Reading Good Books in Prison is a Good Thing

If this blog is about anything it is about the life of the mind, living with intellectual passion, learning to learn and listen, being open to new possibilities and opportunities and believing in the transformative power of ideas. One of the fundamental resources of a culture and a society is the capacity to read and write.

For the writer, to distill thought and imagination into words and then craft and shape words as conduits of thought and ideas into written communication.

For the reader to interpret and seek understanding of what is being read, as a way of appropriating so far as possible the thought of the wirter, and to do so with critical appreciation, openness to story and ideas, and therefore to build a deeper and richer understanding of the texture and fabric of the world.

So books are vital to sustain that healthy flow of knowledge, as a cradle for ideas, a stimulus for imaginative thought, as a source of critical interrogation of our assumptions, prejudices and knowledge gaps. Novels and technical manuals, self help and poetry, biography and bio-chemistry, cultural history and management practice, social commentary and sporting celebrity, physics and philosophy - the list goes on. So when a decision to restrict reading material available to prisoners is revoked, this is cause for praise, approval and a sign of a more positive view of reading as a transformative practice capable of changing a person's attitudes, worldview, values and personal aspirations for their own lives.

That is what Michael Gove has just announced - an end to reading restrictions for prisoners. I want to affirm that decision without qualification - that is a very good thing he has done.

However reading the full report, which you can find on the BBC Website here, I am less than impressed by the stated reasons for doing this, and the discourse used to defend those reasons; in particular I am unhappy about the assumptions which lie behind the language used by the Government Minister responsible for the efficiency and ethos of our prison system.

To see prisoners as "potential assets" who can be "productive and contribute", and to describe their value in economic terms is to reduce each individual to the status of economic asset or liability. That each person should be ancouraged to contribute to the common good, to work and be productive and constructive in the society to which we each belong, yes, I can see that. But that kind of thinking and way of speaking requires a preliminary and fundamental recognition of a person's humanity, and of the place of humane learning in enriching that humanity. Such learning includes reading, an intellectual activity which rightly directed enables and empowers a person to live a life both fulfilling and valuable to others around them. A human being is not someone who has potential worth, which can only be realised when their usefulness can be measured in employability, earnings and therefore productivity for the market. A human being is just that - a person with potential to fulfill their humanity and to discover their place and worth in a society. When people feel valued, they then contribute that value to the social frameworks within which they live and move and have their being

But yes. Good move Mr Gove. To see reading as a significant strand in the strategy that enables a person to discover who they are, to grow in understanding towards wisdom, to develop knowledge, skills and insights on which they can build a different life, to explore fields of knowledge from physics to philosophy and from poetry to pottery, and from maths to myths; to see that potential and to enable it is a fine piece of responsible government. Well done Michael Gove; the decision is brilliant, the arguments cogent, though the discourse requires to be de-jargonised and translated into the language of humane politics.  

 

Comments

[Dave Summers]

Jim
I hadn't heard Michael Gove's announcement, but I agree completely with you.
In Highland Council our Personnel section transmogrified a year or so ago into Human Resources, which I believe infers the same reductionist approach to human value. This particular personnel rebels by insisting on using the old name. (Many years ago now, they rightly changed from "manpower".)
Last month I was privileged to hear Richard Beck speaking in The Mission in Old Aberdeen. (If you don't know him, see his blog "Experimental Theology".) When at home in Texas, he takes part in a Bible study in a maximum security prison. One of the very moving and powerful things he said was how he answered a prisoner who asked why he came there every Monday evening when he has a family, a job and better things to do. He replied - with examples demonstrating what he meant - that he found God in the Bible study, and the prisoners helped him to know God better.