Death and Books
Mar. 28th, 2006 05:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mirrorshardI was, mostly at random, reminded of a previous post I made, a brief snark comment on the death penalty. I should also note at the top here that it quickly turns into rambling about books instead, though.
I think I may have it, now, so bear with me, Gentil Reader, while I ramble.
Like most things, it's a power-and-weakness situation... it's often painted as a routine judicial decision, or as a rational choice between alternatives, but I'm not sure I buy that one... and I know I don't like the idea that there's anything routine or indeed rational about ending someone's life. Just like rape isn't about sex1, killing isn't about law, and no matter how institutionalized it gets, in the end it's always someone doing it. The effects of killing on the people who do it - assuming they aren't already broken in some way beforehand - are fairly well observed.
So the question becomes: who's doing it? Why has this person chosen to do it, or at least not made the choice not to do it? (Note that I'm not just talking about due-process death penalties here... I suppose what I'm talking about is the whole idea that it's OK for someone to be killed. And specifically excluding crimes of passion and murder for other personal reasons. Warning: contains overgeneralizations.)
For some people, I suspect, it's an expression of power and nothing else. Being able to make decisions, and not letting anyone tell you that there are decisions you can't, don't have the authority to, make. I'm not going to speculate about where that comes from, but it's not always personal - sometimes if you get trapped in a corporate or political culture that plays those sorts of games, the obvious way to survive within it is to play yourself.
Regarding expressions of power, one has to wonder: to whom are they expressed?![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
glasstrider said, in a comment to the last post, what a powerful statement to make about your system - "Our society will not stand for this. If you do this, we will end your life." That looks a bit different, of course, when it's expressed as don't you dare fuck with me, man, or I'll (&c)". If that's intended as a deterrent to (potential) criminals, then, well, that's the state's privilege, I suppose, to decide what it likes and doesn't, if you accept the idea of the judiciary at all. On the other hand, pronouncements like thia aren't made autocratically, and most of what any state does is bureaucrats talking to each other. So there's always going to be a substantial component of I'm tougher on crime than you are to it, and the inevitable insulation of policy-makers (and, especially, policy-suggesters) from execution (in both senses of the word) will amplify that in comparison to the real effects of policies, especially ones like this which only take effect at extremely low rates compared to (say) health or education policies.
Of course, that's even easier when you know that what you're saying is never going to have any effect, and now we come to one of my favourite parts, the implausible and far-reaching analogy. In this case, science fiction fans, and specifically the interminable arguments over Tom Godwin's short story The Cold Equations. (There's a synopsis of the story near the top of that page; the next few paragraphs won't make any sense if you don't know what happens.)
I don't think it can be doubted, amongst right-minded people, that the story isn't a good model of what might happen, or of any kind of realistic world, but there's still a vocal minority who do approve of its message, which they see as more or less "if you do something stupid, you deserve to die". My take on this is that they're doing the Meritocrat Thing, fetishizing smarts and competence2, and implicitly dismissing anyone who doesn't measure up or isn't seen to measure up, because they need something to look down on. (Statutory declaration of personal bias: Meritocracy pisses me off because I'm a loser.) But they're also Not Involved, and have No Influence at all... they're commenting on an implausible, niche-market fictional piece on the internet, so the echo chamber effect comes into full play here, and they feel good and righteous about condemning a fictional character to death.
Part of it, also, is I think because they've been fed - and in many cases, like mine, brought up - on a literary diet consisting largely of Big Stories, about heroism and genius, technology and destruction, war and massive engineering projects. So these things seem normal to them, and so much of their mental equipage consists of rather odd-shaped yardsticks. (I say 'them' - I probably should mention that I have this same problem, though I try to overcome it.) This is also the fantasy reader's problem, the idea (not explicit, but usually lurking there) that most problems can potentially be solved with swords. (I wrote, or at least ranted, about this some time ago.) I say fantasy readers, of course, but it's also a perennial roleplayer's problem... one of the reasons I've more or less given up LRP is that it is (or, at least, the games I've been to have been) mostly about violence, and not only do people tend to solve in-game problems by killing things or each other, but the organisers set up situations where this is right and expected.
I'm also not going to suggest that this is exclusive to SF & fantasy readers; war stories and spy thrillers and Tom Clancy all have the same effect. In fact, it's probably endemic... and I certainly remember reading Jane Austen and measuring myself against Captain Wentworth and Mr Darcy. I'm also not going to fall into the temptation of suggesting everything's about media.
Wresting the thread back, by main force, to the original question, I'm not trying to suggest that these influences can make us more casual about violence or killing, or less concerned over the value of a human life... except when we believe it doesn't matter.
1. If anything is.
2. Or the appearance thereof. Hey, if X got to the top, he must've deserved it, right? Meritocratic society and all that. All wealth and position are earned. I saw a statistic within the last few days saying that n% of Americans, where n was >= 60, believed this. Can't track it down just yet. This is, admittedly, an overly cynical footnote, so let me put in some actual content by noting that meritocracy is a very big strand of thought in science-fiction. Personally, I blame Heinlein.
[Other point I was originally going to make, about why some people support the death penalty so strongly, excised because I can't yet find a way to put it that doesn't turn into a sneer.]
I think I may have it, now, so bear with me, Gentil Reader, while I ramble.
Like most things, it's a power-and-weakness situation... it's often painted as a routine judicial decision, or as a rational choice between alternatives, but I'm not sure I buy that one... and I know I don't like the idea that there's anything routine or indeed rational about ending someone's life. Just like rape isn't about sex1, killing isn't about law, and no matter how institutionalized it gets, in the end it's always someone doing it. The effects of killing on the people who do it - assuming they aren't already broken in some way beforehand - are fairly well observed.
So the question becomes: who's doing it? Why has this person chosen to do it, or at least not made the choice not to do it? (Note that I'm not just talking about due-process death penalties here... I suppose what I'm talking about is the whole idea that it's OK for someone to be killed. And specifically excluding crimes of passion and murder for other personal reasons. Warning: contains overgeneralizations.)
For some people, I suspect, it's an expression of power and nothing else. Being able to make decisions, and not letting anyone tell you that there are decisions you can't, don't have the authority to, make. I'm not going to speculate about where that comes from, but it's not always personal - sometimes if you get trapped in a corporate or political culture that plays those sorts of games, the obvious way to survive within it is to play yourself.
Regarding expressions of power, one has to wonder: to whom are they expressed?
glasstrider said, in a comment to the last post, what a powerful statement to make about your system - "Our society will not stand for this. If you do this, we will end your life." That looks a bit different, of course, when it's expressed as don't you dare fuck with me, man, or I'll (&c)". If that's intended as a deterrent to (potential) criminals, then, well, that's the state's privilege, I suppose, to decide what it likes and doesn't, if you accept the idea of the judiciary at all. On the other hand, pronouncements like thia aren't made autocratically, and most of what any state does is bureaucrats talking to each other. So there's always going to be a substantial component of I'm tougher on crime than you are to it, and the inevitable insulation of policy-makers (and, especially, policy-suggesters) from execution (in both senses of the word) will amplify that in comparison to the real effects of policies, especially ones like this which only take effect at extremely low rates compared to (say) health or education policies.Of course, that's even easier when you know that what you're saying is never going to have any effect, and now we come to one of my favourite parts, the implausible and far-reaching analogy. In this case, science fiction fans, and specifically the interminable arguments over Tom Godwin's short story The Cold Equations. (There's a synopsis of the story near the top of that page; the next few paragraphs won't make any sense if you don't know what happens.)
I don't think it can be doubted, amongst right-minded people, that the story isn't a good model of what might happen, or of any kind of realistic world, but there's still a vocal minority who do approve of its message, which they see as more or less "if you do something stupid, you deserve to die". My take on this is that they're doing the Meritocrat Thing, fetishizing smarts and competence2, and implicitly dismissing anyone who doesn't measure up or isn't seen to measure up, because they need something to look down on. (Statutory declaration of personal bias: Meritocracy pisses me off because I'm a loser.) But they're also Not Involved, and have No Influence at all... they're commenting on an implausible, niche-market fictional piece on the internet, so the echo chamber effect comes into full play here, and they feel good and righteous about condemning a fictional character to death.
Part of it, also, is I think because they've been fed - and in many cases, like mine, brought up - on a literary diet consisting largely of Big Stories, about heroism and genius, technology and destruction, war and massive engineering projects. So these things seem normal to them, and so much of their mental equipage consists of rather odd-shaped yardsticks. (I say 'them' - I probably should mention that I have this same problem, though I try to overcome it.) This is also the fantasy reader's problem, the idea (not explicit, but usually lurking there) that most problems can potentially be solved with swords. (I wrote, or at least ranted, about this some time ago.) I say fantasy readers, of course, but it's also a perennial roleplayer's problem... one of the reasons I've more or less given up LRP is that it is (or, at least, the games I've been to have been) mostly about violence, and not only do people tend to solve in-game problems by killing things or each other, but the organisers set up situations where this is right and expected.
I'm also not going to suggest that this is exclusive to SF & fantasy readers; war stories and spy thrillers and Tom Clancy all have the same effect. In fact, it's probably endemic... and I certainly remember reading Jane Austen and measuring myself against Captain Wentworth and Mr Darcy. I'm also not going to fall into the temptation of suggesting everything's about media.
Wresting the thread back, by main force, to the original question, I'm not trying to suggest that these influences can make us more casual about violence or killing, or less concerned over the value of a human life... except when we believe it doesn't matter.
1. If anything is.
2. Or the appearance thereof. Hey, if X got to the top, he must've deserved it, right? Meritocratic society and all that. All wealth and position are earned. I saw a statistic within the last few days saying that n% of Americans, where n was >= 60, believed this. Can't track it down just yet. This is, admittedly, an overly cynical footnote, so let me put in some actual content by noting that meritocracy is a very big strand of thought in science-fiction. Personally, I blame Heinlein.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 09:18 am (UTC)Sorry, I'm not quite following here - believe what doesn't matter? I'm probably denser of understanding than normal because of this darn head cold. Basically, I think my attitude to stupidity and the death penalty is "the death penalty in the 21st century is always wrong, but the degree of malice and/or stupidity it took for you to find yourself in that courtroom is going to affect how much sympathy I can muster for your being the victim of that wrong, because if I felt for all victims of all wrongs equally, I'd soon run out of nervous energy to care about anything at all."
I read an interesting report recently about mirror cells which made me speculate that the extent to which media influences affect people's real-life actions and opinions may be linked to differences in the mirror cell function in their brains. I notice effects in myself from certain games and films (and therefore choose not to play or watch them) that don't seem to occur in my sons, for instance.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 07:01 pm (UTC)Hm, I think I remember seeing that same report - differences in your ability to empathize with other people? So yes, it does make sense to me that empathizing with fictional characters and being affected by the situations is also linked to those. Like you, I get effects others don't, and this is one of the problems I have writing, I suspect... I don't like making bad things happen to characters.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-29 09:02 am (UTC)That makes sense. Thanks!
You're the second person on my friends list today to say that they don't like making bad things happen to their characters.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 07:10 pm (UTC)[...] killing isn't about law, and no matter how institutionalized it
gets, in the end it's always someone doing it. [...] So the question
becomes: who's doing it? Why has this person chosen to do it, or at
least not made the choice not to do it?
You could ask exactly the same question about any job whose
effects include causing harm to someone. The obvious example,
probably too obvious to be worth mentioning, is the soldier. Less
obvious examples include insurance claims adjusters, medical personnel
performing triage, and police moving homeless people along. Why have
these people chosen to do what they do? Because they believe that
performing these actions causes more good, overall, than not doing
them[0].
[0] Of course there are other reasons why people choose these
jobs, too.
"Our society will not stand for this. If you do this, we will
end your life." That looks a bit different, of course, when it's
expressed as don't you dare fuck with me, man, or I'll (&c)".
It looks different again when it's expressed as "If you persist in
violating other people's rights then we will ensure that you don't do
it again". You can spin it any number of ways.
I don't think it can be doubted, amongst right-minded people,
that the story isn't a good model of what might happen, or of any kind
of realistic world, but there's still a vocal minority who do approve
of its message, which they see as more or less "if you do something
stupid, you deserve to die".
(I haven't read the story, only the synopsis.) For me, the
absolutely vital factor is that "Unauthorized personnel keep out!" is
not a fair warning. Unless the story makes it clear that the woman
had knowledge of the "penalty", and of the reason for it, then there
is no correspondence whatsoever between that story and the situation
of the death penalty.
I'm against the death penalty because it's impossible to correct a
mistake, and because I simply don't believe that the financial cost of
keeping someone in a secure facility for the rest of their life is
higher than the human cost of killing them.
(To play devil's advocate with that last paragraph: (a) perhaps the
small number of mistakes is more than counterbalanced by the evil
avoided; this is an argument often used to support the idea that it
should be easier to convict those accused of rap, and (b) perhaps the
human cost of diverting money from other worthy causes is higher
than the human cost of killing a multiple murderer.)
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 10:20 pm (UTC)Rape. That's rape. Being accused of rap is a completely different matter.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 11:27 pm (UTC)That is what I meant by it. A statement, not a bragging threat.
Being accused of rap is a completely different matter.
That's even worse...
no subject
Date: 2006-03-29 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-29 09:45 pm (UTC)Which is where the analogy comes in - it's to do with the kind of people who will make that decision, the commenters and readers, rather than the ones who will carry it out, the characters in the story.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 09:00 pm (UTC)bUT I've always been tempted by the Orwellian school of thought..completely reprogram the wrongdoer (and brainwash them into the purpose).
The death penalty only really works in two situations, one where society belives that there is no afterlife and that phrase oxygen-thief actually means something, and two where society believes in hell, all seven circles of it, and that the perptrator will be damned for all eternity.
Otherwise you may as well make the person suffer in this life.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-29 10:25 pm (UTC)Oh, he was always a role model, I assure you. A bit of an idiot at times, but a definite role model. Though I did like Captain Wentworth better.
I can see how the Orwellian school of thought can be tempting, but this seems a bit fallible to me - like punishing rape by castration, and assuming that that will prevent any further offences. Psychology is a slippery sort of thing, and I can't help but think it'd keep twisting out from under conditioning one way or another.
And while I appreciate the suffering-and-revenge principle intellectually, I'm not sure I can get any closer to it than that. I just want to make sure they don't do it again.
quoteinsurancegeico
Date: 2007-02-16 07:11 pm (UTC)