Ourselves and Others
The Reith Lectures
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Cure Is the Imposition of Discipline by Force
When British colonists first reached Tasmania, they exterminated the local inhabitants as if they were vermin. In contemporary South Africa, apartheid rests on the theory that blacks are members of an inferior species and therefore incapable of understanding civilized law and order. Most of us profess to be shocked by such attitudes, but our own behavior is hardly any different. Reprisal against the weak always gives deep satisfaction to the strong. We persuade ourselves that punishment is at a tyrant, whereas mostly it is just vindictive.
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