Duels:
I may have totally read this chapter wrong, however one quote from this chapter that I really thought about was, "Why us it that common people do not ordinarily fight duels as aristocrats do? It is not only because they are unarmed, but because the need for the esteem of others is less widespread among plebeians than among those who, holding a more exalted station, regard one another with greater suspicion and jealousy." I had no clue what plebeians meant so I looked it up. According to thefreedictionary.com plebeians are, "belonging to, or characteristic of commoners. A member of the lower classes." After reading this sentence over and over I could not help but relate this to my school experience. I understand that it has nothing to deal with crime nor punishment but I thought of the plebeians as the non-poupulars, and the aristocrats as the popular kids. You may laugh at this but let me explain why I think of it this way. As I said before I could be way off on this, but the plebeians are described as not caring about what others think of them, and that just because they are unarmed, that is not the only reason they do not duel. Aristocrats have to much self pride, they want everyone to notice them, and if a man is giving them problems they will not just sit there and take it, they will take punishment in their own hands, and attempt to take the "offenders" life in a duel. In my experience as a "non-popular" we didn't care about what others thought of us, not because we didn't have what all the popular kids have "looks, money, etc", we didn't care because we had our close friends and thats all we needed. In my experience the popular kids were always trying to reach out for fame, and attention. They could care less about their friends, they were more concerned about their popularity, and if a non-popular kid like a nerd got in their way, they wanted to make sure everyone saw them take that kid down. I don't know, that's just what I thought about when I read this.
Purpose of Punishments:
This chapter really stuck out to me. After reading so much stuff about horrible punishments people suffered, it was interesting to see a reasonable chapter on punishment. " The purpose of punishment, then, is nothing other than to dissuade the criminal from doing fresh harm to his compatriots and to keep other people from doing the same." This sounds good to me. I was surprised that this book was published in 1764, because this sounds really modern to me, but I could be wrong.
Nice analogy use, Donnie. And I think your analysis of the Duels section is right on. You got the gist of what Beccaria wrote about, and I definitely agree that the way in which he portrayed the idle fighting of the Aristocrats underscores their lack of self-security. It especially makes sense when thinking of the section that precedes it, which Beccaria does deftly.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that aristocrats had more to lose so to speak if they did not duel one another. Their entire lives were based on titles and appearances, so to them honor was everything. The lower class already lacked that sort of obvious, flamboyant sense of self worth and therefore did not feel it necessary to defend it constantly. I think it can also be argued that since they were so poor they had much more to worry about then if someone's backhanded comment was offensive to their honor or not.
ReplyDelete