litch

I've been meaning to write something about the Judith Miller being sent to jail for refusing to rat out her source but then I read this which pretty much covered my feelings on the issue Judith Miller chose to be a tool of the Bush administion, with any luck at all she'll only be one of the first of many eating prison food.

Punishment doesn't work, it will not reliably change behavior. It's been studied intensively for half a century and proved repeatedly. But it is still a fundamental expression of our culture. Even people who are decent otherwise charitable and apparently loving cling to punishment like a lonely five year old with a wooby.

Punishment doesn't work, but we swim in punishment. Forget prison and the entire criminal justice system, look at our games, our common business practices, our childrearing habits, even our driving. Every damn thing we do reeks of punishment at some point.

is it any wonder life hurts so much sometimes?

Punishment doesn't work, but I feel good when I punish someone, it's a barbarous kind of glee. In it's most absolute sense it is just a delight in expressing power over someone. It's just hurting someone because you want to and you "can" (can in the sense that it's socially approved, are permitted).

So punishing doesn't work, what do we do instead? I think we should use behavior modification as much as possible, and where it doesn't prove effective, limit the transgressors exposure to society so that they are closely watched and physically prohibited from engaging in the unwanted behavior. I also think that any competent adult should always have the right to choose not to live in a society that make such demands. We also need to have rational social strictures that only limit activities to the degree they impact others and recognize that corporations are not people.

It's admittedly what many people would call idealistic, but it has the sterling virtue of not obviously not working (unlike our current system).