Friday, January 27, 2006

Has Chris Trotter been burgled?

Chris Trotter's DomPost column today tackles how we should think about and approach crime and punishment. He describes how the Marxists approached the subject dispassionately and scientifically, believing that flawed human beings could be "repaired, reformed and rehabilitated." In fact, it has turned out that human beings cannot simply be "reprogrammed." He says,"Longitudinal studies of children born in the 60's and 70's have revealed that 'nurture' counts for a great deal less than 'nature'.

So Trotter concludes that the Left may have to just bite the bullet on this one.

"It just might be that the Right's hardline approach to crime and punishment is correct."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

For an excellent discussion of the nature vs nuture conflict read "The Blank Slate" by Stephen Pinker. Excellent.

Oswald Bastable said...

Nobody cries quite as long and loud as a thief who has had something pinched from them!

Anonymous said...

The law of cause and effect has not yet been repealed as much as the Left may wish it was and some of them are waking up to this fact it seems....