Now, if Kouvalis is involved, should anyone really trust the “research?” Good question. Coincidentally, the Market Research and Intelligence Association recently investigated Kouvalis. Their findings, and a big CBC story about Kouvalis’ way of doing business, are here. A column I wrote about Kouvalis’ “blatant contravention” of ethics rules is here.
I find this all very amusing, in a tragic kind of way. The Political Right - as embodied by folk like Stephen Harper and Rob Ford - believe that punishment is the best way to deter bad behaviour. If you punish people for doing wrong, they say, they'll learn not to do wrong again; others will learn from that example and steer clear of crime completely.
And yet, here we are with the same people who've been wrist-slapped repeatedly for robocall sins pulling the exact same tricks. Instead of changing their ways, they've instead spent more time covering their tracks, though not so thoroughly as they deluded themselves into believing.
There's a reason the same mistakes keep getting made - it's because people think they're too clever to be caught, or others are too dumb or sheepish to do anything about their behaviour. Or, they simply don't register any form of social empathy at all - ie, are psychopaths.
All this behaviour stems from neuropsychology, a combination of nature and nurture. We train our kids to read, write and do math because those are deemed essential social skills - the same should apply to social emotional empathy.
Of course, we're not supposed to be interested in the root causes of criminal behaviour, are we?
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