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| | | -- By CameronLewis - 16 Feb 2012
-- Revised - 27 Mar 2012 | |
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< | "Will I be executed for what I have done?" asked Anders Breivik just after surrendering to police for the mass murder of 77 people in Norway this past July. Holmes writes, by way of introduction to the space between law and morality, that to understand law alone one must adopt the perspective of the bad man. The bad man cares only for the material consequences of his actions, his behavior guided by the risk of state punishment through fines, imprisonment, or execution. The desire to avoid punishment as the only check on individual behavior is a chilling prospect, but it is an indisputable part of the decisions we make every day. If there is no risk of being caught in deciding to pursue some temptation, the final decision may end up the same but the path taken is surely not. The fundamental self-interest of the bad man, and to a lesser extent every man, remains. But what about those individuals who go far beyond that threshold? What about those who disregard not only moral codes, but legal ones as well in pursuit of their goals? I am talking about the really bad man. | | | | |
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< | Maybe the "really
bad man" is actually crazy rather than bad? That will surely be the
issue concerning Anders Breivik. | >
> | The Really Bad Man
"Will I be executed for what I have done?" asked Anders Breivik just after surrendering to police for the mass murder of 77 people in Norway this past July. Holmes writes, by way of introduction to the space between law and morality, that to understand law alone one must adopt the perspective of the bad man. The bad man cares only for the material consequences of his actions, his behavior guided by the risk of state punishment through fines, imprisonment, or execution. But what about those individuals who go far beyond that threshold? What about those who disregard not only moral codes, but legal ones as well in pursuit of their goals? I am talking about the really bad man. | | | | |
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< | The really bad man, like the bad man, cares not at all for individual or societal morality. Unlike the bad man, however, he denies the state its punitive power and refuses to consider the legal consequences of his actions. The result is that when the harshest available punishment holds no sway, society scrambles to avoid the notion that the law may be powerless in the face of such a person. | >
> | The really bad man, like the bad man, cares not at all for individual or societal morality. Unlike the bad man, however, he denies the state its punitive power and refuses to consider the legal consequences of his actions. This denial can take the form of a symbolic act, a violent tragedy, declaring to the world that it has no power over him and culminating in suicide or arrest. | | | | |
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< | Demonstrating once again
that law is not the force that holds society
together. | >
> | In the aftermath, it is inevitably settled that the really bad man’s final act emerged from some kind of extreme desperation or mental illness. How else can their actions be explained? Behavior so far outside human norms is plausibly mental illness in itself, especially when the only evidence is the end result. When the really bad man has a history of mental health issues, or provides such a history through documentation, it is easy to point to insanity as the underlying cause. Despite this conclusion, the aggregate societal response is an attempt to cope with the loss, to adequately reconcile the illusion of order with its apparent failure. | | | | |
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< | Attempts to understand the really bad man's mental state are inevitably speculative, and any ex post facto analysis of such a person will always suffer from the adversarial, identity-based nature of our public discourse. | >
> | The Societal Response | | | | |
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< | Really? It seems to me
that the "really bad man," which means so far probably the insane
man, has a mental state that is if anything easier to identify than
that of the "bad man," whose unconscious may have developed in any
one of a number of subtle directions. | >
> | The storm of speculation and scrutiny that results is a process of collective rationalization that serves to apportion responsibility among all involved. The need for answers drives the societal goal of finding someone or something blameworthy, thereby relieving the shared burden and reducing any nagging hint of complicity. Such is what happened at Virginia Tech on April 16th, 2007, when Cho Seung-hui killed 32 students and then himself. Within hours, the nonstop media coverage featured innumerable analysts filling the void of actual information with righteous and provocative demands on the administration, the police, and the ‘system’. Yet the answer is evident: the person ultimately responsible remains the one who pulled the trigger. | | | | |
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< | What ends up being decided about the really bad man is that their actions often emerge from something like extreme desperation, even mental illness. But to say that only those with mental illnesses take such horrific action is a conclusory shortcut. | >
> | Their underlying insanity—whether established through medical diagnosis, past behavior, or ex post facto—serves as explanation and possible excuse. A successful defense on grounds of insanity may mitigate the legal penalty, or provide for alternate indefinite treatment in a mental health facility, but it does nothing for the sense of loss and antipathy felt by society at large. | | | | |
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< | Not conclusory unless
independent of the available evidence. | >
> | To salve that wound, the storm continues. So it was with the legal system, when precious outrage was directed at a judge who let someone slip through the cracks. So it was with the police, when they mistakenly assumed that the first shooting was an isolated incident. And so it was with the administration, when their apparent failure to communicate with students under existing policies preceded the second shooting. Never mind the benefit of hindsight; the altar of public opinion requires a lamb. | | | | |
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< | Behavior so far outside a universal human norm could plausibly be, by itself, mental illness, especially when the only evidence is the end result. | >
> | Of course there were crucial lapses and failures that contributed, and responsibility moving forward should rightly fall to those in a position to fix those problems and prevent recurrences. The goal of that process is often achieved: to build the walls higher and make it harder for those same weaknesses to be exploited again. But considering the presumption of personal liberty in our society, these efforts can hardly prevent the next determined really bad man. An individual, dwarfed by the power of the state, nullifies that power by denying its coercive effect. | | | | |
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< | No, especially when
accompanied by other behavior or ideation accompanying particular
disorders in other patients. | >
> | Whatever deterrence value institutionalized power has over the rest of us is lost against he who seeks to prove himself above that authority. Either they end their own lives in a final act of defiance or, like Breivik, they bask in the revilement and attention, seeking execution by the state as final retroactive validation. Above all, the labeling of the really bad man as insane is what he seeks to avoid. For Breivik, it is a slander, an attempt to delegitimize his convictions and final, irrefutable proof that he will not be a hero and will not be taken seriously. | | | | |
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< | Despite this difficulty, the aggregate societal response is an attempt to adequately reconcile the illusion of control with its apparent failure. | >
> | What is the Solution? | | | | |
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< | One prominent social response. | >
> | The solutions to these problems are identifiable, and much of the value in the process of recovery is in identifying those concrete steps that can be taken. The public consensus eventually settles on those responsible. Across the country, a relatively inexpensive fix: universities and other institutions have installed notification systems able to inform students immediately of any emergency. But the broader problems persist. Enforcement and extension of existing gun control regulations is zealously resisted through a Revolutionary interpretation of the second amendment, and an overhaul of the mental health system remains far down anyone’s list of priorities. Those obvious answers are unattainable in the short term, and their distance limits their value as salve to societal wounds. We are left wanting more. | | | | |
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< | Society’s response
The storm of sensationalism and speculation that comes as a result of tragedy serves to apportion blame among all those involved. It is a process of collective rationalization where the people responsible are identified so the rest of us can ignore more fundamental problems. TV personalities are more than content to rant and rave on any given weekday, but it’s when tragedy strikes that stars are born. The first person to utter a thought that later comes to dominate the public discourse gains instant credibility, and will assuredly be called first the next time a talking head is needed. | >
> | The beauty of our idealized system of government rests in the underlying virtues of liberty and personal freedom despite constant encroachment. In the face of that freedom, a really bad man, mentally ill or sane, will always be able to find the means and opportunity to orchestrate their final act. The inadequacy of the legal system in the face of such individuals is mirrored by that same failure in all other forms of social control. In the end, the really bad man is not one who has rejected only the legal system, but society entirely. Once that alienation is complete, his final act is simply a question of when. | | | | |
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< | Part of what these voices do is serve the societal purpose of finding someone or something blameworthy, thereby relieving the pressure on the rest of society and reducing any nagging hint of complicity. Such is what happened at my school, Virginia Tech, in April 2007. Within minutes of the nonstop media coverage that was to continue for weeks, innumerable analysts filled the void of actual information with righteous and provocative demands on the administration, the police, and the ‘system’. Yet the answer is simple. | >
> | (974) | | | | |
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< | Probably not as simple
as we will unconsciously need to believe, right?
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> | Commentary
24 Apr 2012
Eben,
I would like to keep working on this paper through May. While I'm happy with the shift in direction, and realize that mental illness is too large a part of this issue to ignore, I am unhappy with the conclusion. | | | | |
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< | The person responsible is the one who pulled the trigger. | | | | |
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< | Unless the person who
pulled the trigger is not responsible because of some intervening
condition, like severe mental illness or duress, that we consider
defeats legal as well as moral responsibility for
acts.
The vortex of authority and social forces swirling around them, while certainly contributory, ultimately fails against the deliberate acts of a really bad man.
Also fails against the
not-deliberate acts of a really insane one.
So it was with the legal system, when precious outrage was directed at a judge who let someone slip through the cracks. So it was with the police, when they mistakenly assumed that the first shooting was an isolated incident. And so it was with the administration, when their apparent failure to communicate with students under existing policies preceded the second shooting. Never mind the benefit of hindsight; the altar of public opinion requires a lamb.
There are both rational
and unconscious motives lying behind the behavior of investigating
and criticizing the performance of social actors following
catastrophic events. Describing the causes does not seem to me to
result in an argument against holding such inquiries, anymore than
understanding grief and mourning results in an argument against
holdings funerals.
Of course there were crucial lapses and communication failures that contributed to the tragedy, and responsibility moving forward should rightly fall to those who will be in a position to fix those problems and prevent recurrences. But considering the presumption of personal liberty in our society, such efforts can hardly prevent the next determined really bad man.
Preventing insane people
from doing insane things may be theoretically impossible, but this is
not a rational, let alone resonant, argument against being more
careful and effective in our care for the mentally ill, or in being
more scrupulous in preventing mentally-ill people who are at risk for
violence from acquiring sophisticated weapons.
Can anything be done?
What struck me then, and I struggle with now, is that once a person has decided to become the really bad man; the legal system is impotent. An individual, dwarfed by the power of the state, nullifies that power by denying its coercive effect. Simply put, if the worst you can do is kill me, then I’ll laugh at you as I take that right for myself. Whatever deterrence value institutionalized power has over the rest of us is lost against the individual who seeks to prove himself above that authority. Either they end their own lives in a final act of defiance or, like Breivik, they bask in the revilement and attention, seeking execution by the state as final retroactive validation.
You have not explained
what this analysis contributes when the offender is insane, as
Breivik surely is, and Cho Seung-hui also surely
was.
Afterward, the public consensus eventually settles on those people bearing responsibility for it. Blame is assigned to counter the frustration of being unable to punish the actor, and to restore our jarred illusions about the efficacy of state power in keeping us safe.
Maybe. I think both the conscious and unconscious motives lie elsewhere. How did you establish that these are the only ones?
Perhaps, ultimately, the social process of assigning blame and the labeling of the really bad man as mentally ill are ways to express the inadequacy of any other alternative. To say that they are mentally ill is to rationalize society's apparent incompatibility with the really bad man. Similarly, to say with certainty that fault rests with these few parties is to cooperatively settle nagging doubt at the ability of our law and order to stop or save the really bad man once he has turned against all.
I don't understand what
this means. We say people are mentally ill for the same reason we
say people are physically ill: because we have examined them and
arrived through the collection and analysis of evidence at diagnostic
conclusions. We may misunderstand or misinterpret the evidence for
any number of reasons, and it is appropriate to assume that some
diagnoses will be faulty. Of course conclusions presented in the
course of high-stakes litigation will be hotly controverted with
apparent success on both sides, but that does not prevent facts from
existing, or even consensus from developing outside the crucible of
litigation.
Now that Anders Breivik has given days of public testimony, I do not
think it will be difficult for people to reach the conclusion that he
is insane. In Cho Seung-hui's case, the presence of past diagnostic
recognition of his illness sufficiently probative of dangerousness to
self and others to justify mandatory treatment is pretty conclusive.
I don't understand why you are at a loss for things to do. Cho
should not have been able to acquire firearms. Obvious, reasonable
national enforcement of existing national firearms regulations that
prohibit people in his situation from gaining access to killing
machines would have been sufficient to save all those lives.
Commentary on commentary | >
> | 27 Mar 2012 | | | Carl, I appreciate your thoughtful comments on my essay. Part of what was frustrating as I finished it was knowing that it didn't fit all that well together and not being able to understand why. Your fresh perspective made me realize a couple of things:
- My best conclusion doesn't have anything to do with imposition of the death penalty, as I wrote it. Instead, I work part of the way through the frustration and confusion I (and society, in my opinion) feel when faced with a problem like this and ignore analysis of that response.
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- Paying no attention whatsoever to the fact that other people commit these horrific acts and have justifications for them that they believe to be larger than themselves (Breivik's motivations among them),
- My invocation of the capital punishment issue at the end was irrelevant to the first two thirds of the paper, and serves more as an interesting idea to jump off to than the proper conclusion to the argument.
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< | A reaction and response to your essay: | >
> | A reaction and response to your essay: | | | -- By CarlJohnson - 23 Mar 2012 |
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