In his book called The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, Simon Wiesenthal narrates his story as a concentration camp inmate who is asked for forgiveness by a dying Nazi soldier--a story which takes the reader to a moral dilemma that Simon could not find the answer of. The latter part of the... Continue Reading →
What is the purpose of punishment? A tool for justice? Or a legitimate way of taking revenge? When justice is sought, why do we ask the question 'who should we punish' instead of asking 'why do we punish'? As Nietzsche writes in On the Genealogy of Morals, institutions of law take revenge out of the... Continue Reading →
Didier Fassin writes in his ethnography of urban policing in France: "Expressing surprise at the existence of police violence could be considered as remarkable in itself. From a sociological point of view-and thus beyond the specific situation in France, violence is in fact constitutive of the very role of law enforcement. In modern societies, it... Continue Reading →
In the interview he granted me shortly after the riots of 2005, the chief of police for the district in which I was then carrying out research expressed his amusement and surprise at the attitude of youngsters from the projects who, he said, would routinely run away when they saw a police car. “So they’re... Continue Reading →
If you ask the question "what is the age of consent?", the most reasonable answer, perhaps, would be: "it depends". Because, as can be seen, the age of consent varies a lot around the world. Therefore, there is no universal understanding of what the age of consent should be. Taking it a step further, further... Continue Reading →
In this eye-opening book of Talal Asad, a genealogy of secularism and secular concepts are made. Asad first asks questions such as "what might an Anthropology of Secularism look like?". then digs deeper into concepts such as agency, pain, cruelty and torture. He digs into these concepts in a way that his words unearth the... Continue Reading →
Thinking Prismatically 