Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
He's an English philosopher of a particular type.
What Gray is talking about here, and throughout the essay, is the failure of sociological imagination present in all statistical analysis that purports to tell the whole story without considering the particulars of history and culture.
I mean, if violent crime was decreased by the cultural effects of mass incarceration and abortion, then a different kind of violence is being perpetrated by the State with arguably more pernicious effects.
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Except "the sorcery of numbers" is a negative connotation for "facts I do not like"
A) mass incarceration is not a worldwide phenomenon and explains nothing
B) whether or not you agree with abortion, it's a failed argument to say that type of violence is comparable to the effects of forced child bearing, poverty and crime that was associated with mothers without that choice
The realized effects are less suffering, real or imagined