| Autor |
Mensagem |
Joseph de Maistre
Veterano |
# nov/12 · Editado por: Joseph de Maistre
(Quem não souber inglês, pode colocar o texto no tradutor do Google. Não precisa colar por aqui)
The Mirage of Equal Opportunity
Anthony Daniels – who often uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple – is a writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist.
He is the author of books such as Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass, Our Culture: What’s Left of It and Spoilt Rotten: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality. He has also written for the British Medical Journal, The Times, the Observer, the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, and the Salisbury Review.
Feeling and meaning
A characteristic of contemporary political thought and speech is the triumph of connotation over denotation: that is to say that the feelings or emotions aroused by words have become more important, even much more important, than any meaning by which they are tethered to the world outside our minds. It is beyond my scope to suggest a reason why this should be so, but I think that it will be readily granted that, if it is so, it is a development that cannot but hamper clear thought. Of course, I recognise that this is a recurring problem in human history: it is millennia ago that Confucius suggested that the first necessary reform in a polity was to call things by their proper names.
Let us take the word ‘equality.’ I do not think that many people in public life would dare to say that they were against equality in any more than its most formal and juridical. That must mean that the word equality has a connotation so strong that it is dangerous to disassociate yourself from it, or disavow equality as a goal. A person who is in favour of equality is a good chap, a democrat and friend of the people, while someone who is against it is a bad chap, an elitist and an enemy of the people.
But it is easy to demonstrate that equality cannot in itself be desirable. For if equality were desirable in itself, it would matter little whether it were produced by a betterment or a worsening of conditions. Since I am a doctor, I will give a medical example.
Medical journals these days are obsessed by inequality; and it is an undoubted fact that, within almost all societies, rich people are healthier than poor. Most of the major medical journals argue, almost ad nauseam, for a closure of the health gap between the richest and poorest people.
In Britain the richest decile of the population has an infant mortality about half that of the poorest decile: that is to say, its infant mortality rate (the number of children per thousand live births who die in the first year of life) is about 3 instead of 6. Let us suppose that it were possible to reduce the infant mortality rate in both deciles by 1, such that the infant mortality rates were now 2 and 5 respectively. This would represent a widening of the ratio of infant mortality in the two deciles from 2 to 2.5, in other words to an increase in inequality. But it would be an odd person who would say that such a diminution in infant deaths was therefore undesirable, and an even odder one who would suggest that it was desirable to bring the infant mortality rate of the richest decile up to 6 so that equality might be achieved.
An equality of misery?
But, it might be argued, egalitarians no longer look so much at outcomes as at beginnings, in other words not equality of outcome but equality of opportunity, within societies if not between them. And what modern politician would dare to say that he was opposed to equality of opportunity, and believed that the idea was pernicious and actually harmful in its effect?
In addition to all the difficulties that equality of outcome as a desideratum has – a society of no opportunity would, after all, be a society of equality of opportunity – this supposed desideratum has other difficulties of its own.
It is a commonplace that people vary in their natural endowments; it is just as well that this is so, because if everyone were Mozart, no one would be Mozart. Not only do people vary at birth in their endowments, but they vary in their family, social and cultural backgrounds; and there is little doubt that some such backgrounds are more propitious, statistically speaking, for accomplishment and worldly success than others. I would hesitate to mention anything so obvious, but it is something that those who believe in equality of opportunity wish to shut their eyes to.
If one were serious about equality of opportunity, one would be a totalitarian so thoroughgoing as to make North Korea seem like a libertarian paradise. Only clones could be born and no parent could have any influence on the upbringing of his or her child, for fear of introducing inequality. Every child would receive exactly the same treatment, preferably from machines. A society of equality of opportunity would be one in which no parent could express in words or in action a preference for his own child, or to procure advantages for him or her, in case it should prejudice the chances of another child. I leave it to you to decide whether a society in which parents held no particular brief for their own children as against all the others in the world would be an attractive one. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World would be but a beginning, not an end.
It is clear, then, that equality of opportunity is very nearly the antithesis of opportunity, for opportunity implies the incalculable. But for all practical purposes, at least at the moment, equality of opportunity is impossible and inconceivable; but just because it is impossible and inconceivable does not mean that the idea, or ideal, is without its practical effects.
Here let me say that almost any ideal is unattainable, because men are not perfect or perfectible, and because all ideals are incomplete, human desiderata being various and often contradictory. If I say that I value politeness, I am not claiming that on each and every occasion in my life I am myself polite; moreover a world in which every human interaction were polite would be a rather insipid one. Nevertheless, it remains true that I do value politeness. Like most people, I harbour within my breast contradictory desires: that for security and excitement, for example.
Unattainable but worthwhile ideals are calls to self-control and self-cultivation. If I truly value freedom of thought, I must learn to tolerate the expression of thoughts that I detest, despise or even hate. This is an achievement rather than something that can be taken as natural.
Resentment as an excuse
Let us examine briefly, by contrast, the psychological consequences of equality of opportunity as an ideal. A friend of mine, a Russian who emigrated to the United States and then moved to England, told me that, at parties in the USA, he would always introduce himself by name and then say, ‘I hate my parents, don’t you?’ He said that he never met anyone who demurred from this hatred, who said, ‘No; actually I honour my father and my mother.’
At the least, this little experiment showed that resentment is a very common and easily aroused emotion. In fact, it is one of the very few emotions that never lets you down or disappoints – the only other I can think of is righteous indignation – and is certainly the only emotion that can last a lifetime. Righteous indignation, it is true, can be long-lasting, but is seldom lifelong; unlike resentment, it necessarily changes its focus and attaches to something new, whereas resentment can be fixated early and last until the deathbed.
Now the connection between equality of opportunity and resentment is obvious. There are very few of us who could (or would) claim that his upbringing or experience in life was so optimal that he had nothing to envy anyone else in the world. Surely everyone knows someone else who, in one respect or another, had opportunities that he did not have, and this through no fault of his own. In other words, we all have grounds for resentment. There is always someone more fortunate than we.
As I have said, resentment can, and indeed often does, last a lifetime; and this is because it has certain sour satisfactions. Among these is the satisfaction of being morally superior to the world while remaining – objectively speaking – in a grossly subordinate, inferior or undesirable position. Resentment satisfactorily explains all one own failures and failings; ‘I would have been a success in some respect or other, if only I had had the same opportunities as...’ And here you need only fill in the name of the person or persons more fortunately placed than you to succeed in that respect.
Resentment is a universal human emotion. It is a permanent possibility for all of us, and it takes an effort to control it. I doubt whether any reader, if he examines himself candidly, has failed ever to feel it. I suspect that those who have never felt resentment are as rare as those who have never felt pain.
Unfortunately resentment, though universal, at least potentially so, is not only a useless, but a harmful emotion: for it encourages him who feels it to dwell not on what he can do – that is to say his opportunities – but on what he cannot do, that is to say his lack of opportunities. From the moment of one’s birth, there are many things one is destined not to become; how easy, and I should add pleasurable, it is to blame others for this fact, while vegetating in a soup, a minestrone, of self-pity.
The never-attained goal
I hope it will be clear, therefore, why a fixation on equality of opportunity, at least in situations where there are no formal, legal obstacles to people’s self-development, is disastrous; and why, if it becomes sufficiently general, it is bad for the whole of society too, and not just for individuals.
But, you might ask, if equality of opportunity is an intellectually frivolous idea or ideal, one that it impossible of achievement but yet which has a potentially disastrous effect upon many people’s psyche, and through that effect on the psyche on the whole of society itself, why has it become an almost unassailable goal, that no politician in the western world dare deny? After all, the objections to it are not so very difficult to see or work out; indeed, one might say that they are rather obvious.
The answer is to be found in the use to which such an idea or ideal can be put. I am not suggesting that there is any central plot or conspiracy, only that there is a coincidence of interests; and that it is a universal human characteristic, or at least potential characteristic, that people are able, by means of rationalisations, to align their ideas and their ideals with their personal interests. I am not here making a Marxist epistemological point; I am not saying that, logically, it must be so; only that, as a matter of psychological and sociological fact, it is often so. And it is so in this case.
Let us try for a moment a little thought-experiment. Let us suppose that one wanted, for whatever reason, to erect or create a society in which a bureaucratic government arrogated to itself ever-more power to regulate and control a population, but to do so without the more obvious accoutrements of a tyranny, indeed to do it with the consent and even at the request of the population itself. The espousal of what kind of ideal would be propitious to the erection or creation of such a society?
I trust it will be obvious by now that equality of opportunity is precisely such an ideal. The very impossibility of it, the very fact that it is a mirage that recedes as one tries to approach it as it shimmers in the distance, is an advantage, not a disadvantage: for the failure to attain the goal justifies ever-greater and more vigorous attempts to do so. Moreover, it is clear that the nature of the goal itself justifies interference in the lives of citizens down to the very last detail; for there is literally nothing that anyone can do in the bosom of his family that does not affect the life-chances of his children, or those of other children by comparison with his. And the greater the failure of each successive politico-bureaucratic interference, the greater the locus standi for yet further interference. This is a world in which nothing succeeds like failure.
The beauty of the system is that, with each failure, resentment in the population grows, or is at least maintained. As we have seen, the resentful person sees himself not as an agent, but as a victim of circumstance; and a victim of circumstance demands that the circumstances should be changed. He cannot do this himself; he has to demand that someone else does it for him. And since that someone else can hardly be an individual, for all individuals who want to change the circumstances are in the same boat as he, a powerful organisation must do it. That organisation can only be a powerful political bureaucracy, that supposedly acts in defence of the interests of the humble and the humiliated. I do not know what such bureaucracies do in other countries, but I know that in mine they humble and humiliate the humiliated and humble, who nevertheless – because of their resentment at the absence of equality of opportunity – continue to look to it for their salvation. We spend billions (though nowadays I suppose we ought to talk in trillions if we want to get a hearing) on that salvation, but somehow it never comes.
In a way it is a beautiful scheme, as near to a perpetual motion machine as anyone has yet invented. The laws of thermodynamics, it seems, do not apply in politics.
Towards a victory, if only temporarily
It might be asked what, if anything, can be done about this, or indeed if anything should be done about it. After all, it seems that the dominated and those who dominate them share the same interests, that is to say to keep the whole perpetual motion machine in motion. But there are two problems: first, the perpetual motion machine is not really perpetual, at least not in the economic sphere, though it might be so in the psychological one; and second, though resentment, as I have said, has its satisfactions, a resentful existence is not really happy and indeed is such as is liable to outbreaks of irrational rage and brutality.
That, perhaps, disposes of the question of whether anything ought to be done, but does not answer the question of whether anything can be done. If, as I say, resentment springs eternal in the human breast, can it be expunged?
There is no final victory against it, any more than there is an end to history. The cardinal vices (among which envy, not a million miles from resentment, is one) are cardinal not only because they are cardinal but because they are a permanent feature or temptation of human existence. No one believes, surely, that now that the folly of speculative greed has been exposed, there will never exist such folly again. A man who could believe that could believe anything.
If I am right, and it is mind-forg’d manacles that encumber a much of mankind and imprison it, not least in our own countries which have designated themselves as free, then argument and changing minds is important. We should not, in so far as it is in our power, allow our political and cultural elites to peddle unchallenged the ideal of equality of opportunity, as if it were in the same category of ideal as mother-love, beautiful, warm and reassuring, and something that no decent person, or even person in his right mind, could very well oppose, and that, by definition, can have no harmful consequences. This work will be long and arduous; any victory will soon be followed by defeat, just as (in current circumstances) any attempt to reduce government deficits will soon be followed by attempts to increase them. But that is human life: two steps forward, one step backwards – or is it, as it often seems, the other way round?
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Roy.Mustang
Veterano |
# nov/12
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tl;dr
padrão
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Viciado em Guarana
Veterano |
# nov/12
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Descobri isso sozinho.
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Headstock invertido
Veterano |
# nov/12
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A única coisa sensata da teoria socialista. Pena que, como todos os outros aspectos da mesma, não passa de uma utopia.
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Wanderer on the Offensive
Veterano |
# nov/12
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No, thanks.
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Msess
Veterano |
# nov/12
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já sabia.
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Cavaleiro
Veterano |
# nov/12
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Como assim um texto que fala sobre o assunto sem mencionar Rawls?
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SODAPOP
Veterano |
# nov/12 · Editado por: SODAPOP
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véi, o que vcs tem na cabeça?
tem tanta coisa inacreditavelmente absurda nesse texto... quer dizer que é só o cara ser um doutorzão, vir lá de num sei onde, ser reconhecido e vcs se convencem? Porque não pode ser que meia dúzia de exemplos mal escolhidos, uma tentativa de traçar o perfil psicológico dos defensores da opinião contrária, umas metáforas e uma visão tão intangível com a realidade possa ser tão amplamente difundida. Me contem, sério, como foi o processo de ler e concordar com o autor do texto, por favor
estou deslumbrado
Sempre achei furada, mas agora entendo porque tem gente que é anti-academicismo. Nego perde o link, vira uma metalinguagem
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Viciado em Guarana
Veterano |
# nov/12
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SODAPOP
Pera aí! Você leu essa porcaria?
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SODAPOP
Veterano |
# nov/12 · Editado por: SODAPOP
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Viciado em Guarana
hauhauauahuahua li
eu juro que tentei realmente compreender, me amalgamar na coisa
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Black Fire
Gato OT 2011 |
# nov/12
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"Sou bem nascido, minvenjem"
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ZakkWyldeEMG
Veterano |
# nov/12
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SODAPOP
Me contem, sério, como foi o processo de ler e concordar com o autor do texto, por favor
basicamente isso
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SODAPOP
Veterano |
# nov/12
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ZakkWyldeEMG
fantástico!
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Joseph de Maistre
Veterano |
# nov/12
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SODAPOP
quer dizer que é só o cara ser um doutorzão, vir lá de num sei onde, ser reconhecido e vcs se convencem?
Não, eu já pensava assim. O doutorzão apenas conseguiu articular isso sem parecer a snowwhite.
Me contem, sério, como foi o processo de ler e concordar com o autor do texto,
Aqui vão dois casos concretos para você (e quem quiser mais) avaliar :
Caso 1
Por uma série de razões (poder ler mais livros, ter mais opções de pós-graduação, de emprego, sempre ter gostado de línguas, etc.) eu gastei uma fração não desprezível da minha vida adulta aprendendo francês.
Tive essas razões práticas, mas houve também dois episódios em particular que eu considero os estopins da minha decisão: a nomeação do Joaquim Barbosa (cuja biografia começou então a circular pela mídia) para o STF e o fato de, na mesma época, o meu professor de Direito Constitucional ter indicado como leitura obrigatória para a turma um jurista chamado José Afonso da Silva, que, segundo ouvíamos, tinha sido alfabetizado com 15 anos de idade, trabalhado como alfaiate e se formado em Direito já velho, e que, como qualquer um que leia as obras dele pode atestar, adora encher o livro de citações diretas em francês, como se estivesse assumindo que seus leitores já conhecessem a língua.
Minha reação a esses dois episódios foi mais ou menos a seguinte: se um ex-faxineiro e um cara que se alfabetizou na adolescência dominavam francês, era óbvio que um boyzão como eu tinha a obrigação de fazer melhor e jamais ceder à preguiça fatalista. Daí, mesmo trabalhando e fazendo faculdade, eu me impus o compromisso de, por mais atarefado que eu pudesse estar, por mais puto que eu pudesse estar com alguma coisa, por mais que eu quisesse fazer outras coisas e dar atenção à minha namorada no meu tempo livre, eu sempre daria um jeito de inserir pelo menos uma hora de estudo de gramática francesa na minha timetable diária.
É claro que essa reação não seria lá a mais comum entre a maior parte da população. As pessoas em geral tendem a considerar esse tipo de esforço masturbação intelectual pedante desnecessária e, compreensivelmente, jamais se disporiam a fazer o mesmo investimento de tempo que eu fiz. Isso é até certo ponto natural. Elas têm todo o direito de preferir gastar aquela hora diária consumindo alguma coisa que lhes dê prazer agora a investindo em algo que só vai começar a lhes render frutos no futuro.
Por outro lado, eu também tenho todo o direito de, agora que terminei a faculdade, fiz a pós no exterior que estava planejando e consegui uma razoável oferta de emprego dentre um razoável número de opções, querer transferir para a minha filha de 4 anos (que já é bilíngue) esse capital humano que me foi útil. Afinal, além da língua propriamente dita, tenho certeza de que isso vai lhe dar uma vantagem escolar em vários outros aspectos: escrever melhor, gerenciar melhor seu tempo, aprender desde cedo como usar a memória e, principalmente, fortalecer a vontade e a disciplina para fazer as coisas.
Colocado esse cenário na mesa, introduza agora um esquerdista nele. O cara chega, vê tudo isso acontecendo e fica indignado com a situação: “mimimi Quanta desigualdade! Esse Maistre é um individualista mesquinho! Ele não pode tratar sua filha melhor do que as outras crianças! Temos que fazer alguma coisa para incluir socialmente esses jovens desprovidos e nivelar as oportunidades! Justiça social já! mimimi”.
O cara propõe então a criação de um curso de francês nas escolas públicas, a ser financiado por um imposto específico cobrado dos pais egoístas que ensinaram francês aos seus filhos em casa e agora vão pagar para que as outras crianças tenham a mesma oportunidade.
Ou seja, além de tirar da minha filha a vantagem que eu dei a ela, o esquerdista resolve me onerar ainda mais, me obrigando a separar uma parte da minha própria renda para financiar aulas de francês para o filho do cara que, ironicamente, nunca deu a mínima para isso e que sempre considerou isso masturbação intelectual pedante desnecessária.
Agora, por fim, eu te pergunto: você acha isso justo?
Caso 2.
Imagine a mesma hipótese narrada acima, mas com uma pequena alteração: substituamos “investimento em francês” (capital humano) por “investimento em poupança” (capital físico ou financeiro).
Ou seja... e se, ao invés de eu abrir mão daquela hora noturna para estudar francês, eu abrisse mão daquele churrasco regado a pagodão, cerveja e jogo do Brasil no fim de semana e fosse vender minha mão-de-obra no mercado e acumular capital para investir depois e melhorar de vida?
E se, ao invés de eu dar diretamente uma vantagem escolar à minha filha, eu usasse o dinheiro que consegui trabalhando no fim de semana para pagar a outra pessoa para lhe dar essa vantagem?
Você acharia justo me onerar e redistribuir a minha renda para o pai que preferiu curtir o churrasco?
Pense nisso.
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Black Fire
Gato OT 2011 |
# nov/12
· votar
eu abrisse mão daquele churrasco regado a pagodão, cerveja e jogo do Brasil no fim de semana e fosse vender minha mão-de-obra no mercado e acumular capital para investir depois e melhorar de vida?
Como é o nome daquele artifício de debate de levar as coisas a proporções ridículas?
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Shredder_De_Cavaquinho
Veterano |
# nov/12
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Black Fire
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
Esse?
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The Laughing Madcap
Veterano |
# nov/12
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Você acharia justo me onerar e redistribuir a minha renda para o pai que preferiu curtir o churrasco?
different strokes for different folks.
nem todo mundo adere à ética protestante
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tambourine man
Veterano |
# nov/12
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já empacotei minhas malas, vou viver nas páginas de hayek. Falous
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The Laughing Madcap
Veterano |
# nov/12
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aguardo os novos ventos, mas aviso que neste mar não navegarei
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Atom Heart Mother
Veterano |
# nov/12
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nada mais pedante do que um grande texto sócio/político/econômico em inglês.
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send
Veterano |
# nov/12
· votar
Não existe igualdade de oportunidades.. e isso está mto longe de se aproximar de uma realidade...
As pessoas são diferentes.. pensam diferente.. é o q o cara doutorzaum disse lá... se tds fossem Mozart.. ngm seria Mozart... ou se só existisse a cor azul.. naum teria outra opção de gosto de cor.. enfim..
A questaum de igualar oportunidades na minha visaum.. q naum sou ngm.. é mais um devaneio.. pq p isso dar certo.. tds teriam q pensar igual.. ser mini robos como o tiozaum do texto disse... sem influência d nada nem ngm.. mas isso é impossível.. pq cada um de nós somos influenciados por pais.. mães.. bandas... amigos.. enfim.. inúmeras influências o tempo todo...
agora se for falar de igualar oportunidade pelo governo.. e o mesmo oferecer ensino básico e fundamental de qualidade para a população... oferecer casa... oferecer médico, hospital.. enfim oferecer serviços básicos de saúde, ensino e outras coisas.. para um país uma cidade, ainda sim.. teria aquele preguiçoso q naum gosta de estudar ou q tá se lixando p ir ao médico... enfim... mesmo assim.. a questaum da igualdade ainda naum seriia igual.. pq isso vai de cada pessoa se esforçar e dar o seu melhor para tentar se igualar... e a propósito igualar-se ao q? a quem?
Enfim... igualdade de oportunidade... q oportunidade?
Isso é mto confuso e abstrato p tentar discutir ou simplesmente conversar sobre o assunto..
chinga tu madre!
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Scrutinizer
Veterano |
# nov/12
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Eu concordava com as idéias do texto, mas ele é tão horrível que me fez virar esquerdista.
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send
Veterano |
# nov/12
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Scrutinizer
eu gosto do texto...
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Joseph de Maistre
Veterano |
# nov/12
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Black Faire
eu abrisse mão daquele churrasco regado a pagodão, cerveja e jogo do Brasil no fim de semana e fosse vender minha mão-de-obra no mercado e acumular capital para investir depois e melhorar de vida?
Como é o nome daquele artifício de debate de levar as coisas a proporções ridículas?
O pior é que esse exemplo nem saiu da minha cabeça preconceituosa.
Eu te juro pela vida de Dilma Rousseff que ele veio do meu ex-barbeiro.
Um dia, na semana que eu ia embarcar para fora do Brasil, avisei a ele (um senhor já velho) que tava indo embora do país e que aquela provavelmente seria a última vez que ele cortaria o meu cabelo. Ele me respondeu algo mais ou menos assim: "Má é mêmo, rapaz? É engraçado como você tá sempre estudando, né? Nego por aí fica só querendo saber de futebol e pagode e depois reclama que num sai do lugar".
The Laughing Madcap
nem todo mundo adere à ética protestante
Mas todo mundo quer aderir aos lucros protestantes que ela rende...
different strokes for different folks.
No pain, no gain.
send
Voltou para o fórum? :O
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The Laughing Madcap
Veterano |
# nov/12
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Mas todo mundo quer aderir aos lucros protestantes que ela rende...
elas apenas querem comprar aquilo que elas são coagidas a pensar ser essencial para ser um 'cidadão'.
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Joseph de Maistre
Veterano |
# nov/12 · Editado por: Joseph de Maistre
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tambourine man
já empacotei minhas malas, vou viver nas páginas de hayek. Falous
Ô, se! Bom mesmo é viver no mundo de faz-de-conta criado pela esquerda do "Oh, que menino sem oportunidades oprimido pelo sistema, tadinho dele, vamos passar a mão na cabecinha dele e lhe dar um algodãozinho doce!":
"Another burglar demanded to know from me why he repeatedly broke into houses and stole VCRs. He asked the question aggressively, as if ‘the system’ had so far let him down in not supplying him with the answer; as if it were my duty as a doctor to provide him with the buried psychological secret which, once revealed, would in and of itself lead him unfailingly on the path of virtue. Until then, he would continue to break into houses and steal VCRs (when at liberty to do so), and the blame would be mine.
When I refused to examine his past, he exclaimed, ‘But something must make me do it!’
‘How about greed, laziness, and a thirst for excitement?’ I suggested.
‘What about my childhood?’ he asked.
‘Nothing to do with it,’ I replied firmly.
He looked at me as if I had assaulted him. Actually, I thought the matter more complex than I was admitting, but I did not want him to misunderstand my main message: that he was the author of his own deeds.
Another prisoner claimed to be under so strong a compulsion to steal cars that it was irresistible - an addiction, he called it. He stole up to forty vehicles a week, but nevertheless considered himself a fundamentally good person because he was never violent towards anyone, and all the vehicles he stole were insured, and therefore the owners would lose nothing. But regardless of any financial incentive to do so, he contended, he stole cars for the excitement of it: if prevented for a few days from indulging in this activity, he became restless, depressed, and anxious. It was a true addiction, he repeated at frequent intervals, in case I should have forgotten in the meantime.
Now the generally prevalent conception of an addiction is of an illness, characterized by an irresistible urge (mediated neurochemically and possibly hereditary in nature) to consume a drug or other substance, or to behave in a repetitively self-destructive or antisocial way. An addict can’t help himself, and because his behavior is a manifestation of illness, it has no more moral content than the weather.
So in effect what my car thief was telling me was that his compulsive car-stealing was not merely not his fault, but that the responsibility for stopping him from behaving thus was mine, since I was the doctor treating him. And until such time as the medical profession found the behavioral equivalent of an antibiotic in the treatment of pneumonia, he could continue to cause untold misery and inconvenience to the owners of cars and yet consider himself fundamentally a decent person.
That criminals often shift the locus of responsibility for their acts elsewhere is illustrated by some of the expressions they use most frequently in their consultations with me. Describing, for example, their habitual loss of temper, which leads them to assault whomever displeases them sufficiently, they say, ‘My head goes,’ or ‘My head just went.’
What exactly do they mean by this? They mean that they consider themselves to suffer from a form of epilepsy or other cerebral pathology whose only manifestation is involuntary rage, of which it is the doctor’s duty to cure them. Quite often they put me on warning that unless I find the cure for their behavior, or at least prescribe the drugs they demand, they are going to kill or maim someone. The responsibility when they do so will be mine, not theirs, for I knew what they were going to do, yet failed to prevent it. So their putative illness has not only explained and, therefore, absolved them from past misconduct, but it has exonerated them in advance from all future misconduct.
Moreover, by warning me of their intention to carry out further assaults, they have set themselves up to be victims rather than perpetrators. They told the authorities (me) what they were going to do, and yet the authorities (I, again) did nothing; and so when they return to prison after committing a further horrible crime, they will feel aggrieved that ‘the system,’ represented by me, has once again let them down."
DALRYMPLE, Theodore. Life at the bottom: the worldview that makes the underclass (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001) pp. 7-9.
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Joseph de Maistre
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# nov/12 · Editado por: Joseph de Maistre
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The Laughing Madcap
elas apenas querem comprar aquilo que elas são coagidas a pensar ser essencial para ser um 'cidadão'.
"Coagidas" por quem ? Cada um só consome o que quer e vai ao encontro de seus valores.
Se você passar em frente a um sex-shop na rua Augusta cheio de rolas de borracha expostas na vitrine e gente com cabelo estranho/alargador na orelha (visão do inferno que me fez criar trauma de São Paulo) fumando na calçada, vai por acaso se sentir "coagido" a consumir essas abominações?
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The Laughing Madcap
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# nov/12
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Joseph de Maistre
Cada um só consome o que quer e vai ao encontro de seus valores.
habeo, ergo sum
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Black Fire
Gato OT 2011 |
# nov/12
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Joseph de Maistre
Eu achei o exemplo meio infeliz, porque eu conheço muita gente que rala pra caramba e nunca consegue nada na vida.
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Veterano |
# nov/12
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Joseph de Maistre
quem é vc?
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