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I believe they're suggesting that these systems are designed to be cruel, and that there are people who desire that. I was astonished while I was working on CO
by Fomite 6y ago
I believe they're suggesting that these systems are designed to be cruel, and that there are people who desire that.
I was astonished while I was working on COVID-19 in jails that the statement "Someone shouldn't die of COVID because they can't afford bail" as something that got active pushback by some people.
- rectang 6y ago"The Cruelty is the Point — President Trump and his supporters find community by rejoicing in the suffering of those they hate and fear" is a 2018 Adam Serwer essay from The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt... I concur that "the cruelty is the point" captures the driving force behind "Why America's prisons are an unconstitutional moral horror".
- knowaveragejoe 6y agoThis describes Trumpism to a T, thanks.
- rectang 6y agoI think Serwer described something much older, something that transcends 2018's political actors and today's American political party alignments. Imposing suffering affirms your own power and the powerlessness of your enemies — and that's something intrinsic to the darker side of human nature. The current moral malady of the US prison system goes back to the 90s and the infamous 1994 crime bill which intensified the racial iniquities of the US justice system. It was bad long before that, too — it's not something which started with the 2016 presidential election. But in my view, "the cruelty is the point" also describes the sentiments of the 1990s crime panic.