The power of philosophy in prison | Letter
I was heartened to read Andy West’s experience of philosophy in his own life, and also in that of his students (Teaching philosophy in a children’s prison has shown me the meaning of anger, 2 January). I came to philosophy through Simone de Beauvoir in the 1970s, and over the years have used her work to think about aspects of the secondary (and tertiary) status of so many people in society, in addition to women’s experience of being the second sex.
One aspect of West’s article that struck me forcibly was the benefit of philosophy for the person. His account of understanding the nature of emotion in an unjust structure is vital to understand the “way things are”. However, it highlights the futility of acceptance as a response to change the causes of imprisonment of these young people, not to mention West’s own experience of the incarceration of his relations.
Education has been emancipating and empowering for him, and will probably make a huge difference to the lives of his young students. But the ways in which education outside the prison context, as a social institution, fails them illuminates the need for social as well and personal transformation. And philosophy has to enable people to become agentic, not accepting – in the way The Second Sex, whatever its flaws, has done.
Adult education has a long history and practice of making the personal political. This is particularly urgent in the light of the trend toward greater incarceration, rather than education, care and concern, which are ultimately cheaper than imprisonment.
Dr Bríd Connolly
Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland