Freshmen in college might be reading the biography of Bernie Madoff instead of the classic novel "Crime and Punishment." The ongoing saga of this man's crime, punishment, and signs of redemption might the greatest morality tale of all times.
NEW YORK MAGAZINE's Steve Fishman conducted exclusive jailhouse interviews with Madoff. The man who is being revealed is one who seems to have broken open to the kinds of questioning which causes those inner shifts saints like St. Paul and activists like Martin Luther King underwent. For this journey Madoff has as his guide a therapist at the correctional center. According to Fishman he wants to know if he's a sociopath. No, the therapist answered, since Madoff feels remorse. He also wants to tell his story through the filter of what he knows and feels now.
Given that his sentence extends more than 150 years, Madoff has time on his side for this exploration. At the end of it, he may be a geniune late bloomer who studies in prison to become a healer of souls or a teacher of the three Rs. On "Criminal Minds" an episode about Madoff could be one of the few inspiring ones.
What I find rich is that a Ponzi scheme in itself is simple, and yet, it was able to victimize a large scale of intellectuals.
Posted by: Cameron Scott | April 21, 2011 at 12:35 AM