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| Cui Bono? |
| 2014-12-29 |
| "What if I told you," asks a Matrix-themed photo-meme that has been circulating on Facebook, "that you can be against cops murdering citizens and citizens murdering cops at the same time?" Judging by the past few weeks, this really is a Matrix-level revelation, obvious as it may seem. We have Americans protesting because of police shootings, and we have police turning their backs on New York City's Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio over lack of support after two police were assassinated by Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, a gunman from Baltimore who said he was seeking revenge for the choking death of cigarette-tax evader Eric Garner. And, as blogger Eric Raymond notes, the response has been divided: "Because humans are excessively tribal, it's difficult now to call for justice against Eric Garner's murderers without being lumped in with the 'wrong side.' Nor will Garner's partisans, on the whole, have any truck with people who aren't interested in poisonously racializing the circumstances of his death." This is a tragedy, but not a surprise. Tribalism is the default state of humanity: The tendency to defend our own tribe even when we think it's wrong, and to attack other tribes even when they're right, just because they're other. Societies that give in to the temptations of tribalism — which are always present — wind up spending a lot of their energy on internal strife, and are prone to disintegrate into spectacular factionalism and infighting, often to the point of self-destruction. Societies that temper those tribal tendencies, replacing them with the mechanisms of civil society, do much better. But there is much opportunity for political empire-building in tribalism, and if the benefits of stoking tribal fires exceed the costs for political actors, then expect political actors to pour gasoline on even the smallest spark. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #2 Well-said, Alan! |
| Posted by: Barbara 2014-12-29 18:26 |
| #1 It's even harder if you try and get nuanced about the actual causes in cases like Garner's. Shall we talk about a law against selling cigarettes as "loosies"? How about the doctrine that any tax no matter how trivial or unfair is worthy of being enforced by lethal force of arms? The police state doesn't start with the police, it starts with the state and the laws that are written by the state to fund and protect the state. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2014-12-29 16:44 |