This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think more important than whether we've properly calibrated the amount of punishment is whether we've optimized the effects of punishment.
Why do we punish people? For incapacitation, for denunciation, for retribution, for a deterrent, for reparation, for rehabilitation, and for expiation. The further you go down that list in that order, the worse prison looks.
Incapacitation is probably what prison is best at, better than any punishment short of the death penalty (and a lot more flexible than that...). Every year you keep an offender away from potential victims is a year likely to have fewer actual victims. I suspect no amount of caning or stockades or whatever else we might bring back would be enough to completely eliminate the need for prison as a "backup" for repeat offenders.
You'd think calibrating any sort of punishment would make it reasonably effective for denunciation and retribution, right? We have The System tell the offender that they did a horrible thing, it prescribes a certain level of suffering for the offender, and this gives us a shared ethical code and some feeling it's being enforced (at least if the police and the prosecutors are doing their jobs, but that's a requirement with any form of punishment). Thinking about incarceration from this perspective, already it's possible to see cracks in the system. Is it even possible to calibrate the suffering we prescribe to different offenders? If you're accosted by some thug and have to fight back before the police arrive, do you think his prison sentence would deliver as much suffering as yours would, if a jury doesn't think your self-defense was justified or proportional and convicts you in addition to or instead of him? If you're very upper class you may have the social/financial/cultural capital to recover (respect, Martha Stewart!), or if you're very lower class you may be okay with a little free room and board, but if you're middle class your career may never recover. Other forms of punishment have similar flaws here, though, so it's hard to fault incarceration specifically.
As a deterrent, incarceration is probably specifically much less effective than the same level of suffering would be if delivered as corporal punishment. The sort of high-time-preference offender who thinks crime is a good idea in the first place is not going to be nearly as deterred by suffering which is scheduled years into the future, and because the suffering from prison is so more gradual than the suffering from corporal punishment there's no way to avoid letting it stretch long into the future for serious crimes.
For reparation (aside from "the victim feels better to see the offender suffer"; I'm counting that with retribution), incarceration is basically useless (it doesn't transfer any value to the victims) or worse (it conflicts with possibilities like wage garnishment that could transfer some value to victims).
For rehabilitation, in theory prison could be helpful, but in practice it seems to be worse than useless. Criminals are not being isolated from the bad influences that led them to crime, they're being put into a community full of them. Depending on what connections a prisoner makes, they may end up more disposed to a life of crime when they leave than they were when they came in.
And for expiation, incarceration is probably grossly counterproductive! In theory The System has told everyone that "they've paid their debt to society" upon release; in practice any significant sentence length makes it difficult to maintain relationships with non-fellow-criminals (and nearly impossible to continue providing friends/family/dependents any support) and difficult to find a (legal) job when the punishment is over. Arguably these are the most punishing aspects of prison, but they're also precisely the aspects of an offender's life we want to encourage, not punish!
More options
Context Copy link