Criminal Damage

For many years I have noticed that Mrs Weggis emits strange gurgling sounds whenever there is a news item about being “nice” to criminals or hooligans. You know the sort of stuff. Pinko Lefty Liberals wanting to send tearaways on a holiday that you and I can’t afford.

So, where does this practice come from? Back in the 1960s an American schoolteacher by the name of Jane Elliot did an experiment. She divided her class into blue eyed and brown eyed children. She treated the blue eyed children as though they were intelligent and the brown eyed children as though they were idiots. Result? The average test results for the blue eyed children went up, and the average test results for the brown eyed children went down. Conclusion – people behave the way they are treated.

Whoooah. Hold up a second. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. People on AVERAGE behave the way they are treated. Let’s increase the sample and have a look at the data. [The devil is in the detail].

We can expect some of the blue eyed children’s marks to go down – some will get complacent. We can expect some of the brown eyed children’s marks to go up – some will try harder. This though will be hidden in the overall AVERAGE results.

What is missing in our wonderful modern society is any plan, process or method to deal with those individuals who do not respond to the “treatment” as expected. There is not even any recognition that some people buck the trends. Everything is geared to the Average person – one size fits all is the name of the game. So much for diversity.

Could it be that our government behave like idiots because that’s the way we treat them? Or are we behaving like idiots [by voting for them] because that’s the way they treat us?

[Note: Jane Elliot’s experiment was actually about Racism, the test results were a by-product.]