[899] in peace2
Beautiful Little Thing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Job)
Wed Aug 8 12:02:45 2001
Message-Id: <200108081545.f78FjD113274@chaos11.bwh.harvard.edu>
To: peace-list@mit.edu
Reply-to: rednblack@alum.mit.edu
Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 11:45:13 -0400
From: Job <angrymob@chaos11.bwh.harvard.edu>
I was reading this essay by Nathaniel Branden on the "Benefits and Hazards
of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand", which is an interesting read in its own
right, but I found this little snippet in the midst of it which was just
fantastico:
"I recall a story I once read by a psychiatrist, a story about a tribe that
has a rather unusual way of dealing with moral wrongdoers or lawbreakers.
Such a person, when his or her infraction is discovered, is not reproached
or condemned but is brought into the center of the village square -- and
the whole tribe gathers around. Everyone who has ever known this person
since the day he or she was born steps forward, one by one, and talks about
anything and everything good this person has ever been known to have done.
The speakers aren't allowed to exaggerate or make mountains out of molehills;
they have to be realistic, truthful, factual. And the person just sits
there, listening, as one by one people talk about all the good things this
person has done in the course of his or her life. Sometimes, the process
takes several days. When it's over, the person is released and everyone goes
home and there is no discussion of the offense -- and there is almost no
repetition of offenses (Zunin, 1970)."
Saurabh
------
Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to
break the law. --Henry David Thoreau
