Tolstoy used to say something to the effect of: 'since the unjust are organised and settled in society, the just must also organise'. In other words, the networks of the criminal and the corrupt extend through society, and so the good people in society require a similar distribution in order to fight them. Whether one is talking about organised crime, or the dealings of the political class, the logic is spelled out the same: they are a skilled football team out for their various interests and for the general advancement of evil, and the choice for anyone who cares to stand against them is to grab a vest and face them across the muddy pitch of history.
For reasons philsophical, humanitarian and spiritual, Tolstoy re-enacts an earlier idea. Martin Luther separated a 'Kingdom of God' off from a 'Kingdom of the World', where God's people are protected and the Devil's people brutalised and marginalised (essentially). Referring to the establishment's putting down of the peasantry, whose rising up was in large part a result of Luther's own work, Luther was encouraging: 'Kill them as you would a mad dog!'. The peasants were driven back into submission, but being the master theologian, Luther also asked 'by what authority should this have happened?'. His solution did not include the political class in his Kingdom of the World, as a potentially corrupt from of power, but rather as the negative enforcers of his Kingdom of God. While the regional princes weren't pious enough to devote their lives to God, they had enough sense to keep the Devil's minions at bay with a righteous sword.
Tolstoy also treats his two Kingdoms (or football teams, if you will) as a product of Christianity, but they are heavily modified by his individualistic philosophy and his criticisms of the church and the state. I still equate the two schemes, however, insofar as they apply a salvation-based demarcation between people who are either good or evil. I'm utterly sure Tolstoy's approach to morality is wrong because of its supernaturalist tendencies, if anything else. I could also list its anthropocentrism, its need for both God and Man, its primitivism and so on. So why am I ever talking about Tolstoy? He ain't a hifalutin' Criminologist or nuffink, anywaay.
In terms of crime, as far as what I want to dribble on about here, it is clear today that there is a 'criminal culture', suggesting a 'criminal world', flopping about out there, it's threatening and ever-present. The reason I wrote about Tolstoy and Luther is to say that there is an historical and important tendency to treat crime in a certain way. Is the criminal world a football team? Well today's learning says 'yes and no', that while there is organised crime and corruption that may require a more radical analysis, the everyday sense of crime is dependent on a number of factors, some of which might be:
1) The definition of crime, legislation describing crimes to be punished, the workings of the criminal justice system, etc.
2) The social condition; unemployment and economic deprivation, real and absolute poverty, housing, education and disenfranchisement of youth, etc.
3) Media glorification of violence and criminal culture, desensitisation to violent acts portrayed or simply shown on TV (there is plenty of the latter).
I might add: 4) The general lack of any future for anyone. Perhaps this doesn't lead to crime on its own. In many parts of the 'developing' or 'third' world, there is great poverty and lack of futures but lower crime than you might expect. The difference may be the premium that western countries put on their social advantages - advantages that have turned out in reality to be considerably less advantageous - and the narrative that crime is an irrational opt-out of these. Thus lack of any advantageous future leads to a criminally-staged opting-out that satisfies this narrative within westernised countries. Or something like that.
Sorry. Digressed. The three reasons for crime I gave above, that probably everyone's familiar with, is a very mixed bag. Some are not properly the direct causes of crime, such as TV, whereas some certainly are, such as disenfranchisement. In fact the Media has often been cited as the cause of the general fear of crime where there shouldn't be any such fear (such as in Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11). All this notwithstanding, however, I want to say that the tendency to treat crime in a two kingdoms perspective is very much a theme of the three reasons given, in the following ways:
A) The definition of crime and the vacillations of legislation is said by left wing criminologists (can I say crimnogs? sounds a bit racist, but whatever) to be the direct expression of the interests of the ruling elite, that is, if such and such a thing be done, then as a rule their interests will not be met. Also, the criminal justice system serves ultimately as a punishment, that is, as the physical control and torment of an immoral body separated from good society.
B) A little harder to see, because 'weer all innit togevva int we?', and because not everybody who has a poor or abused background turns to crime (which makes conservatives get all moral about it - as if they needed an excuse - not that they would have believed the idea that there are social causes of crime in the first place), but I'm sure you, dear reader, are on my side in this one (not least because you probably are me) and can perceive a more sinister role for the idea of 'the criminal classes' than mere 'lack of a moral compass' (how I hate that phrase, as if living a good life is anything like orienteering or, more likely and more imperially, privateering). I'm always reminded of the 'lumpenproletariat', which is a sabotaging section of the working class that acts as mercenaries for the ruling class interest (i.e. that the yobs are lumpens). Here there's like a domesticated version of Luther; instead of mad dogs we have Pets At Home. Arf.
C) As for the media, of course newspapers have always been split as to class and political persuasion, and the working class/middle class split in television viewing has never been more apparent (I can only speak for the UK here, however). Private Eye calls ITV "the yob channel", and has plenty of reason to. The two kingdoms narrative even plays out in episodes of middle-class tv, which prattles on about new ways to recycle (since the middle class has the good judgment (!) and therefore the interest to do so - very Tolstoy), or how to reach salvation by building sustainable or environmentally pleasing houses with their spare 2 million (which I never understand how they got it, but I'm supposed to enjoy their decisions regardless). Naturally the TV of the World cares disproportionately for programming about crime and punishment and petty soap operas ('pettyvision'), whilst the TV of God will bang out political and lifestyle programming to help people to be better citizens (read: ideologically conditioned masses). And then there's YouTyube. If I begin by cycling through debates and documentaries, I end up circulating among more of the same, utilising the tabs at the right hand side. If, for my daughter, I'm looking at a clip of a funny pet, I will eventually end up (once she has left of course) with a list of tabs that quickly degenerates toward Jeremy Kyle and some truly threatening and harrowing clips that I would never open in a million years. T'internet tends to behave as if there are two buckets, which could be called high and low culture for all but the fact that the subject matter is often acultural (or even anticultural if you see that). The bucket of God is a bucket preseved and non-degrading, while the bucket of the World is an endless abyss of misery. There is the future Jerusalem, and there is the arabs.
Ok ok my point is slipping away from me. Forget the internet. Here's the real problem, that of the existence and especially the activity of evil. When the world is weak, the social contract myth seems easy to upset, and the activity of anyone who does otherwise but conform to the conventions and deferments that the social contract demands are in fact evil. They are the ones that were born in the woods but could never be brought to fit into society, or the mercenary armies that go dangerously without pay or who no longer care to be paid. That's not to valorise criminals in any way, however, since some crime is the most deviant and repulsive of these, and always some way along the scale leading man to absolute trauma and death.
This evil can be 'boxed out' of variously terrible or brilliant idealised worldviews, such as Luthers or Tolstoy's, but there's a huge flaw. The flaw consists of the need for a strong will itself, which demands to be even stronger than princes, that wishes to treat the law as a weak man's tool. The issue that has opened out today is that the two kingdoms view is fine if you're mad - that is, if you have a rigid moral system - but knowledge beyond this, which we have in these postmodern times, makes it impossible, even as it asserts itself as necessary. The activity of evil is crushing, so the will to fight or to escape needs to be incredibly empowered to meet the challenge.
The best way to affirm the reality of such a will would be to deny the reality of the activity of evil itself, all else is, in one way or another, sooner or later, "evil".
V
For reasons philsophical, humanitarian and spiritual, Tolstoy re-enacts an earlier idea. Martin Luther separated a 'Kingdom of God' off from a 'Kingdom of the World', where God's people are protected and the Devil's people brutalised and marginalised (essentially). Referring to the establishment's putting down of the peasantry, whose rising up was in large part a result of Luther's own work, Luther was encouraging: 'Kill them as you would a mad dog!'. The peasants were driven back into submission, but being the master theologian, Luther also asked 'by what authority should this have happened?'. His solution did not include the political class in his Kingdom of the World, as a potentially corrupt from of power, but rather as the negative enforcers of his Kingdom of God. While the regional princes weren't pious enough to devote their lives to God, they had enough sense to keep the Devil's minions at bay with a righteous sword.
Tolstoy also treats his two Kingdoms (or football teams, if you will) as a product of Christianity, but they are heavily modified by his individualistic philosophy and his criticisms of the church and the state. I still equate the two schemes, however, insofar as they apply a salvation-based demarcation between people who are either good or evil. I'm utterly sure Tolstoy's approach to morality is wrong because of its supernaturalist tendencies, if anything else. I could also list its anthropocentrism, its need for both God and Man, its primitivism and so on. So why am I ever talking about Tolstoy? He ain't a hifalutin' Criminologist or nuffink, anywaay.
In terms of crime, as far as what I want to dribble on about here, it is clear today that there is a 'criminal culture', suggesting a 'criminal world', flopping about out there, it's threatening and ever-present. The reason I wrote about Tolstoy and Luther is to say that there is an historical and important tendency to treat crime in a certain way. Is the criminal world a football team? Well today's learning says 'yes and no', that while there is organised crime and corruption that may require a more radical analysis, the everyday sense of crime is dependent on a number of factors, some of which might be:
1) The definition of crime, legislation describing crimes to be punished, the workings of the criminal justice system, etc.
2) The social condition; unemployment and economic deprivation, real and absolute poverty, housing, education and disenfranchisement of youth, etc.
3) Media glorification of violence and criminal culture, desensitisation to violent acts portrayed or simply shown on TV (there is plenty of the latter).
I might add: 4) The general lack of any future for anyone. Perhaps this doesn't lead to crime on its own. In many parts of the 'developing' or 'third' world, there is great poverty and lack of futures but lower crime than you might expect. The difference may be the premium that western countries put on their social advantages - advantages that have turned out in reality to be considerably less advantageous - and the narrative that crime is an irrational opt-out of these. Thus lack of any advantageous future leads to a criminally-staged opting-out that satisfies this narrative within westernised countries. Or something like that.
Sorry. Digressed. The three reasons for crime I gave above, that probably everyone's familiar with, is a very mixed bag. Some are not properly the direct causes of crime, such as TV, whereas some certainly are, such as disenfranchisement. In fact the Media has often been cited as the cause of the general fear of crime where there shouldn't be any such fear (such as in Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11). All this notwithstanding, however, I want to say that the tendency to treat crime in a two kingdoms perspective is very much a theme of the three reasons given, in the following ways:
A) The definition of crime and the vacillations of legislation is said by left wing criminologists (can I say crimnogs? sounds a bit racist, but whatever) to be the direct expression of the interests of the ruling elite, that is, if such and such a thing be done, then as a rule their interests will not be met. Also, the criminal justice system serves ultimately as a punishment, that is, as the physical control and torment of an immoral body separated from good society.
B) A little harder to see, because 'weer all innit togevva int we?', and because not everybody who has a poor or abused background turns to crime (which makes conservatives get all moral about it - as if they needed an excuse - not that they would have believed the idea that there are social causes of crime in the first place), but I'm sure you, dear reader, are on my side in this one (not least because you probably are me) and can perceive a more sinister role for the idea of 'the criminal classes' than mere 'lack of a moral compass' (how I hate that phrase, as if living a good life is anything like orienteering or, more likely and more imperially, privateering). I'm always reminded of the 'lumpenproletariat', which is a sabotaging section of the working class that acts as mercenaries for the ruling class interest (i.e. that the yobs are lumpens). Here there's like a domesticated version of Luther; instead of mad dogs we have Pets At Home. Arf.
C) As for the media, of course newspapers have always been split as to class and political persuasion, and the working class/middle class split in television viewing has never been more apparent (I can only speak for the UK here, however). Private Eye calls ITV "the yob channel", and has plenty of reason to. The two kingdoms narrative even plays out in episodes of middle-class tv, which prattles on about new ways to recycle (since the middle class has the good judgment (!) and therefore the interest to do so - very Tolstoy), or how to reach salvation by building sustainable or environmentally pleasing houses with their spare 2 million (which I never understand how they got it, but I'm supposed to enjoy their decisions regardless). Naturally the TV of the World cares disproportionately for programming about crime and punishment and petty soap operas ('pettyvision'), whilst the TV of God will bang out political and lifestyle programming to help people to be better citizens (read: ideologically conditioned masses). And then there's YouTyube. If I begin by cycling through debates and documentaries, I end up circulating among more of the same, utilising the tabs at the right hand side. If, for my daughter, I'm looking at a clip of a funny pet, I will eventually end up (once she has left of course) with a list of tabs that quickly degenerates toward Jeremy Kyle and some truly threatening and harrowing clips that I would never open in a million years. T'internet tends to behave as if there are two buckets, which could be called high and low culture for all but the fact that the subject matter is often acultural (or even anticultural if you see that). The bucket of God is a bucket preseved and non-degrading, while the bucket of the World is an endless abyss of misery. There is the future Jerusalem, and there is the arabs.
Ok ok my point is slipping away from me. Forget the internet. Here's the real problem, that of the existence and especially the activity of evil. When the world is weak, the social contract myth seems easy to upset, and the activity of anyone who does otherwise but conform to the conventions and deferments that the social contract demands are in fact evil. They are the ones that were born in the woods but could never be brought to fit into society, or the mercenary armies that go dangerously without pay or who no longer care to be paid. That's not to valorise criminals in any way, however, since some crime is the most deviant and repulsive of these, and always some way along the scale leading man to absolute trauma and death.
This evil can be 'boxed out' of variously terrible or brilliant idealised worldviews, such as Luthers or Tolstoy's, but there's a huge flaw. The flaw consists of the need for a strong will itself, which demands to be even stronger than princes, that wishes to treat the law as a weak man's tool. The issue that has opened out today is that the two kingdoms view is fine if you're mad - that is, if you have a rigid moral system - but knowledge beyond this, which we have in these postmodern times, makes it impossible, even as it asserts itself as necessary. The activity of evil is crushing, so the will to fight or to escape needs to be incredibly empowered to meet the challenge.
The best way to affirm the reality of such a will would be to deny the reality of the activity of evil itself, all else is, in one way or another, sooner or later, "evil".
V
