There Is a New Redeemer in Town

Guilt and Pity: The Marxist "Horse and Carriage"

When Dostoevsky penned his famous novel, Crime And Punishment, it seemed to all reasonable folk that, like the horse and carriage which always went together, crime and punishment were but two sides of the one coin.

But Marxism and its step-children have long since departed from this rather obvious position.  Instead, Marxism and its derivatives have created an alternative universe.  In this universe man is fundamentally righteous: sin and evil is not intrinsic to the human condition.  Rather, evil exists only because there is a handful of exploiters at the top of the socio-economic pile.  These "capitalists"--to use the old term--have controlled and rigged the system to exploit the downtrodden, the worker, the powerless.

One by-product of such suffering and exploitation is that the exploited can end up in anti-social behaviour.  The exploited comes to hate the system which is rigged against him.
  Therefore, he can often end up incarcerated in jail.  But the Marxists and their ideological descendants (the neo-Marxists) believe fervently that the incarcerated man is the exploited man.  Mankind, after all, is without sin and evil.  He is intrinsically good.  When someone does an evil act, it is the Devil, or society, or the community, or the system which made him do it.

Therefore, when it comes to penal policy--what to do with the criminal offender--the Marxist wants to change the circumstances and environment of the criminal so that the intrinsic good can shine forth.  As the Marxist pursues this utopia, he feels very good about himself.  He is helping save mankind. He is the acme of love, affection, and redemption.

Now, into this mix, let's add the Christian socialist.  He represents one of the ideological offshoots of Marxism.  The Christian socialist believes in redemption.  He believes in the redeeming power of love.  Yet, he has come to believe that redemption lies with the State and with society, not with Jesus Christ.  The true Saviour of the world is diminished and fades away, being cast as little more than a noble example of redemptive love.

Here is one example of the Christian socialist at work in the nation's prisons:

The granddaddy of spectacular failures of  “a different way” remains Kim Workman’s baby He Ara Hou (A new way), a program from the 90’s when Workman was Assistant Secretary, penal institutions. The basic idea was that the “traditional” authoritarian method of running prisons – an us and them environment  – would be completely changed: co-operation, respect and harmony would replace antagonism, acrimony and apathy. (Newbold: 2008, 387).

At first Workman’s theories appeared to work: a dramatic increase in  inmates engaged in education programs was reported, and violent assaults on officers fell  from 43 in 1991-92  to 34  the following year (ibid.). There was also a decline suicides by Maori prisoners. So far so good.

But in the end, the scheme was a disaster. Family days in jail and a general relaxation in security left prisons open to  the smuggling of drugs, money and other contraband. Close relationships between staff and inmates sometimes became corrupt, and there were instances of sexual misconduct between male prisoners and female officers. As Newbold tells it: (Newbold: 2008, 387.):

Giving administrative freedom to managers with little experience led to an embarrassing series of scandals involving staff trading with inmates, theft of governmental property, submission of fraudulent pay returns, failing to supervise dangerous inmates and allowing them to escape, drug dealing and serious abuse of prisoners who were unpopular. At  [Mangaroa Prison], which had been marked as a showcase for the new method, allegations of corruption, neglect and violence resulted in the firing of 12 officers…A Ministerial enquiry …led to the resignation of the Secretary for Justice and his prisons head, and the end of He Ara Hou.

Twenty five years later, rather like an old communist who insists that the ideology was never properly implemented, which is why it failed,  Workman and his youthful followers is  pushing for  more of the same, notwithstanding his earlier spectacular failure. With the change of government, he and his supporters will have the ear of the cabinet, in particular the ideologically driven Justice Minister Andrew Little. There is no doubt in my mind that any He Ara Hou 2.0 will have exactly the same results as the first version.  [David Garrett, Kiwiblog]

Andrew Little is a step child of the old style, original Marxist warriors.  As New Zealand's new Minister of Justice he approaches the job in the fervent belief that all  men are redeemable--provided that systemic conditioning of exploitation is removed.  He is more than willing to give the Kim Workman's of this world yet another opportunity to redeem criminals by changing their environment.  The place to begin is in prisons, and the justice system which puts them there.  

First some context. Although they don’t always say so explicitly, the left clearly regard almost all prison inmates as poor hapless chaps who have found themselves in an awful  predicament almost by accident, or at least  after just one failing – a drugged or drunken decision to rob a liquor store perhaps. The reality is very different.

Recent OIA’s reveal that on average, inmates have 46 convictions yes, you read that right, forty six. On average, new inmates will have appeared before the courts eleven times before finally being sent to jail. By that time, prisoners will usually have received the whole gamut of “alternative” sentences, probably beginning in the Youth Court, and then graduating through community service, community detention, home detention and suspended prison sentences. So by the time they go to adult prison for the first time, many of the alternatives to prison have already been tried – and failed.

None of these developments should surprise us.  If the system does not believe in Original Sin and the fundamental depravity of the human soul (as Dostoevsky did), it will inevitably attempt to "pin the blame" for criminal acts upon "the system"--the environment, the socio-political matrices of power, or whatever.  But the "whatever" will always be external factors, environmental factors.  Ironically, the system ends up blaming itself.  That is why our modern justice and penal systems are predicated from the get-go upon guilt.  The system believes itself to be guilty of causing crime and criminal behaviour.  The system must, therefore, make atonement and restitution to criminals. 

The first, reflexive response of the neo-Marxists and their world-view is to apologise to the criminal.  The second is to pity the guilty.  And the third reflexive response is to get the convicted criminal out into the community again as soon as possible.

For our money, we believe Dostoevsky, not Marx--as do all disciples and servants of King Jesus.