COMMENSAL ISSUE 89


The Newsletter of the Philosophical Discussion Group
Of British Mensa

Number 89 : November 1997

ARTICLES
11th October 1997 : Alan Carr

REPLY TO C88

Hello Theo,

Here are my contributions for the next issue :-

Ireland (C88, p.14) : peace will occur when both sides are accommodated. This is practically impossible. The current situation is similar to the Sunningdale scenario a year ago. The unionists (DUP, UKUP) have pulled out of the talks knowing that any progress will be towards the united Ireland end of the spectrum. The old mantra of "we will not talk to terrorists" has been continuously employed for years, for the simple reason that once the unionists meet with Sinn Fein, they will have no excuses left for not talking. Any talks will have to accommodate nationalists / republicans and unionists perceive this accommodation as a step towards a united Ireland.

In the mean time expect the UUP to come under severe pressure to withdraw from the talks process, and if they continue in the talks process Dr. Ian Paisley will organise huge unionist / loyalist marches / strikes / protests / boycotts to wreck the talks process.

I accept that this outlook is pessimistic and that I could be wrong and I do sincerely hope that all the people involved will find peace but time will tell. This has been written on 4th October 1997 just in case any of this happens before publication date.

Population (C88, p.14) : Having read the opinions on population in Commensal, I felt there was a question going unasked : what about reincarnation ? : if it occurs how many of us have lived in the past ? Does it affect individual consciousness ? The question of how many people have ever lived has more exotic conclusions. I’d prefer everybody to think about this question than read my opinion on the subject. Enjoy your thoughts.

Crime Prevention (C88, p.28) : while reading Anthony Owens’ proposal for penal reform I was reminded of an old saying "prevention is better than cure". It struck me that his solution was more of a cure than a preventive measure.

How can we cure crime ? Well straight off I don’t have the answer. The motives of a criminal will have to be looked into. For the sake of presenting a philosophy I will give three archetypal motives :

Which crime should have been prevented and how many would it have cured ?

It could be argued that two of these motives are by-products of capitalism : need and greed. Need caused by greed. Western society will not try to prevent crime because this will mean a questioning of its founding principles. Society will try to cure crime by prisons and fines.

I hope that I have presented my points clearly and I did not intend to advocate communism; but crime prevention has a distinct difference from crime cure.

Alan Carr


Alan : Thanks for the above. I think we may be straying a little into the preserve of a debating society with the comments on Northern Ireland. Interesting thoughts on crime prevention - focusing on the motivation for crime rather than on prevention merely by reducing the opportunities along the lines of "neighbourhood watch" or "more police on the beat". What long term impact do you think Tony Blair’s three priorities (3 x education) will have if seriously implemented ? More debating, of course, but one might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat. It seems to me that planned economies have planned crime (perpetrated by those in power) while free economies have anarchic crime. Also, maybe the balance between need, greed and evil may change, but the aggregate of crime not, or at least not for long ?

Theo