The New Poland Express I Friday 15th October 2010 I www.nwe.pl
Designer drugs fan to lobby cause
Friends and colleagues of Dawid Bratko, Poland’s so-called ‘Designer Drugs King’, are set to lobby in parliament in favour of legalizing designer drugs. “I want to help protect the freedoms and the rights of ordinary people who are addicted to psychotropic substances,” says Tomasz Obara of Poland’s ‘Free Hemp’ movement - an organisation aimed at promoting the legalisation of cannabis. But Obara, who has already officially registered as a lobbyist in Parliament, adds that he is also taking part in order to represent his mother who, he claims, is a constant victim of police harassment. “Police officers keep raiding my mother’s house in order to look for cannabis. That’s one of the reasons why I want to protect my mother’s interests.” However, while actively confirming that he is still lobbying on behalf of Bratko’s cause, Obara claims that he is in fact anti-designer drugs.
“I’m against designer drugs but I signed an agreement with [Bratko] that if we manage to persuade the authorities to legalise cannabis, then he will stop trading them.” Designer drugs, known in Poland as ‘dopalacze’ have made the headlines recently due to a fierce government clampdown on the booming sector which has seen around 900 shops closed down. Last week Bratko, dubbed ‘the Designer Drug King’ by the nation’s media for his large influence throughout the industry, was arrested for selling a number of proscribed substances. Despite a number of fatalities being linked to the new craze, numerous loopholes have kept the government’s hands tied. However it stated recently that it would try to push through legislation quickly in order to deal with what it sees as a growing problem.
What do you think of the whole campaign against designer drugs?
Is it just a part of political campaign?
Statistics say that in Poland more people day because of alcohol abuse than designer drugs but the media just do not talk about it.
Present your opinions please.
Monday 18 October 2010
Why ordinary people do evil...or do good?
Watch also a very interesting talk of Philip Zimbardo and comment on it.
Stanford Prison Experiment
Have you heard of Stanford Prison Experiment?
I would like you to go through the description of it and then discuss the following questions.Moreover, watch the short films that discuss it.
Go to http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/1
The questions:
1. What police procedures are used during arrests, and how do these procedures lead people to feel confused, fearful, and dehumanized?
2. If you were a guard, what type of guard would you have become? How sure are you?
3. What prevented "good guards" from objecting or countermanding the orders from tough or bad guards?
4. If you were a prisoner, would you have been able to endure the experience? What would you have done differently than those subjects did? If you were imprisoned in a "real" prison for five years or more, could you take it?
5. Why did our prisoners try to work within the arbitrary prison system to effect a change in it (e.g., setting up a Grievance Committee), rather than trying to dismantle or change the system through outside help?
6. What factors would lead prisoners to attribute guard brutality to the guards' disposition or character, rather than to the situation?
7. What is "reality" in a prison setting? This study is one in which an illusion of imprisonment was created, but when do illusions become real? Contrast consensual reality and physical or biological reality, and explain the implications of the following poem (by PGZ): Within the illusion of life,
Death is the only reality,
but
is Reality the only death?
Within the reality of imprisonment,
Illusion is the only freedom,
but
is Freedom the only illusion?
8. What is identity? Is there a core to your self-identity independent of how others define you? How difficult would it be to remake any given person into someone with a new identity?
9. Do you think that kids from an urban working class environment would have broken down emotionally in the same way as did our middle-class prisoners? Why? What about women?
10. After the study, how do you think the prisoners and guards felt when they saw each other in the same civilian clothes again and saw their prison reconverted to a basement laboratory hallway?
11. Moving beyond physical prisons built of steel and concrete, what psychological prisons do we create for ourselves and others? If prisons are seen as forms of control which limit individual freedom, how do they differ from the prisons we create through racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, and other social institutions? Extend your discussion to focus on:
* The illusion of prison created in marriages where one spouse becomes "guard" and the other becomes "prisoner"
* The illusion of prison created in neurosis where one aspect of the person becomes the prisoner who is told he/she is inadequate and hopeless, while another aspect serves as a personal guard
* The silent prison of shyness, in which the shy person is simultaneously his or her own guard and prisoner
12. Was it ethical to do this study? Was it right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for the knowledge gained by the research? (The experimenters did not take this issue lightly, although the Slide Show may sound somewhat matter-of-fact about the events and experiences that occurred).
13. How do the ethical dilemmas is this research compare with the ethical issues raised by Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments? Would it be better if these studies had never been done?
14. If you were the experimenter in charge, would you have done this study? Would you have terminated it earlier? Would you have conducted a follow-up study?
15. How can we change our real institutions, such as Attica Prison, when they are designed to resist critical evaluation and operate in relative secrecy from taxpayers and legislators?
16. Knowing what this research says about the power of prison situations to have a corrosive effect on human nature, what recommendations would you make about changing the correctional system in your country?
Retrieved from http://www.prisonexp.org/discussion.htm, 11.10.10
I would like you to go through the description of it and then discuss the following questions.Moreover, watch the short films that discuss it.
Go to http://www.prisonexp.org/psychology/1
The questions:
1. What police procedures are used during arrests, and how do these procedures lead people to feel confused, fearful, and dehumanized?
2. If you were a guard, what type of guard would you have become? How sure are you?
3. What prevented "good guards" from objecting or countermanding the orders from tough or bad guards?
4. If you were a prisoner, would you have been able to endure the experience? What would you have done differently than those subjects did? If you were imprisoned in a "real" prison for five years or more, could you take it?
5. Why did our prisoners try to work within the arbitrary prison system to effect a change in it (e.g., setting up a Grievance Committee), rather than trying to dismantle or change the system through outside help?
6. What factors would lead prisoners to attribute guard brutality to the guards' disposition or character, rather than to the situation?
7. What is "reality" in a prison setting? This study is one in which an illusion of imprisonment was created, but when do illusions become real? Contrast consensual reality and physical or biological reality, and explain the implications of the following poem (by PGZ): Within the illusion of life,
Death is the only reality,
but
is Reality the only death?
Within the reality of imprisonment,
Illusion is the only freedom,
but
is Freedom the only illusion?
8. What is identity? Is there a core to your self-identity independent of how others define you? How difficult would it be to remake any given person into someone with a new identity?
9. Do you think that kids from an urban working class environment would have broken down emotionally in the same way as did our middle-class prisoners? Why? What about women?
10. After the study, how do you think the prisoners and guards felt when they saw each other in the same civilian clothes again and saw their prison reconverted to a basement laboratory hallway?
11. Moving beyond physical prisons built of steel and concrete, what psychological prisons do we create for ourselves and others? If prisons are seen as forms of control which limit individual freedom, how do they differ from the prisons we create through racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, and other social institutions? Extend your discussion to focus on:
* The illusion of prison created in marriages where one spouse becomes "guard" and the other becomes "prisoner"
* The illusion of prison created in neurosis where one aspect of the person becomes the prisoner who is told he/she is inadequate and hopeless, while another aspect serves as a personal guard
* The silent prison of shyness, in which the shy person is simultaneously his or her own guard and prisoner
12. Was it ethical to do this study? Was it right to trade the suffering experienced by participants for the knowledge gained by the research? (The experimenters did not take this issue lightly, although the Slide Show may sound somewhat matter-of-fact about the events and experiences that occurred).
13. How do the ethical dilemmas is this research compare with the ethical issues raised by Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments? Would it be better if these studies had never been done?
14. If you were the experimenter in charge, would you have done this study? Would you have terminated it earlier? Would you have conducted a follow-up study?
15. How can we change our real institutions, such as Attica Prison, when they are designed to resist critical evaluation and operate in relative secrecy from taxpayers and legislators?
16. Knowing what this research says about the power of prison situations to have a corrosive effect on human nature, what recommendations would you make about changing the correctional system in your country?
Retrieved from http://www.prisonexp.org/discussion.htm, 11.10.10
List of moderators
Choose a week of your presentation.Remember you cannot do it in pairs this term.
25-31.10
01-07.11 s5683
08-14.11 s4554
15-21.11 Andrzej Duś
22-28.11 s8063, s4763
29-05.12 s5676, Damian Borkowski
06-12.12 s4505, Michał Domaradzki, s8063
13-19.12 Mateusz Korsak, s4498
03-09.01 s5244, Jan Kuczyński, Marta Kost
10-16.01 s4429, s4005
17-23.01 s5555, s4498
25-31.10
01-07.11 s5683
08-14.11 s4554
15-21.11 Andrzej Duś
22-28.11 s8063, s4763
29-05.12 s5676, Damian Borkowski
06-12.12 s4505, Michał Domaradzki, s8063
13-19.12 Mateusz Korsak, s4498
03-09.01 s5244, Jan Kuczyński, Marta Kost
10-16.01 s4429, s4005
17-23.01 s5555, s4498
Profiles
Create your profiles.
You can use only your names or your student ID number (e.g. s4025)
No single nicknames, please (e.g. Anjo s4025)
Moreover, write something about yourself we still do not know please.
You can use only your names or your student ID number (e.g. s4025)
No single nicknames, please (e.g. Anjo s4025)
Moreover, write something about yourself we still do not know please.
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