X-Message-Number: 20518
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 06:31:34 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: CryoNet #20508 - #20517

Hi everyone!

About Tolkien:

I read the War of the Rings before it became so popular, and later
discovered Tolkien's earlier writings, which now strike me as much
better. 

The problem with the War of the Rings is that it never addresses
some REAL critical points. This can be done in fantasy or in a
standard novel, but it still must be done. The world has never
been cleanly and obviously split into two camps, the Evil and the
Good, and never will be. Any novel based on that assumption falls
down at once.

The problem starts to become clear if we seriously think about why
people do what they do. Sometimes they've just been unthinkingly
trained to respond as they do... and even trained not to think
about how and why they respond. (So we get suicide bombers). 
Sometimes they may have some missing brain circuits, and be
quite unable to restrain themselves from violence (though I
note that armies want people who follow orders, and those
with missing brain circuits usually don't qualify). To simply
say that many have been trained to follow orders misses one
point: whose orders and when and why? But it does catch another
point: no society, even free societies, wants to have no one
who will not follow orders without thinking about them.

And an interesting point about punishment. Virtually all of 
criminal law aims to punish the offender. That's particularly
interesting because it completely ignores the fate of the 
violated, the injured, and those offended against. Even in
cases of massive fraud, much more attention goes to punishing
the perpetrator than to restoring the wealth of those 
defrauded. It's not that we don't want the perpetrators to
go about doing the same thing, but that somehow they must
be caused pain and trouble "equal" to that of their victims.
The victims seem to be too often forgotten. A law or set of
customs (would we call it law if it never aimed to punish?)
would try to prevent repetition of injuries by those who
caused them, AND help the victims recover.

Yes, this might mean far more restrictions on perpetrators
than now, when they simply serve out their sentence. Such
restrictions would be genuinely aimed at preventing 
repetition, not at causing pain and suffering, even just
psychological pain, to the perpetrators. It would also 
probably violate our carefully built-up ideas about 
the rights of criminals. And it would pay far more attention
to the victims than happens now, too.

The entire idea of punishment may someday be seen as a 
sign of a backward society which we have now outgrown: or
to put it in contemporary terms, a form of "evil" so
widespread that it cannot be escaped.

           Best wishes and long long life for all,

                  Thomas Donaldson

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