[Platt]
Maybe you two professors, instead of commiserating with one another
about that awful, file, despicable, inane, stupid, nauseating,
polarizing Platt, could address the issue raised by Pirsig in Lila, namely:
{snip pet Pirsig quote}
[Arlo]
First, its rather meaningless to talk about "The Academy" as a
monolithic, uniformly-active entity. At best, its an amalgamation of
not only many disciplines, but many theoretical trends. I assume your
question points to sociology and social theory. This is not my forte,
but I am familiar with several trends in interdisciplinary studies,
such as the cultural psychology of Lev Vygotsky and the activity
theory of Leont'ev that seek a better understanding of community
formation and individual involvement.
Personally I find Pirsig's sentiment here somewhat naive and
hopelessly simplistic. "Crime" is not a function of "intellect's
failure to support social patterns", as crime has been a factor in
life dating as far back as Hammurabi. I, personally, do not know of
any sociological tradition that demands forgoing law in favor of
"talking to them". Some may foreground rehabilitation, others may
seek to kill the plant by getting to the roots, others have vigilante
fantasies about solving the problem by simply beating the thugs with
police batons. Likely a solution has to be multifaceted, one that
brings greater force down on criminals, as well as one that addresses
root-causes, and one that addresses the balance between punishment
and rehabilitation (incarceration costs the taxpayers millions of dollars).
But consider this. America, the land you hold as "more free" than the
"socialized" regions of Canada and Europe, has a much higher rate of
crime, violence and the "gang" activity of those "inner city blacks"
you seem to loathe so deeply. What is it that these other countries
are doing, that we are not, that is keeping this level of "biological
violence" in check? Are these "socialized" regions guided by a better
intellectual pattern than America? Does that account for their
ability to keep crime and violence at much lower levels than in the
US? Do they "raise their children with more discipline" in Canada? Do
the schools use "humiliation" (a tactic you recently called to be
used in schools here) in these areas, and is that responsible?
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