If you can, I recommend reading Ivan Turgenev's "The Execution of Tropmann," a short story that gives a first-hand account of the cruel barbarity of public executions and the moral sickness of the voyeurs. It's one of the first pieces of writing that really moved me.

Have to wonder: what does it mean for a billionaire involved in building a surveillance state to fantasize about public executions? That they can take pleasure in such theater? I'm a statist, not a libertarian, but I recognize the state can be turned into dehumanizing machinery.

@dieworkwear This is the same guy, right? stanforddaily.com/2019/03/15/sta…

@dieworkwear Have you read Turgenev’s The Singers? One of my favourite short stories. I liked Rudin too, though I think the novel’s tension slacks a little in the second half.

@dieworkwear I think this is the year that he's finally able to mentor Stanford students again after the incident. Somewhere about now if my memory serves me correctly and it was a 10 year restriction.

@dieworkwear For those interested I have a soft copy you can read here. It's literally just 19 pages. drive.google.com/file/d/1_UqmGj…

@dieworkwear I was with Saudi friends in Jeddah, coming back from the grocery store and driving by the execution/limb removal public site for criminals. It was packed. I asked to stop to see it up close. He said, “No. It’s addictive. Those people are sick and you’ll become like them.” 😬

@dieworkwear “If I’m in charge later” funny way to put it lol

@dieworkwear Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote about his own last‑minute reprieve most directly in his semi‑autobiographical prison memoir “Notes from the House of the Dead. " It affected him so much that he wove it into “The Idiot” (Prince Myshkin’s thoughts on capital punishment).

@dieworkwear Madame Defarge in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. It was chilling to think of her sitting, cackling and knitting while someone was executed. There are valid reasons why the observers' area is so small these days. It is a horrible thing to experience.

@dieworkwear Michigan was the first state in the US to ban the Death Penalty, in the 1800s. I believe it was a response to public execution.

@dieworkwear Yess, short but chilling. The Execution of Tropmann by Ivan Turgenev

@dieworkwear Foucault: Discipline and Punish. First chapter, that’s all anybody should need.

@dieworkwear Oh dear. I appreciate the recommendation and the importance of recognizing how deeply serious this subject is. But atm I might have to find a copy of it and hold onto it for a time when my psyche is prepared to go down that path.

@dieworkwear Here. is.muni.cz/el/1421/podzim…

@dieworkwear Camus on the guillotine.

@dieworkwear Dickens was a staunch opponent of same. He wrote several essays on this, and nailed it.

@dieworkwear @DougHenwood Maybe it’s just silly coincidence, but I’ve long felt that the guillotined Tropmann from Turgenev was brought back from the dead by Bataille for his ‘Blue of Noon.’

@dieworkwear I’d add that state sponsored violence has an incredibly poor success rate in stopping drug trafficking because addiction etc

@dieworkwear @postingpirate But were they well-clothed?

@dieworkwear I only have to watch Israel and Russia - and I get the idea daily.

@dieworkwear Naa, I read Foucault and a book about the Highland clearances and they still haunt me. I've got People's History of the United States in my current book pile and put it down in chapter 2. Columbus was a monster.

@dieworkwear The problem here is, that Turgenev didn't witness the murder of the 8 members of the Kinck family.

@dieworkwear Weren’t lynchings public executions? White people in the South treated them like carnivals. Does Lonsdale want merch sold at these things?

@dieworkwear And if you can’t (not sure I could) try Thackeray’s Going To See A Man Hanged.

@dieworkwear Well said.

@dieworkwear Not even 2 weeks ago he got upset because someone suggested he get Luigi’d x.com/jtlonsdale/sta…