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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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"makes me sad/makes me happy" is a separate axis from "good/evil" and a very separate axis from "ugly/pretty."

...Though I don't begrudge the Sagrada Familias of the world their status, it is no sin to build in styles more dour than rococo.

Do either of these points seem, to you, salient to what I've written above?

Take the six cell images in the OP, and assume that we are specifically designing a prison so that the environment experienced by the prisoner captures the general emotional and psychological feel that each encapsulates. Would it be evil, in your view, to intentionally design a prisoner's environment to maximize "ugly/makes me sad"? If not, do you consider the money and effort we expend making our prisons look more like cells 1-3 rather than 4-6 a needless waste, or perhaps actively counterproductive? Perhaps you believe convicts would also benefit from styles more dour than rococo?

It would be evil to make every prisoner live in a prison cell designed to make them sad all the time. But also... Prison is a punishment? And punitive measures can be used to achieve utilitarian and/or moral goals? Not every cell needs to be designed to make its inhabitants sad, but at least some of them probably should.

If the architect you're talking about genuinely felt that everyone should be sad all the time and his buildings were designed to do that, it would be evil. But I doubt that was genuinely his position l, and if it was he would bee the most incompetent supervillain of all time. I scrolled through his art and buildings and found several I unironically enjoyed, even as they reminded me of less than perfectly pleasant things.

But also... Prison is a punishment? And punitive measures can be used to achieve utilitarian and/or moral goals? Not every cell needs to be designed to make its inhabitants sad, but at least some of them probably should.

Which ones, in your view?

I don't think any of them should be. If someone commits unusually egregious crimes, I'm fine with executing them. If they haven't done something deserving execution, I'm fine scaling their sentence up or down as seems appropriate. I'd even be fine with replacing some of the lighter sentences with prompt, extremely painful corporal punishment, on the theory that for some criminals that might actually get the point across better than a long-delayed incarceration. But in no case would I wish to intentionally make their environment worse and more depressing than the physical practicalities of confinement in a cell require. I could be persuaded otherwise with evidence that prisoners in especially ugly or depressing environments had lower rates of recidivism, but lacking such evidence I see no benefit to inflicting unnecessary misery or indignity for its own sake, and certainly don't see the benefit of being so indirect about it as to bake it into their environment.

In any case, if you were to implement ugly cells for prisoners, who would you expect to be most likely to oppose you: admirers of Eisenman, or his critics?

Which ones, in your view?

Talking about specific here is probably past the limits of my knowledge. I'd guess there are probably some small crimes where the optimal punishment is something like, "expedite criminal sentencing and limit appeals, then put someone in a really unpleasant cell for a few days," rather than "put someone in a moderately comfortable cell for six months." Where if the legal system gets something wrong you lose maybe a week or two of time and your countersuit costs taxpayers only a small amount of money, and where if the legal system gets something right you get a pointed reminder to not be a dickhead but don't stay in prison long enough to get institutionalized.

I'm actually in favor of the corporal punishment idea for the same reasons-- you can search my comment history to see my position on floggings.

But in any case, I'm taking a philosophical position here, not trying to recommend specific policy. I believe causing harm can be justified to enable a greater good, but harm should never be a goal in and of itself. I'm completely against the death penalty because in practical terms we have cheaper + more effective alternatives and in moral terms killing someone adds absolutely nothing to the world, while simultaneously depriving them of the chance for personal redemption and salvation.

In any case, if you were to implement ugly cells for prisoners, who would you expect to be most likely to oppose you: admirers of Eisenman, or his critics?

I don't think architectural preference would matter matter. I sincerely doubt an attempt to actually design prison cells to maximize the things I want to maximize would actually look anything recognizably like "brutalist architecture," except in an incidental sense if I end up being cost-constrained.