Punishment: An Obsolete Method Of Human Learning

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Punishment:



An obsolete method of human learning





Subject: North American LiteratureTeacher: Melanie Correa Alfaro




October 2012



_Throughout the history, many sorts of institutions have tried to repress our lives and to guide our manners. Churches, governments and powerful people have believed that they have the power to do that, so that they are sure that repression is the key tokeep us calm, but that is not true at all. If we see international news, we may be shocked by the violence and society’s boredom with this system, and it is getting worse.

_When we are at school and we make a mischief or get a bad score in a test, the most possible is that we have a punishment; therefore, we could say that punishment is the human learning system. If somebody commits a crime,he must pay for it (jail, money, supervised release, etc) and it should not be repeated, that is the why of the punishment, but we, as human beings, are accustomed to break the law. If we speak about crime, most of them are committed for vengeance and for natural instincts. We are animals; the only thing that makes a contrast between animals and us is the speech. In “Animal Planet” we can seeanimals are killing each other either for food or vengeance, however, they are not punished at all (moral or judicially speaking).

_ Joseph Bandura, psychologist and teacher of psychology at The University of Stanford, says that there are several “bad” and “good” ways of acquiring knowledge and learning. The “good” ones are: past reinforcement (like traditional or classical behaviorism), promisedreinforcements (incentives) which are imaginable and Vicarious reinforcement, which is the ability to perceive and recall the model as a “reinforcer”. Now, the bad ones are: vicarious punishment (when you see another person suffering), promised punishment (when you make a menace or threat to someone) and the past punishment (when you received it after doing something). Although, he mentions thatthese methods cause learning, but he prefers calling them “motives”.

_One text that matters to us is The Scarlet Letter, in which sin, religion, punishment, Puritanism and infidelity are involved in social terms. The environment of this novel is situated in a 18th and 19th US society that follows the Puritanism. Everything is related to god and you must behave according to the teachings of god oryou are a sinner. Hester Prynne (the protagonist) escaped from England in order to have a better life in America with her husband; nevertheless, he does not follow her. When she comes to America, she falls in love with a smart young puritan minister and she gives birth to a baby named Pearl. Since the very beginning she is punished and tormented for Pearl, so that she is married to no man andHester is forced to carry a letter “A” which means adulterer. The question is: Why people would place a letter which means adulterer in a female breast? Would be in order to punish her? The answer is yes. Nowadays, a baby who is born with a single parent (man or women) is totally normal and nobody dares to punish him. The puritans were sure that social punishment and a huge shame could fix a mistake,but it just caused exile and discrimination to Hester and Pearl. We can see that punishment does not help and repair anything. An important theme inside this novel is the power and the religious influence of the church over men and women, its need for repressing us as well.

_Another important text is The Cask of Amontillado, which tells the story of a man who kills a friend, specifically, he...