Thursday 28 June 2018

Prison





The object of prisons originally, both among the Hebrews and the Romans, was merely the safe-keeping of a criminal, real or pretended, until his trial. 

Which is remarkable, because you would expect the dominant thinking behind those two cultures to be completely at odds and different, as it always was about just about everything else.


They ONLY had a notional concept of Protective Custody, which is the same basic thinking that underlies the concept of  American Slave Jails.

We're not saying that you've done anything wrong, other than by escaping, of course (because naturally, for a slave, nothing could ever possibly justify or excuse that) - I mean, you probably have, or else why would you be a slave to begin with - but we are just going to keep you here, under guard, until we figure out what to do with you.

You're not a criminal - we're not saying that (yet). You're just being held here and "detained", as a temporary provisional arrangement, purely just for the time being, 'til all the facts are in, our investigation into you is complete and we are in a better position to know how to proceed from here.

So you cannot leave.

The ecclesiastical idea of imprisonment, however, is that confinement be made use of both as a punishment and as affording an opportunity for reformation and reflection.


The Naughty Step.

You just sit there Young Man, all by yourself, and you just think about what you've done.




" For the future, no regular, legitimately professed, may be expelled from his order unless he be truly incorrigible. A person is not to be judged truly incorrigible unless not only all those things are found verified which are required by the common law (notwithstanding the constitutions of any religious order even confirmed and approved by the Holy See), but also, until the delinquent has been tried by fasting and patience for one year in confinement. 

Therefore, let every order have private prisons, at least one in every province. "


This is incredible - your imprisonment was your Trial.

And notice also, this was a fixed-term : they couldn't kick you out unless and until you had been through this, undergone a full year of being under enforced Special Measures without expressing any remorse, or showing any signs offering any indication of contrition.

And if, at the end of it, you remained defiant, they simply just let you go.

They had to.

They were not allowed  to just keep you indefinitely, in the hopes that you would eventually just fall into line and conform, given enough encouragement and sufficient persuasion (which is how they would have regarded it).


They had to let you go, and never bother you ever again - they were not allowed to.

Provided that person (monk or nun) had made a true profession of faith and devotion when taking their vows and entering into the obligations of the order to which they were originally seeking to be admitted to at the time, they were not allowed  to give up on you, and indulge your delinquency by tolerating it, for as long as you persisted in perusing and expressing it.

Unless you could be shown to be absolutely incorrigible, in which case, you are beyond helping, unless you repent.

Repenting of your trespasses would mean that you are redeemable, and therefore saved, whereas to deny reponsibility for your trespassses, even the trespasses themselves, means that you're on your own.

Ultimately. Basically. And in more ways than one.


But other than by confining you to your solitude and restricting your diet and caloric intake (which is an obvious effort to facilitate gnosis to occur), they couldn't touch you or harm you, or injure you in any way. Physical or otherwise.

They could not consciously inflict suffering upon you, because that would be quite obviously sinful and wrong - any (additional) suffering you think you are experiencing due to your imprisonment, as consequence of being kept confined and hungry for anywhere up to a whole year is as an inevitable and entirely predictable (and foreseeable) result of your delinquency in behaviour and conduct, perpetuated  indefinitely on an ongoing basis by the fact of your incorrigibility.

The Inquisitor :
In a human, this attitude might be considered STUBBORN.

Kryten-2X4B-523P :
But I am not human - and neither are you.
And it is not our place to judge them.

I wonder why you do.

The Inquisitor :
Enough!


So you are incorrigable - to some extent. 

It isn't clear how much, but it is assumed that we can work that out of you and unburden your soul by exorcising you of the daemon of your own incorrigibility, given sufficent coaxing, persuading and encouraging to get you to do the right thing.

That is, unless you are indeed shown to be Truly Incorrigible, in which case there is little else that can be done for you - you are to be damned, that is, unless or until you decide by yourself  to change your ways, ask for help, the help that you need to redeem yourself, and seek forgiveness for your past deeds and sins and trespasses - which is to say :

They try to make me go to Rehab, but I say "No, no, no.". 

Significantly, if you watch interviews with Amy about the origin of the idea for that song, and this lyric in particular, the way in which it came about was that at a time when a plurality of her friends and interested peers were saying to her :

"You do have a problem - I think you really do need to urgently get some Help.
You should seriously look into checking into some form of clinical Rehab facility to get you into recovery, or else you could die."
when she repeated these warnings, it was her father - an unscrupulous and irresponsible feeder, if ever there was one - who said to her :

" You Don't Need to Go Into Rehab...! No, no, no!
You're my Little Girl!

My Princess!
 You don't have a drug problem! 
You're perfectly alright...!
Rehab's for Crackheads and Losers and Weak People, and you're nothing like that - 
Because You're My Little Girl!

They think they know everything, these Wishy-Washy, Namby-Pamby, Nervous-Nellie Bleeding Heart types -
What do They know....? 
I mean, who do They think they are...?"

More or less - I'm paraphrasing : except for the initial statement of rejection and incredulity - he definitely  said that to her, specifically, and in precisely those terms :

"You Don't Need to Go Rehab - That's just  Ridiculous. 

Don't take any notice of that and don't pay attention if anyone should try to insist on telling you otherwise. " 


So, anyway.

With Rehab - which is to say, Initial Stage-1 drying-out, Cold Turkey & Detox Rehab - it's voluntary, and they give you 30 Days, initially, which is generally sufficient enough time to break any physical dependencies, break the routine habits, patterns and cycles of habitual behaviour that pertain to Using (of any sort) and at least try  to make a start at getting to the underlying psychic causes that are the reason causing the substance use and abuse to occur, to provide a solid platform and basis for ongoing recovery and group work.

That's if you stay.

For instance, Kurt Cobain climbed over The Wall to escape and absconded from his initial, intended 30-Day Rehab because he missed his wife and son - and then a week later somehow came to a very bad end amidst very troubling circumstances that to this day remain less-than-clear to an alarming degree, to put it mildly.

But we do know that he visited his junkie best friend in Seattle and borrowed from him his 12-gauge shotgun, stating that he was in fear for his life and expressing extreme anxiety over personal security in his home and the safety of his baby girl.

And that there is no evidence to suggest that he made any effort or attempt to purchase, beg, borrow or steal any Heroin (or any other drug, for that matter) from his junkie best friend who kept lots of guns around the house whilst he was there to collect the shotgun from him, at least not so far as I am aware of - the ultra-pure, pharmaceutical-grade Heroin he was found in close proximity to, along with the 12-Gauge, at the crime scene when his body was discovered about a week later, did not come from Dylan. 

In other words, there is no reason to believe that the Rehab did not take in his case, and there is some question as to how chronically addicted her previously had  been prior to the birth of his daughter and first child, and to what extent he needed to begin a formal course of Rehab in order to fully effect his entry into recovery at that point, anyway - it is known, for instance, that he only checked into 30 Day residential rehab at the insistence of his wife, who had made all the arrangements and seen to ensuring that he was entered into a programme and facility of her choosing, which he seemingly ended up very quickly rebelling against and absconding.

And given that Rehab is voluntary  in every instance (unless you are somehow sectioned or committed, in which case you shouldn't be there, as you have far more pressing mental health issues, and cannot give knowledgeable, informed consent to receive treatment), it's worth further noting as being not-insignificant that he actually literally had to escape by climbing the back fence, jumping over a wall and slipping past the private security personnel guarding the perimeter - Colditz-style.

If people really want to leave - at least in theory - they cannot actually stop you or prevent you from doing so (although they may be honour-bound to at least attempt to persuade you to stay) - to make it plain, most people walk out the front door.



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