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LeylaHadiSecondPaper 4 - 14 Jul 2013 - Main.LeylaHadi
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Prisons | | | Cages | |
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< | During my third year at Cornell, when a string of suicides occurred, the administration decided to put up large fences all across the bridges. Without saying what I think about the fences ability to deter death, I can say this was no solution to the actual problem, what actually compelled students to take their own life. | >
> | During my third year at Cornell, a string of suicides occurred on campus; notably, the kids jumped off bridges. The last suicide that took place before the administration decided it needed to erect fences across all the bridges, was of an acquaintance of mine. In hindsight, there were many signs, despite his very tight group of friends, his stellar grades, the job he had lined up, his very sweet girlfriend. One night a few of us were drinking together, and he burnt each of his knuckles with a cigarette. Since Matt, no students have jumped into the gorges; and three years later, the fences are now removed, replaced with heat-detecting nets under the bridges. The student body has successfully finished its time in prison, and is now only on probation. | | | | |
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> | Matt's actions brought about the first time I contemplated the multiplicity of our person. This young man who appeared to have everything going for him literally threw it all away. The people close to him knew about his struggle with depression and that he had even attempted to kill himself before. But he was so scared of what would happen to him if he asked for help, that he'd be locked up, or anesthetized. He felt there was no safety net, and so he didn't look for safety, even though I'm sure there were conflicting forces within him that yearned for help. His friends didn't think he would ever reach that point, and couldn't look through the facade of unity to see that there was one part of him that could reach that point, which tragically took over that one afternoon. If only the idea of oneness seen as a given, and instead a position we reach through deep study and acknowledgement of the many. | | | | |
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< | Cornell puts up fences
at the gorges not to prevent suicide, but to prevent suicide in a
fashion distinctive to Cornell. You are correct that stopping
gorge-jumping doesn't prevent suicide. But it prevents suicide from
dramatizing itself at Cornell in a fashion bad for the reputation of
the institution. Cornell cannot come to be the capital of romantic
suicidalism. The gorges cannot become primarily symbols of Keatsian
half in love with easeful deathishness. So they put up fences to
prevent the creation of an association of ideas, and take them down
again after half a generation to prevent the fences themselves from
coming to suggest suicide. Until the next rash of jumpers, and so
on. Tristram Shandy would appreciate the Lockeian irony of it all.
Isn't this just a small representation of how society deals with most of the unpleasant parts of humanity? Throwing them inside a cage instead of dealing with the source. Throw a kid into prison for possessing marijuana, taking away his opportunity for education, for livelihood, for freedom; for harming nobody, except possibly themselves. If the point is to prevent the kid from being harmed, then throwing him into jail sure as hell isn't going to help that goal. | >
> | The criminal justice system puts people inside cages, rather than spending more energy and money on preventing the need for the cages, fences, in the first place. Like suicide, there is a fearful perplexity surrounding the causes of some of our worst crimes, from rape to murder. Watching a documentary about Jeffrey Dahmer recently left
The school has made efforts to improve its mental health facilities. This is a small representation of how society deals with society's most difficult and seemingly impenetrable problems. Throwing them inside a cage instead of dealing with the source. Throw a kid into prison for possessing marijuana, taking away his opportunity for education, for livelihood, for freedom; for harming nobody, except possibly themselves. If the point is to prevent the kid from being harmed, then throwing him into jail sure as hell isn't going to help that goal. | | |
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