Time Shift documentary on CP

Part One     Part Two     Part Three

Part Four     Part Five     Part Six

Links to an interesting one hour documentary from the BBC on the history of corporal punishment. The basic thesis is that once Christian theology posited a wrathful God who punished the wicked, thus it was right to punish the evildoer on earth. That changed as the theology softened into one that saw God as the all-caring father, and thus the argument in favour of stern punishments began to fall away. Interestingly enough, this weakening of the state's power to punish corresponds to the growth of the state in the nineteenth century. You cannot seek to reform the recalcitrant unless you have a powerful machinery in place that employs thousands of people to do just that. An interesting programme which ends up looking at the abolition of the cane ins schools in the 1980s.

Thanks: The Spank Statement