alaspoorrodrick

I think we can reduce our differences as to those of values. My definition of "monster" is not someone who "knowingly and purposefully spreads suffering, either for their own benefit for for fun." That is just a selfish person with no care for how their malicious acts affect others.

"Monsters," in my view, are those that are not and cannot ever be part of any cohesive human unit -- rather than those who cannot conform to a "global" moral or value system. The WASPs, mafiosos, inbred and insane aristocrats, mob-men, etc. are not what I consider monsters. They live and operate within a community. They almost always spread suffering, pain, violence, and other acts of villainy -- but that is an inescapable part of humanity. Locking them up away from the rest will not solve any long-term problems, aside from the career outlooks of politicians, district attorneys, and their ilk.

American Indians and other "primitive" tribes of people are another example (related to groups of people without strong government). All the war, bloodshed, acts of heinous despicably they commit against one another, is not something that can be whisked away by more subjugation. Brutality and suffering is a part of us. To think ourselves as civilized because we repress those urges into complete subjugation is foolhardy. Without active sublimation of these parts into socially-affirming activities, they will spill-over into other parts. We will not become "monsters," but we will do monstrous deeds unknowingly, within the comfort of our delusion of domestication.

Perhaps I lack the ability to "narrow in" on a certain issue. I miss the "trees for the forest," which makes it impossible for me to see a way to untangle this "ball of yarn" without methodically understanding the tangle of all the collective "strings". And for that, I do think your views are much more practical and applicable in the present.

No man is an island. If you separate someone from their community, their relationships, and the very things that cause us to change (people) -- you create monsters. Disenfranchised (more than already), rootless, without a reason or purpose to change. The only recognizance most prisoners will get is further down the "no one can be trusted or relied upon; I am the only person that must be taken care of" rabbit hole. You end up with either the fully antisocial, the terribly maladapted who can no longer build relations and integrate with others, or simply the dissociated.

Atleast in more sane countries, the corrections officers and prisons act as a form of community. A safe reprieve from the brutality of life, for one to be able to emulate a "normal" life, and "normal" interactions, and "normal" behavior. The brutality and isolation of an American prison only emulates a lawless society. The moral compass imparted within is simply might makes right. It takes Olympian acts of mental gymnastics to believe one is wholly responsible for one's own moral compass -- or that anyone but the most deluded can reject the reality they find themselves in, cast off all practical notions of operating oneself, and commit to abstract ideals. The only people who can do that are people who are so detached from any feedback loop on their survival, that it doesn't matter what they believe -- they have enough money and support that any insanity will never jeopardize them.

Crimes and morals are relative to the environments people find themselves in. Stuffing the spiritually ill into a crude box of suffering is on par with lobotomizing the "fussy and ill-tempered" housewives of the last century.