Navigation difficulties in the vicinity of Albuquerque, NM

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday that was a PG-rated version of an old slogan: MAKE OUT, NOT WAR

Recognize that a lot of what you’re suffering from is, well, suffering; that it’s part of the human condition and not really specific to one historical epoch, country, or economic system. Sickness, poverty, cruelty, envy, selfishness, domination, and other woes have been with us for much longer than economic or political modernity.

People have been investigating how to alleviate suffering — in the general sense — for a very long time. There are whole philosophical and social movements about it, which have proposed strategies such as —

• “Love your neighbor; forgive those who have hurt you. Feed the hungry, heal the sick, comfort the afflicted.” (Christianity)
• “Avoid killing, stealing, lying, raping, and getting drunk. Seek out wholesome companions. Maybe do some meditation.” (Buddhism)
• “Pursue a simple life. Try to avoid pain rather than seeking out pleasure. Don’t worry about gods or politics.” (Epicureanism)

If we’re gonna have prisons at all …

It makes a great deal of sense to offer prisoners pay for doing things to maintain the prison: cleaning the floors, washing the uniforms, leading the singing circle or whatever. That sets them up as members of a self-supporting unit, where you can actually be rewarded for doing things that benefit the other people around you. Then when they get out, they’re accustomed to being a person who makes things better for those around them.

But it doesn’t make sense to put the prisoners out into the non-prison world as competition for free workers, and then claw back their wages. That sets prisoners up as underclass members of general society which is exactly the condition that leads to a lot of people becoming criminals in the first place. And then when they get out, they’ve already been “out” as slaves of McDonald’s, so that’s how they and the world are accustomed to relating to each other.