If you want to go into prison education, says Alan Smith, you have to be prepared to lose your moral compass I've had a couple of phone calls recently from philosophers who are thinking of going into prison education, which is, of course, wonderful. They have been asking for a bit of advice and this has sent me into some uncharacteristic musing on what I do. How do you explain a career made of hoping for the best, self-indulgence, guile and uselessness? How do you warn them against losing their ordinary compass and assuming not just the harshness of prison sensibility, but a nodding acceptance of almost anything? When we read An Irish Airman Foresees His Death, the response was, for me at least, shocking. Keith opened his hands to me across the table. "See, he just doesn't care. Like when you're in a situation and you think, I'm gonna die, and then you think, fuck it." All around the room people were nodding quietly. "That's a terrible thing," I said (or something like that). "Nah mate. It's just the way it is." And even though it's not (and I do know that it's not), the seductive power of reading the poem in this way comes as a real blow. The admiration for Macbeth ("he's a right geezer"), contempt for Antony ("pussy whipped"), the delighted laughter at The Prince ("that's exactly what happens") has an accumulating effect and it might be a good idea to steer the pristine sensibilities of academic philosophers away from all this. The Prison Service, quite rightly, makes great efforts to protect staff from my sort of susceptibility and I still have, like a moral editor, in the back of my head the course I did early on about "prison craft". But it is so easy to see the other point of view. There you are with not very much and you're thinking about how you might change that. There you are with all those glamorous images pouring out of the television and the steady flow of corruption and scandal from the tarts and spivs who seem to be in charge. And then someone says to you: "mind this for me", "just drive this van to Manchester", "we're going to do this, that or the other, do you fancy some of it?" and away you go. You can see, can't you, how easy that might be, especially when you're young? Then, stir in ignorance, or isolation, or drugs, or abuse and away you go. Not that it was all like that. For Eddy it was: "I have to bring something to the table, it's how I am"; for Liam: "I just didn't want to have a boring life"; for Kenny: "I like the money, Al, I like that rich life"; for Tony: "I cannot back down, not ever". This sort of anarchic pride was just the thing to seduce me away from myself and it was made more seductive because everyone knew that it was doomed. It was what made Paradise Lost the most popular text we ever read together. When Satan picks himself up from the burning lake and says "I reck not", there would always be a bit of applause and the laughter that recognises something you thought was a secret. Of course I would point out the dreadfulness of a 12-year sentence, the doomed nature of these sorts of lives, and of course when they said "so fucking what?" the spell was only strengthened. So, anyway, phone back if you still fancy the job and I'll do my best. It's only philosophy and I don't see how you can possibly do any harm. Or good. Depending, of course, on what you mean by good. Philosophy Prisons and probation Further education guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds