Erewhon

Erewhon is a fascinating book. It pictures an authoritarian society that criminalizes everything. At first the main character thinks of how beautiful everyone is but will soon find that Erewhon makes criminals out of victims even if that person is victimized by illness, fraud or misfortune. Psychiatry has indeed done this in a lot of ways but instead the person is "sick", a good example is if people are homeless it is normally blamed on "mental illness" and not misfortune. In Erewhon a "straightener" is like a cross between a police man and a psychiatrist. Straighteners are called to straighten people after having committed an offence and sometimes the person is put on trial.