The Survival of Society

[kokopelle]

An insightful LJ friend of mine said...

Frankly, however, on an emotional level, I will never understand the death penalty. I can, in some ways, understand killing as an act of vengeance, an act of passion, but I just don't get it as a matter of rationality or dispassionate justice. I certainly can't see it as an act of civilization.

I said...

Perhaps capital punishment is an act of survival by the society? It is a civilized action if you consider the society to be civilized. A killer (or other form of "bad" person") is deemed to be a danger to the society as a whole. They've got a societal screw loose, and they will kill (or harm in general) the society if left free to roam. The level of harm is determined by the society as a whole. The society also gets to decide how the best remove the harmful element from it's midst. Two alternatives are life imprisonment and execution. The former is expensive and a burden to the society if the definition of "harmful" is too broad. The latter is permanent, at the risk of executing an innocent person.

Societal survival removes the true concept of punishment. People have very wide views on what proper punishment is. The views are informed by life experience and (continued) exposure to the harm represented by the harmful element. IMO there is very little rationality when punishment is discussed. For rape, some people say, "cut it off!". For sexual abuse, some people say, "throw away the key!". Meanwhile, the white-collar criminal, bankrupting thousands of people, is given a short and cushy punishment. Why these differences? I believe it gets back to the society protecting itself. It may not be "fair" to make a eunuch of the rapist, but it would keep them from performing the act again. It may not be fair to lock away a child predator forever, but it would remove the danger from society’s offspring. The danger these two types present is the very immediate to the human psyche. We don't ask the repeat bank robber to have their private parts removed, or thrown in a dank hole forever? Their crime of robbing Federally insured money does not activate our primal fears. Is it fair? Perhaps not, but then again, in the end the survival of a society seems to have little to do with rationality or dispassionate justice.

(as a side note, consider wars, removal of human rights, abuse of freedom, and so on. All stem from a society protecting itself. None of these can be very rational)

$.02 (clink)

Comments

[oceans-voice.livejournal.com]

Why? Why do you feel this way?

[greensh.livejournal.com]

And she'll do it too... I have no doubt.

[oceans-voice.livejournal.com]

What kind of success are you talking about when you say you are concerned with the success of you and your family?

[oceans-voice.livejournal.com]

Interesting you posted this. As you will see from my LJ, I was thinking about prisoners and the death penalty today as well.

I have always despised capitol punishment, and it has been going on for ages. I think that it is the mark of an uncivilized society. The society may think it is being civilized, but in my opinion, it is not being conscious at all.

It appears to me that the death penalty and some other forms of societal punishment is based in fear and is the mark of an unconscious people.

The eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth approach never worked for me. What is it really saying about a society? We do not approve of killing and torture such as rape or other forms of torture which would land one in prison, and yet we are going to prove our disapproval of these acts by performing the exact same act? How civilized is that? What does that say about our society? What kind of statement is that society saying about Who It Is and what it wishes to create and Be?

Taking another life unnecessarily is not justice to me. How does one know that a killer is beyond hope unless one tries to educate and work with the killer? Are we saying that all those on death row are beyond hope? It seems that is the statement our society is making. That we have given up. That we cannot do any more. That these people and their negativity has overcome our society. That this is a menace that must be disposed of as opposed to worked with, overcome, turned around, moved from darkness to light, moved from unconsciousness to consciousness.

*shakes head*

This is a huge issue for me. This is one of the reasons I want to work with prisoners in the prison system.

Survival of a society does require a conscious approach. The peaceful flourishing of a society, a society which we deam "idealistic", a "utopia" ... it CAN exist. But each person has to make a move towards consciousness. People think that the problems of society are not their problem, that the prisoners are not their problem, but the truth is that the world and its society and creatures ARE our problem. We created it all together, as individuals, and we can only change it in the same way.

[iskender.livejournal.com]

You have some very interesting thoughts on the matter. But recall our disagreement about "institutional memory." You're anthropomorphizing society by saying that it acts for its own survival. Individuals within society act, commit crimes, commit crimes in reprisal, think, want, do, but society is a larger mechanism. It is not a big person.

And even if it were, no society has been threatened by a single person. Society does not act for its survival by killing one person. It acts for its preference. And also keep in mind that societies are born when societies die--the same is not true of people.

But that quote is quite significant. I swore that I had written it but I could not find it. Suffice to say that I agreed with it so completely that I wanted it to be my own.

Killing a prisoner is not the same as killing a man in an act of passion. Once you trap and torture and try and convict and sentence and execute that man, it's not vengeance. It's become something else. I can understand a lot of terrible things, but that act of rationalizing vengeance--what perversion. Better to kill the accused on his feet than chain him, strap him to a chair, sedate him so we don't watch the convulsions, inject him with a series of poisons and let his bowels empty in a room designed for such dirty realities. It's worse than the guillotine precisely because we think it's better than the guillotine. Animal vengeance is better than civilized justice.

But ask yourself how you know what society wants, how anyone could know what society needs. "The survival of society," "society protecting itself." What a load of horseshit. This is how individuals justify their individual greed, interest, and appetite--by appealing to some mythical community that they conveniently promise to represent. That's civilization, too--inventing some larger identity so as to make the lessers submit to your will and to provide the greaters with moral justification for doing exactly as they please.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with you at the root of the discussion. I'm not trying to split moral hairs or talk about individual passions.

Let's go with the concept that society is a large mechanism. It is appropriate that people say, "the wheels of Justice turn slowly", as if Justice were part of a society machine. The machine is designed and programmed by the people in the society. Sometimes this group of people is very small relative to the overall size of the society. This is true in the republic of the United States. Those people in charge of determining the operation of the large mechanism determine the severity of the crime. In the perfect society, the severity of the crime is based on the danger/damage to the society by the crime. Theis is where my observations began.

The serial killer, very dangerous to life and limb, is given life or execution. The jay-walker is almost not even noticed. The bank robber gets X number of years and is then released. All are reactive degrees of the mechanism of society and it's judicial system. There are no justifications of individual greed, interest, and appetite. Where are we thinking differently here?

[iskender.livejournal.com]

All of society's laws and customs were made by people based on belief, philosophy, aesthetics, opinion, and interest. All of society's laws are enforced by people who believe in those laws or comply with them, for the same self-interest.

The machine is created for a reason by people and used by people on other people. Saying "I do this for the greater good" allows people to ignore their own desire and act as if they're unselfish.

Saying that society executes a man is like saying that if I fire a pistol and it kills you, that you were killed by the gun. Lawyers, judges, jailors, executioners, cops--they're not fingers on the trigger being held by society. They never cease to be citizens. They hold the weapon, aim it, choose when to fire it.

Society is an abstract concept that individuals use to their own benefit.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

Again, I agree that the mechanism of the machine is programmed using belief, philosophy, aesthetics, opinion and interest. This is where the twist of human (non)rationality appears. It is in the ideal (philosophical) state that the punishment fits the crime and the rules of society are truly just and fair.

I'll agree with you that the members of society carry out the directives of the mechanism of society. It's a wee verbal hair whether their sum comprises "the society" or not. Soldiers in the society's army carry out individual actions of war and peace. It is the "military", the sum of these people, who are held accountable by the other organs of society. Oh my. I've stepped into anthropomorphizing. I'm not sure what language you would use here. How about we agree to disagree on this interesting bit of philosophical verbiage?

[greensh.livejournal.com]

You state both "... society is a larger mechanism" and "Society is an abstract concept that individuals use to their own benefit.". Does this make society an abstract mechanism? Is the society the mechanism, and hence definable in it's functions, but the individuals are the abstract element, undefinable in their actions?

[iskender.livejournal.com]

Society is a construct. It is a phenomenon that takes place when you have many, many people acting in various ways. When one talks about social pressures, they mean this. But it is a creation. No-one carries out the directives of the mechanism of society, as you said. They carry out orders that other people give them.

Who sentences the criminal? Society? No--the judge. Who tries him, who judges him? Society? No--the lawyers try him, the jury finds him.

Now there's ambiguity, because society can also mean civilization, government, administration, business. But even there, the machine can influence, but it is those building, maintaining, and operating the machine who wield the real power, and the real responsibility.

No-one tries a criminal to protect society. They try criminals to protect individuals. Rapists don't violate society. They violate their victims and those who are revolted by such acts. Individual crime takes place within society and therefore can't truly involve society. If a brother harms a brother, a family, a household may be hurt, but not a society--for the transgressor is as much a citizen as the victim. The only thing that can truly affect a society is irreparable schism--which may come from individual action--or warfare, which takes place between societies. And even then, no conquered people is ever eradicated totally, so society can't truly be snuffed out--it is just redefined.

Justice isn't about society. It's about certain groups battling other groups, which interests society but never really threatens it.

No serial killer has ever threatened a society. And when you start ignoring individual interest and start speaking for immaterial social constructions, then you might as well start gassing the drug users and drowning the whores, because they have been held up as dangers to society as sure as the killers have been.

Human civilization isn't necessarily rational, but neither is it abstract. And that's the problem with talking about what society "wants." Who can tell? I know a lot of people who say that society needs this or needs that--they're a lot more popular, and more dangerous, who are merely self-centered.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Killing a prisoner is not the same as killing a man in an act of passion...

I couldn't agree with this paragraph more. The justice system, the time it takes etc. perverts the idea of killing for vengeance and indeed tries to hide the fact that we kill for anything more than defence, anger, retribution, etc. We sanitise death and then make ourselves feel good about it just because we did that.

Death should not be sanitised, it is ugly and brutal. It is also - in some cases - necessary. It is our sanitisation of death - I believe - which has made it easy for so many to be completely against the death penalty. When it was more visceral and real, and death was a natural occurrence, not something staved off with prisons and hospitals, it was far less denigrated, and more likely to be accepted as something that existed because that was the way it was.

It's been interesting reading your opinions on this matter.

[iskender.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

In my opinion, if you're able to yield your right to vengeance to the government, then you yield your claim for vengeance entirely. Vengeance is not rational and can't be rationalized without making it something else entirely.

If I'm able to let the government do my punishing for me, then I'm able to forgive. But too many of us have grown used to vicarious pleasures. Capital punishment is to vengeance and barbarian justice what pornography is to sex. It's modern, slick, professional, and wholly pointless. But it's so much easier.

And don't get me wrong--I don't mean to espouse some fascist aesthetic. I believe in kindness and forgiveness and all that stuff--it's the middle route I don't trust. You're either wild and vengeful and passionate or you're disciplined, civilized, and lawful. We've brought up a society of those who feel their appetites yet don't know how to satisfy them.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

You're either wild and vengeful and passionate or you're disciplined, civilized, and lawful.

I think... I think that humans are both, because it's difficult to reconcile our emotional side or primitive lizard brain which governs fear etc. with our more rational frontal lobe and all that cerebral thought which makes us worship gods, think about war, overthink relationships etc.

Our society, or the citizens in that society, are often raised to repress our emotions, our passions, and the more visceral parts of our nature which then turn to find satiation in pornography, gratuitous violence etc.

Capital punishment is to vengeance and barbarian justice what pornography is to sex. It's modern, slick, professional, and wholly pointless. But it's so much easier.

I think that's what western society seems to strive for in its quest for the myth of sophistication: an easier way.

[iskender.livejournal.com]

Oh, you can definitely be both, and maybe you should be both. But express yourself or, if you prefer, discipline and restrain yourself. Perhaps vent some desires and redirect others.

But you can't half-ass it. You either act in line with your nature or you change your nature. Way too many people are in limbo, wanting things but telling themselves that they can't have it, rather than understanding that there may be other things they want more. And so they continue to hunger for whatever it is that attracts them. But you can't ever get rid of an urge--you can only redirect it. You can either redirect it consciously--go the self-cultivation and true civilization route--or it will redirect itself.

We see the latter in criminal justice, sporting events, sexual mores, politics. We have subverted the violent natures and they have proliferated in areas that perhaps once were not so tense and charged with nervous aggression. We could have voluntarily and openly restrained and retrained ourselves, but instead we denied our violent natures and told ourselves that we were peaceful, that our wars were always defensive, that we were happy with accumulating more consumer products and purposeless kitsch.

We debarbarized but we never truly civilized. And that means we're half-domesticated. Is it any surprise when the half-domesticated beast goes feral?

I have my own opinions of what to do regarding capital punishment and law enforcement, but when it comes to social psychology, the criminal and the rabid death penalty advocates (by no means are all DP advocates rabid, but we can both admit that some exist) express the same characteristics. They are barbarians in a world they don't understand. The crucial differences are, first, that it is easier for the criminal to realize his antisocial tendencies, while the rabid citizen believes that he is truly lawful and civilized, and second, that the criminal, more often than the rabid citizen, is his own agent.

And I don't mean to pick on DP advocates, even the rabid ones. You see this in the warmongering citizen, the football fanatic, the sexual chauvinist... A tendency to live vicariously, to channel those barbarian urges through another actor. It is what separates these people from the criminal, who is at least more direct in his criminality.

And this was going to be a one-line reply.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

And so they continue to hunger for whatever it is that attracts them. But you can't ever get rid of an urge--you can only redirect it. You can either redirect it consciously--go the self-cultivation and true civilization route--or it will redirect itself.

This is a good point. Kind of what I'm aiming for, but at this stage all I see when I review a lot of my own actions is a whole lot of immaturity and misdirected anger that marks a lot of how I think/act. It's an ongoing process really.

The crucial differences are, first, that it is easier for the criminal to realize his antisocial tendencies, while the rabid citizen believes that he is truly lawful and civilized, and second, that the criminal, more often than the rabid citizen, is his own agent.

It seems to me that avid death penalty advocates have a multitude of excuses they can use to tell themselves that ultimately they're not nearly so barbaric as the criminals who were truer to their own nature in a sense. But those who seek death, no matter what guise it is under, are not that civilised. I'm not sure if I'd picket in favour of DP, but I do think that convincing ourselves that we don't need it at all is a bit of a nice mythology that we grant ourselves. I also believe that I'm aggressive enough to defend my family to the death in certain circumstances.

But I also believe that in recognising that I have that violent propensity, I am able to take responsibility for it, and in that I am also able to own it and the consequences that come from it.

So still feral, but at least thinking about the barbarism! Lol.

I wonder if that's one of the main things humans forget to strive for, self-awareness coupled with a good dash of responsibility.

[iskender.livejournal.com]

Those who are aware of their wild nature are those who make the best citizens, I feel. We have the most to fear from those who think themselves perfectly civilized. Such people think they could never behave like beasts and so they're not as careful as they might otherwise be. When you deny your dark side you will come to indulge it more.

Self-awareness and a desire to improve, a desire to direct oneself. It's a hard balance to achieve, let alone maintain.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

True true. I consider myself to be have a (very?) dark side. I am also (mostly) honest with myself about it. Because I am honest, I am very aware of when I indulge the dark side, paradoxiclly resulting in not doing so (for the the most part). Now... if I find some playmates with similar tastes, that would be a different story. (grin)

[iskender.livejournal.com]

You don't act well by denying your strength. That's where most religion and most civilizations go wrong. You act well by knowing your strengths, knowing your power, and controlling your use of that power very carefully.

But in certain circumstances, we can be unrestrained. Good luck finding that.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

True true. I consider myself to be have a (very?) dark side. I am also (mostly) honest with myself about it. Because I am honest, I am very aware of when I indulge the dark side, paradoxiclly resulting in not doing so (for the the most part). Now... if I find some playmates with similar tastes, that would be a different story. (grin)

[greensh.livejournal.com]

Is death always ugly and brutal? Are you making this statement only in the context of capital punishment?

When a nation is a war, should the non-military population be exposed to all of the sights that the soldiers see? Should we show our children the horrors of war as an educational excercise? Where does the revelation of harshness of human behavior begin and end?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Is death always ugly and brutal?

To me, it is. It can have elements of beauty to it in stages, but there are also facets of it to me which are ugly and brutal. Though I don't mean brutal necessarily in the sense of violence. To me there is a stark and confrontational brutality when a person you love passes peacefully in their sleep, passes all their fluids and wastes the next moment, and then turns the colour of a vivid bruise. *shrugs* And that's in a fairly good scenario where a person is passing without struggling against their end.

When it comes to capital punishment however, a lot of that beauty and peace isn't anywhere to be found.

When a nation is a war, should the non-military population be exposed to all of the sights that the soldiers see?

To a degree, yes. We are too insulated from violence in a 'real' sense, leaving the media to desensitise us while most of us still have no real understanding of what death is or looks like.

Should we show our children the horrors of war as an educational excercise? Where does the revelation of harshness of human behavior begin and end?

This is more difficult. Children's innocence is different to adult maturity. One of the reasons teenage initiation used to be so harsh in many indigenous cultures is that there is a marked loss of innocence that is transferred into knowing. Teenagers were often exposed to visceral, harsh experience. Whether this involved killing their first animal on their own - gutting it and so forth, or having their own foreskin cut from their body with a sharpened fragment of glass, there was a clear sense that when you were a child you were more protected from such truths, and once you hit puberty and were ready to become either 'man' or 'woman', you were exposed to some of the more gritty aspects of existence.

Our initiation process for teenagers these days just seems to be exposing them to an M+15 and R+18 rating when they're old enough. Lol. I still believe children who eat meat should have to kill at least one animal by the time they're old enough to leave school. I think that those who benefit from the death produced by war, should at least understand what war actually involves (sans media-censored image) so they can better appreciate (or condemn) those who fight in such wars.

They're not easy questions to answer, and I don't for a second think that my answers are 'right.' They're just what currently fit with my worldview, open to challenge, and not always logical.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

In the case of serial killers and serial rapists, I say do them in post-haste. I don't care if they can be rehabilitated, they're not worth the funding and the time. Is that very compassionate? No. But it's compassion for humans (in favour of the planet) that will eventually destroy this planet as we seek ways to feed everyone - therefore depleting our resources - and keeping our population an ever growing mass where we will eventually wipe out ourselves. *shrugs* Compassion is good in small doses, but it needs to be balanced out with cold, hard rationality.

We are animals. We eat like animals. We shit like animals. We drink like animals. We sleep like animals. We procreate like animals. It's fair to say that we kill like animals. We kill each other like many other mammals do to protect their territory and offspring.

To try and say that we're 'better than that' is in my opinion a superiority complex that divorces itself from the reality of nature. To say 'what about human rights' is to fall back on a completely human invention that isn't actually real.

Humans don't have 'basic rights' when they're born. We're animals - and like all animals - we struggle to survive. We're lucky to have deluded ousrelves into living in a world where 'basic rights' protect the lives of rapists. Where our government/s are kind enough to release pedophiles without paying much attention to if they go back to living opposite a school or not.

As for making a eunuch of a rapist, I simply believe in killing them. Castrating rapists, chemically and physically, sometimes isn't enough to stop them doing a great amount of damage to others, especially if they're a sociopath. And it costs a lot of money to keep feeding them the chemical cocktail which depresses their testosterone and sex drive. Furthermore, it takes a lot more money for people to make sure they keep taking that cocktail, and for doctor's visits to make sure that the depression of testosterone isn't causing too much internal damage.

It's just not worth it. Kill them. Make the room in this over-populated world for a human that's actually going to try and contribute something to society. They had their chance, they blew it, chances are they're not the sort of genes we want to be perpetuating...

I never used to be pro-death penalty. But it just seems far more 'natural' to realise that we are omnivores at the top of a food chain for a reason. Falling back on 'compassion' and 'human rights' makes us feel better, but it's not necessarily the 'truth' about what we are.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

On the shamanic realm, do animals, be they men or beast, deserve a measure of respect? If we cannot respect our fellow man with a modicum of basic rights, how can we relate to our brother beings?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

On the shamanic realm, do animals, be they men or beast, deserve a measure of respect? If we cannot respect our fellow man with a modicum of basic rights, how can we relate to our brother beings?


It depends on your definition of respect. I respect spiders, for example, but by the same token if they're invading my space I will kill them. I will not brook a redback spider in the same territory as my 10 year old brother. Period. Just as I don't imagine a spider will give me 'respect' by just letting me poke around at its egg sack.

It is common sense, and logical to acknowledge when something has the power to do you damage and act accordingly. It is in a way - it's own form of respect. I could completely underestimate the spider and think 'oh well, it doesn't matter', or it could likewise underestimate me and think 'that big finger poking at my eggsack won't do me or my babes any damage', but the fact is that it will, and it's unrealistic, perhaps even disrespectful to think otherwise.

Respect isn't going 'well, it's your nature to rape children, so we should let you live out of respect for you.' Respect is going 'well, it might be your nature to rape children, but I have self respect, and sometimes it's important to make a call which one matters more when one will lead to children dying or being damaged and passing on that damage to others, and one will lead to a rapist being killed.' *shrugs* For me there's no real argument. It's a choice.

All creatures are given respect, but realistically. Respect is not ingratiating or deferring yourself to all other creatures. Respect is not saying that everything 'must' live or should live, because in a way that is going against my own nature as a human and disrespectful to myself.

I respect myself in the otherworlds, as much as I do the other entities I come across. If they threaten my physical integrity for anything other than a shaman's death, I will defend myself to the best of my ability and power. I respect myself too much not to.

Just as any tiger or wolf would defend its own territory, to the death if need be. Sometimes you do what you must. It isn't pleasant. But it IS in accordance - I believe - with natural law.

Also - awarding humans 'basic rights' isn't the same as respecting them. Believe me, a wolf can respect another wolf, and no word of 'basic rights' will pass between them. 'Rights' are a human invention. Just because a wolf might kill another wolf in a territorial dispute doesn't mean that the wolf is 'disrespecting' the other wolf. They are not the same thing, rights and respect.

I give all my fellow creatures, entities, demons, gods, etc. etc. etc. in the otherworlds and this world due respect. But I still do not believe in basic human rights. Life is a struggle, that is the way it is meant to be.

[greensh.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your insightful answer. It aligns much with my own views.