3 ms·
This doesn't apply in the USA, since for our citizens the purpose of our prison system is not to rehabilitate, but to inflict savage vengeance.
by rectang 9y ago
This doesn't apply in the USA, since for our citizens the purpose of our prison system is not to rehabilitate, but to inflict savage vengeance.
- psyc 9y agoPerhaps it's a reflection of Christianity. It's the will of God that evildoers go to hell, to be tormented by other demons like themselves.
- cgriswald 9y agoChristianity? That is a stretch. Christians believe in divine forgiveness and some sects even believe man does not have the right to punish man; that doing so is doing God's job. Punishment as retribution is way, way older than Christianity. Are we hanging onto it in the United States as a relic of our (specifically) Puritan origins? Possibly.
- camus2 9y ago> Perhaps it's a reflection of Christianity. It's a reflection of Puritanism, not Christianity as a whole.
- psyc 9y agoWhat I meant is that it could be a manifestation of an archetype in the Christian imagination - the 5th circle of hell. I did not have any conscious implementation of a doctrine for dealing with punishment in mind.