would want to take them. So the goal would be to make the violence prevention classes interesting and helpful to the kids so much so that the kids choose to take the classes and learn from them.
I do not have any particular type of violence prevention in mind. I would like to see a broad range of violence prevention topics offered to students. For example, the classes could address how to resolve conflicts without violence, how to avoid conflicts in the first place, and how to avoid dangerous situations. For another example, the classes could have the students research the harmful effects of violence and research different social movements for peace throughout history.
What do you think? Do you know if many schools offer classes like that? Would you like the schools to offer classes like that? Do you think the students would want to take them?
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Posted by Scott on March 23rd, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
I apologize if any of you do not like that I have posted so much about vengeance over the last week. This topic has taken hold of my thoughts lately. I now realize that we cannot stop people from violently attacking each other unless we eliminate the social acceptance of vengeful violence, by which I mean people causing harm to others purely as revenge or moral punishment and not as a form of defense (e.g. stopping and incarcerating a rapist to protect others in society) or rectification (e.g. making a vandal pay for the costs to repair a window that he broke).
I have discussed vengeance to try to find effective ways to dissuade people from indulging in vengeance. Mainly, I want to know why so many people feel so open to indulging in vengeance, and I want to know how to best dissuade people from it. I now think that many people who commit vengeful acts of violence do it because they feel it makes them stronger and more potent.
Some people defend vengeful violence and many other forms of interpersonal victimization because they mistakenly conflate compassion and weakness. I believe that is why some people defend anger, discompassion, and hatred and the violent attacks caused by those emotions and mind-states.
Nonetheless, I generally see compassion as a sign of strength. Generally, I think anger, discompassion and hatred are symptoms of weakness. I created a thread in the philosophy forums to discuss it: Are anger, discompassion and hatred symptoms of weakness?
Feel free to discuss the topic here or there. Please do post your thoughts.
Perhaps we can convince people to choose compassion over vengeance by teaching them that vengeance is the resort of the weak and that compassion is the more powerful tool of the strong. What do you think?
Also, if you haven’t already, check out the other recent posts about vengeance:
Wise Quotes about Vengeance and Revenge
Vengeance, Payback, Revenge
How do you feel about vengeance?
3 Comments »
Posted by Scott on March 22nd, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
A few days ago, I made a post asking readers to suggest ways to dissuade people from their indulging their desire for vengeance. Today I want to post some of the wisest quotes I have come across about vengeance and revenge:
“Revenge has no more quenching effect on emotions than salt water has on thirst.”
~ Walter Weckler
“Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you.”
~ Austin O’Malley
“Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt.”
~Thomas Moore
“Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience.”
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
“He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself.”
~ Chinese Proverb
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.”
~ William Tecumseh Sherman
“Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
~ Jesus of Nazareth
“Holding onto anger is like grasping onto a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burned.”
~ Gotama Buddha
“You cannot get ahead while you are getting even.”
~ Dick Armey
“In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.”
~ Francis Bacon
It is “more noble to forgive, and more manly to despise, than to revenge an Injury.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
“Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind.”
~ Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenal)
“Little, vicious minds abound with anger and revenge, and are incapable of feeling the pleasure of forgiving their enemies.”
~ Earl of Chesterfield
“Hatred is the coward’s revenge for being intimidated.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
“An eye for an eye would make the whole world blind.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Revenge is a confession of pain.”
~ Latin Proverb
“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”
~ Josh Billings
“Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.”
~ Winston Churchill
“Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavor, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.”
~ Charlotte Bronte
If you have other similar quotes about vengeance and revenge, please post them! If I made a mistake attributing any of these quotes, please correct me.
What quote in this post is your favorite? Which one do you think is most convincing at dissuading people from indulging in revenge?
2 Comments »
Posted by Scott on March 21st, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
I just read a good article by Adam Rink in which he says that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world because the country puts so many people in prison for non-violent offenses. He also mentions mandatory sentencing and three strikes policies.
According to his statistics, over half of the prisoners in state prisons are held for non-violent offenses, such as drug crimes.
He also explains how prohibition of allegedly unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol or drugs increases violent crime. Namely, prohibition expands organized crime, providing funding for violent criminals. Additionally, throwing non-violent offenders in jail and prison tends to make them violent and dangerous.
Throwing so many non-violent people in jail also causes other social problems, such as taking parental figures away and breaking up personal relationships.
Also, all the massive amounts of resources spent enforcing the prohibition of non-violent acts such as drug possession could instead be put towards preventing violent crime and victimization.
Perhaps the United States’ massive war on drugs and other victimless behaviors is the reason why the United States has such high violent crime rates.
What do you think?
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Posted by Scott on March 19th, 2008 — Posted in Violence Prevention
I have made quite a few blogs about my support for abolishing prisons and of reforming violent offenders in more compassionate environments. I have explained both the fiscal benefits and the social benefits, namely that preventing crime and rehabilitating offenders helps protect potential victims.
However, after having discussed prison reform with people, and after receiving people’s replies to my post about executing child rapists, I realize the real issue to many people.
They seek vengeance.
Such people support the harshness of prison and the murderousness of execution not because they want to protect other people but because they want vengeance. They support vengeance in and of itself.
Regardless of whether vengeance will protect people or prevent violence, they want vengeance.
I can understand the feelings of anger and hate that can make a person want to get vengeance. We can also call it payback or revenge, but whatever we call it I understand the feeling. However, I have previously taken it for granted that other people realize the dangerousness of letting themselves act on the petty desire for vengeance. When emotions like anger overtake us, we often make stupid and even regrettable decisions because we lose control so to speak. But we generally know that. At the time, emotions can cloud our less-primitive judgment, but otherwise we know of the foolishness of acting out of those petty emotions. But some people do not seem to realize that point in regards to vengeance. Why? Why do so many people support vengeance–not only in times of severe anger but also in more typical states?
Why do these people think they have some “moral right” to vengeance? What does it even mean to have such a moral right?
Why does vengeance trump compassion for so many people? I am not a religious man, but I have accepted many of the secular teachings of Jesus, such as when he said love your neighbor and when he said let he who has not sinned cast the first stone. Whether because of Jesus or not, I figured most people supported those ideas.
By all means, I support protecting innocent people. I support the defensive use of violence and force, including forcing people to repay others to whom they have caused damages. But why do so many people support causing harm to people simply for the sake of vengeance? Why do they want to cause vengeful harm to people not to protect others but just to get payback or revenge?
More importantly, how can those of us who do not support vengeance convince those that do to stop? Like I said, I took it for granted that people had accepted compassion and rejected vengeance.
I do not know how to respond to people who believe they have some so-called “moral right” to vengeance. I do not know how to dissuade people from the “eye for an eye” code of conduct. I do not know how to convince people not to slap the man who has slapped them. I do not know how to convince people not to murder the man who has murdered one of their family members.
So I ask you in all seriousness: How do you dissuade people from vengeance? What do you see as the flaws in the philosophy of an eye for an eye? How can we convince people not to make policy choices based on vengeance? Do you have any statistics or research that shows the self-harmfulness of vengeance? If so, please post them! Do you have any quotes or advice from the world’s wisest teachers such as the ones I mentioned by Jesus? If so, please post them!
Even if you do not fully oppose vengeance, please post comments about what you see as the best arguments against vengeance. This blog will not succeed at preventing violence unless I can figure out how to prevent vengeful violence. In fact, I would venture to say that most people who commit offensive violence commit it out of a desire for vengeance. What do you think?
2 Comments »
Posted by Scott on March 18th, 2008 — Posted in Politics & Commentary
According to FBI statistics, the number of arrests for marijuana exceeds the number of arrests for violent crimes.
That makes me very angry!
I detest the fact that the United States wastes hundreds of billions of dollars per year waging a war on drugs so that it can overwork the courts and overcrowd the jails with non-violent drug users. We could put all those resources into reducing violent crime and criminal victimization, such as rape, murder, robbery, battery, vandalism and so forth.
You may wonder why governments would choose to waste money as such. I would explain it by pointing out that governments like to waste money. The wasted taxpayer dollars represent jobs and profits for a lot of bureaucrats, political cronies, and special interest groups.
Drug prohibition increases violent crime. Not only does it divert resources away from violent crime, but also it funds violent criminals by handing the multi-billion-dollar drug industry over to the black market, which in turn increases government corruption and increases the availability of drugs to minors.
Let’s reduce violent crime by decriminalizing marijuana. Let’s focus our resources on violent crime rather than on non-violent drug-users.
What do you think?
1 Comment »
Posted by Scott on March 17th, 2008 — Posted in Teen Violence
I just read a great article by Dawn Turner Trice about Dr. Carl Bell’s teen violence prevention principles. Bell works as a respected psychiatrist, violence-prevention expert and president of Chicago’s Community Mental Health Council. He also wrote the book, The Sanity of Survival: Reflections on Community Mental Health and Wellness
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Perhaps referencing Bell, the author of the article wrote that, yes, we do need to strengthen the enforcement of gun laws and put people who commit crimes against children in jail. However, we usually cannot curtail illegal gun possession until after the gun has been used, and the threat of jail does not effectively deter most violent crimes but instead only does something after-the-fact.
As the means of effectively preventing teen violence, Bell recommends that we find ways to ensure that young people have a sense of connectedness; have access to medicines and counseling; have a sense of power, self-esteem and community; and have the skills needed to communicate when they need help. Bell has more expertise than I, but it reminds me of a post I recently made in which I said that, to effectively prevent violence, we need to provide psychological treatment to dangerously wayward kids.
Bell also explains that preventing violence with those methods will also help other problems. For example, providing help to troubled children will also prevent them from using drugs, having sex too soon, and committing suicide. So putting resources into teen violence prevention will not take them away from those other prevention needs.
What do you think? Do you also agree with Bell?
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