What does freedom mean for incarcerated people?
What is the difference between a person sentenced to life imprisonment and ordinary people's perception of time?
If black criminals were to discuss it, would they think that race was a fictional concept?
In any society, prisons are on the margins. What the people inside the walls think, few people care, and the prisoners who are imprisoned for various crimes are a group of people who have been forgotten by mainstream society.
But in the eyes of Andy West, a British philosophy teacher, prison is a natural philosophical field.
Witnessing his family members repeatedly go to prison for violence, drugs, and theft, West grew up with the fear of crime and began to think about the topics of justice, forgiveness, free will, and moral luck. After graduating from the University of London with a degree in philosophy, he worked for the Philosophy Society and in 2016 began teaching philosophy in prisons in London.
Teaching philosophy in prison sounds at first glance a futile task of preaching to criminals. But for West, it's a two-way redemption for him and his prisoners.
He wrote about this experience in his book Free Time, the title of which refers to free time in prisons, during which the locks on the doors of the prison are unlocked and prisoners can leave their cells and move around the prison grounds to attend classes in the classroom or workshop.
In prison, everyone wants to pretend to be a tough guy, which may help them get through the day, but it doesn't help them grow. Philosophy, by contrast, helps people find what they believe in and value most, and opens up space for dialogue, questioning, and re-evaluation. In an interview with this magazine, West explained the significance of offering a philosophy class in prison, "Philosophy provides opportunities for personal and moral growth, which is exactly what prisoners need." ”
A "naturally sinful" philosophy teacher
Because his father, brother, and uncle were all "regulars" in prison, West felt that he was "born guilty", even though he had never committed any crimes himself.
West's father was severely violent, having spent 18 months in prison just a few years before West was born. As a child with his parents on holiday to Jersey, West witnessed his drunken father snatch back a bag of jewellery and throw it at his mother's feet – even though it was just fake jewellery displayed in the window of a jewellery store, his father was fined for vandalism, and the money he used for his vacation was paid, and the family's vacation ended early.
West's older brother, Jason, went to jail more than a dozen times for drug problems. Jason was 16 years old when he first went to prison, and for a long time afterward, he either served his sentence in prison or lived a messy life outside of prison. West recalled that his brother once fell asleep at a hearing after being drunk, and on another occasion he was stabbed by a creditor, and because of the weakness caused by drug abuse, his brother was unable to resist, leaving a pebble-sized scar on his rib.
His uncle, Frank, was imprisoned several times for theft, first stealing a case of Coca-Cola at the age of 14, and later becoming a professional pickpocket, picking on department stores and warehouses.
Compared to them, West has a dull life, does not drink a drip, and likes the moment when the lights go out in the cinema and the movie is about to be shown. This blandness made him feel lucky, even lucky—a fluke that escaped the crime and the punishment that came with it. But guilt didn't let him go.
When he saw the ** of other criminals published in the newspaper, even if it was just an unfamiliar face, West unconsciously thought of his father, even though he did not have his father's **. The inability to forget constitutes the ** of West's shame.
The fear of sin hung over his head like the sword of Damocles.
While teaching in prison, West heard many of the offenders talk about their father's violence, and grew up in the abusive side of the father, who eventually grew up to be violent adults, much to West's fear. "In order to ensure that I do not fall into the cycle of violence, I unconsciously let the executioner spy on me. He prevented me from going to jail but didn't set me free. "The executioner in his mind is imagined by West, watching his every move to fight against any possibility of depravity.
But philosophy pulled him out of the abyss. He comes across philosophy when he is trapped by his past experiences, and the executioner in his mind repeatedly reminds him that it is possible to be like his father and brother.
Andy West.
How do we know we're not in a dream?How do we know that the world around us is real?When he was in high school, West went to college to audit a philosophy class, in which Robert, the philosophy teacher, asked questions.
This question was a relief to West, who realized that there is no absolute either/or in philosophy, that complexity can be preserved, that difference is normal, and that "communication can continue and thinking can continue to expand." Before that, there were only two extremes in his mind, "I'm either a good guy or a bad guy," and being in the middle meant going down.
He realized that thinking about identity alienation can be translated into ideas, ** and achievements, and that an innate argumentative personality can be shaped into the skill of philosophical speculation.
If prisons are a simple solution to complex problems such as poverty, racism and violence, it is the complexity that philosophy seeks to unravel. Philosophy, West argues, allows people to challenge authority while expressing themselves in a creative way, rather than destroying their futures—like prison students.
A two-hour vacation
Prison is a strange place, at first you hate it, then you Xi get used to it, and after a long time you can't live without it. There is such a line in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption".
West's pen has a similar scene.
His student Blake is more comfortable with life in prison than he is after he gets out of prison. In West's class, Blake mentions that only in prison is his act of helping his fellow inmates seen as simple and normal, but in the world beyond the walls, he wants to help others or do something good, but he gets strange eyes.
Seems like I'm drawing them something. "Out there, no matter what I do, I'm just a guy who has been in jail. ”
When the world inside and outside the walls switches, the meaning of words and actions also changes. As a result, prison is a natural philosophical field in West's eyes.
Unlike academic philosophy, West's philosophy classes in prison were public philosophy, and his lectures were Socratic, often beginning with stories from classics such as Odysseus and Waiting for Godot, asking questions and engaging students in discussions. Each question is open-ended and there is no standard answer.
Prison students are very special, they can't use social **, they can't publish anything in public without permission, and many even have dysgraphia, but they have different opinions on seemingly serious philosophical topics such as freedom, trust, and redemption.
In one lesson, West asked students to discuss the ship of Theseus, a paradox about identity change: when all the parts of a ship are replaced from the inside out, is it still the same ship?Starting from this question, West leads to the question, when all of a person's cells are replaced, is that person still the same person?
No matter how much you change, you will still get caught because of fingerprints. Student David's answer was tinged with dark humor.
Philosopher Audrey Lorde.
Guilt is simply a way to escape effective action, a way to procrastinate in the face of an approaching storm that washes away the earth and breaks trees, and when a clear choice is urgently needed.
Another example is the topic of "kindness" that is discussed in class. One student said that the most unnecessary thing to do in prison is to make others feel kind, "If the reputation of kindness spreads, they know they can break into my cell and take my things, and I won't resist." ”
These unexpected answers always disrupted West's class, and he often couldn't control the direction of the discussion. However, as the philosopher Bertrand Russell put it, the study of philosophy is not about giving definitive answers to specific philosophical questions. Divergent dialogue is the starting point for thinking, and West hopes to inspire students' thinking through collisions, thereby creating space for questioning and scrutiny.
Philosophy never promises immediate results, but West can detect the changes taking place in his students. A student named Driss who would have to serve 25 years in prison had learned to be indifferent and ignore others during his long sentence, but West noticed that it was only in philosophy class that Dress would keep his eyes on other people's faces, rather than directly over their heads.
A two-hour vacationThank you. After a class, Driss secretly stuffed a note for West.
Poet Ebony Davis.
A lot of people are actually scared because their entire identity is built around the trauma they experienced. They don't know who they are after escaping the trauma. And this unknown is frightening.
If not prison, what is it?
The most terrible thing about prisons is not the heartbreaking, which is inherently broken, but the turning of human hearts to stone. Life in prison sometimes feels like a frosty face. The English poet Oscar Wilde was once sentenced to prison for "immorality." In his book "From the Depths", he describes life in prison as a "numbing stagnant", with time standing still, all activities following fixed patterns and norms, and an emphasis on discipline everywhere.
More than a century later, the Industrial Revolution and technological development have turned society upside down, but life has not changed much inside the walls, and discipline and control are still at the heart of the prison.
From the perspective of social management, the unified detention of these prisoners and the imposition of severe punishment are effective means to increase the deterrent effect of crime. But is prison really the most effective form of treatment for inmates?At least West doesn't think so.
He believes that the rough management of prisons is not conducive to the education of prisoners, and prisoners are often imprisoned for repeated crimes. According to statistics released by the UK Department of Justice, the recidivism rate of the offender group in the first quarter of 2021 was 243%, of which, the recidivism rate of ** criminals with a sentence of less than 12 months even exceeds 50%. West also taught in children's prisons. He found that most of the children in children's prisons were black or minority, grew up in poor or violent conditions, and did not receive a good education.
When discussing issues such as identity, freedom, and nature in class, West is paradoxical that these growing children are in desperate need of an education, but that they are lacking in the walls of prison, and that "it is very unfair that this system [of incarcerating a child] requires him to grow as a person, but at the same time hinders his personal growth." ”
Writer George Eliot.
Whoever trusts in us is teaching us.
I wish I could tear this prison down and build one more imaginatively: its goal is to confine the inmates, not just to confine the inmatesIt fosters trust and trustworthiness;It does not deprive people so much that they have to 'put their minds to' to meet even their basic needsIts security officers are able to distinguish between those who are truly dangerous, rather than slacking off to think that all prisoners are scorpions waiting for an opportunity. West writes in the book.
In an article for The Guardian, West noted that building social housing and investing in education are effective ways to reduce crime. One example is HMP Grendon in Buckinghamshire, England, which provides professional psychology for inmates**. West noted that inmates who have been held at Grayton Prison for more than 18 months are only half as likely to reoffend as traditional prisons.
Has anything changed over the years in the frustrating way of management (restrictive rather than **) in traditional prisons?That's a question I asked West at the end of the interview.
It's getting worse. West is powerless about the status quo, and both Labour and Conservatives in Britain have promised harsher penalties for crimes in the upcoming elections, as heavier penalties are particularly popular among voters. All he could do was "write a complex, humane, and hopeful book."