I was introduced to Camus in an ISP Philosophy class a few semesters ago. I decided to read The Stranger independently of school over the summer and it has maintained a special meaning for me. This could be because Camus’ writing is compelling and the story is brilliantly woven with substance and meaning. Or perhaps it is because within weeks of reading it I served on jury duty on a criminal case and could compare very clearly the fictional irrationality of law with the American Justice system in the real world. It also seems that I have been somewhat unable to escape many of the sentiments in this book over the past year.
I was recently, inadvertently, introduced to a band called Titus Andronicus. I saw them play at the Bowery Ballroom in February 2009, and though they are an indie/punkish band a genre of music which lends itself to energetic performances, theirs was one of the most emotionally charged, exciting and good I’ve ever seen. After poking around on the internet to learn more about them and listen to some more of their music, I learned that the Titus Andronicus is also one of Shakespeare’s earliest and bloodiest tragedies. At the end of the bands' song " Fear and Loathing," Titus Andronicus lead singer reads a monologue from a the play. The quote is by Aaron ( who is interestingly a Moor!) and it describes all the horrible deeds he has done in an a tone of such defiance that it gave me chills at how similar it felt to the last paragraphs of The Stranger.
I had two reactions to this. First of all how can people who are supposed to be indifferent commit such passionate acts to demonstrate or prove their indifference? ( Not only murder but the bands screaming) Second, is this simply a part of humanity? If everyone from Shakespeare to Camus to college kids from Jersey are feeling it .. maybe it’s just something we exist with.
Camus mentions the “machinery of justice”. Justice –such an abstract word- is most familiar to us in the realm of the criminal jus tice system. But this function of justice( the CJS) only exists within our conceptions of things like society, morals, and rights. Camus, Shakespeare and Titus Andronicus all seem to be expressing some defiance of a system that they deem to be meaningless, and by inference unjust.
As workers in the criminal justice and humanities fields we will be exposed to “the benign indifference of the universe” as Camus puts it. And we will be part of a system of justice that doesn’t feel very just at all. How much do you agree or disagree with Camus’ notion of the “machinery of justice” and in what ways do you think we can prevent ourselves from being overcome by it?
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Greta,
What a great discussion we had in class!! As social justice workers we are constantly exposed with the injustices many of our clients face within the CJS. A video on 20/20 I recommend for our class to watch is called "Southern Texas, Tulia" (if my memory is correct). This is about how modern lynching still exists in our Criminal Justice system by the unfair sentencings that is given to minorities. (Another great video which is about about a man named Tyrone Brown. Which could be found on you tube.) These individuals such as Tyrone Brown and many others is almost fictional like because of the injustices these individuals have been slapped in the face with. In The Stranger it was interesting how the case was almost a soap opera to them. Camus refered to them as spectators. In these videos we see how the people accused of a crime would rather take a plea bargain of 25 years for selling drugs instead of taking their case to trial and receive a life sentence by a white jury. I believe that in order to prevent this "machinary of justice" from overcoming us we need to change the ways the accused are being represented in the courts.In addition, we need more programs such as the ones we are placed in.
No one group of people is more subjected to the “machinery of justice” than Blacks, more specifically black men. With our prison system so overly populated with black men, one may begin to think it was ostensibly built for them. I watch my black brothers try to assume a role in society and at times it is shameful to be a witness, both to see how they are treated by the system and to see how they have internalized this treatment to their own detriment. Often times I see young black men standing on the street corner “wasting time”, seemingly without fruitful thoughts and with their pants hanging down, some almost reaching their knees and I get UPSET! I think to myself, “Why do they just hang out in the corner like that? Why can’t they go and get jobs? Why are they not in school? Can’t they see they are making it worse for themselves by dressing like that? Who will hire them…like that? God damn it, they make “us” look bad!”
And then, I catch myself, because I can never finish this thought without thinking, “They have no care for this so called justice system that brings no justice to them, so why pretend. If they are already regarded as criminals because of the color of their skin, what difference does it make?” Racism is still alive and kicking except now it is more institutionalized, which in my opinion is worse. Perhaps they see me as how I sometimes see them, wasting time, with a system that sees my race as a menace and less than equal.
Their defiance is an acknowledgment that they are outsiders of what is considered society’s “norm”. And can we blame them? Black men have had a history of being given the short end of the stick, so why should they care to follow now? Because the white man says so! It is this complexity that some black youth struggle with, not wanting to conform to what Whites deem appropriate, to some of them, their ancestors have done that for far too long, and it stops with them.
Now to all who might say that there are many successful black men in society today, I say yes there are, but they are well aware of their limitations, it is this reason why so many are shock that president Obama, a man who is considered Black, is president? No one really expected it to be so. This achievement clearly speaks volume about the society we live in.
I am not sure if the “machinery of justice” is stoppable at this point. We remain politically active in trying to create a system that is just in order to have hope, but there are some realities that exist, one is the privatization of prison, a transition that has only began and has an inherent conflict of interest. The foreseeable future looks grim, especially for black men, since according to Bureau of Justice Statistics, they are 7 times more likely than Whites and 2 times more likely than Hispanics to go to prisons.
Oh Greta, your post brought tears to my eyes because it is poetry and insight, and I love how you’ve been able to see and then draw connections between different aspects of what you are experiencing in the world, from the literature you’re reading to the music you’re hearing. That’s very powerful.
You’ve asked us to shift between the idea of “the benign indifference of the universe,” and the “machinery of justice,” and ask our views on the latter. As your entire post suggests, we (as human beings) are constantly shifting between universal notions that cut across time and place (anthropologists have traditionally asked, “are there any universals?”), and socio-cultural-specific constructs and inventions (human-made “machineries”). Is there a place within these domains where “freedom” can be found? Is there really such a thing as freedom? At the very end of her life, my mother said, “There are only two things that matter—love and freedom.” I still wonder.
I think Camus was right: the universe is indifferent—there is no interest behind it—it’s benign. But on the level of the human—where human being’s construct universes—social systems—there isn’t indifference. There is interest, sets of interests. And these interests get played out in systems, in institutions, and social arrangements. Interests and power come together in social systems. Those who have power can protect their interests; those who don’t, struggle to see their interests come to matter. Those groups of people who “matter” (those with power; as opposed to those who “don’t matter”—the powerless), can see their interests protected through machineries (such as the machinery of justice). For the powerless, the indifference is not benign, but malign—malign indifference. This is why, in the academy, we talk about understanding social positionality, and what occurs (for people) at the intersection of race, ethnicity, class, gender—themes we’ve taken up all throughout this year.
Oh my. Where have I gone with this?! I need to stop now and leave my house to get to John Jay and participate in the candidate interviews for next year’s Vera seminar!!!
"the benign indifference of the universe."
huh.
Daniel Quinn, in the book "ishmael" tells us "The Jellyfish Story". In the simplest terms, he makes us see the jellyfish as pitiful- both very egocentric and entirely insignificant. Of course, the jellyfish represents us (yes, all of us!)
We're it- right? We're the top of the food chain, and the world- no, the universe- owes us something. It's part of our collective culture (for Prof. Waterston, Daniel Quinn wouldn't call it a human universal, but a universal among "civilized"
people, whom he calls "takers")
We see this "mythology" all of the time in our futile attempt to reign over plants and animals (people included) and the land around us (no wonder why it's so hard to teach our children to share!)
An old proverb says "At the end of the day, the king and the pawn go in the same box".
I think Camus is grazing on the ideas Quinn would later spell out. The world doesn't treat us any better or worse than any other animal species on this planet, it is only our culture to expect better treatment, because we are, after all, human.
Ah, but didn't we conclude in class that what separates us from the spineless jellyfish is consciousness? (I'd actually like to amend that to "the possibility of consciousness".) No doubt Quinn did not inaugurate the sea creature by accident; but I am not so sure that it’s an apt metaphor for humankind.
It is a given that there is not only personal dissociation but a widespread cultural disavowal that promotes blindness of one's responsibility toward the universe and its inhabitants. Yet, that is subtly different than assigning a Hobbesian malignity to the agents of oppression, poor jellyfish that they are. We have seen again and again: in genocide, in widespread poverty, in political apathy of all stripes that it is the blind bureaucrat that oils the machinery of injustice, much more than the evildoer with an overblown sense of entitlement. It is the man and the woman living an unexamined life (as Socrates said) who don’t even recognize their own oppression, much less the oppression of others, that allow the proliferation of inequality. If Mersault had cared about injustice earlier, if his consciousness had become raised earlier, he might have dismantled the machinery before it came to eat him. This was Hannah Arendt’s very point when she labeled the nature of evil, “banal” at bottom. Neither shark nor jellyfish, I think, describes us-or Mersault-aptly. We are neither and both; and at best communicative dolphins. Gosh, I think I have had enough sea analogies today…onward to Red Lobster!
Greta,
It is beautiful that Camus's book touched you. In starting from the label of "Machinary of Justice," I think Camus took the first step in introducing ways we can prevent from being overcome by it; the term machinary and justice completely go against each other; machinary is man-made, it is mechanical, and technical; yet, justice is relative. How do we attain justice for someone? Is justice seeking revenge for the victim, is it retribution, remorse, compensation, prevention, or accountability.
"Machinary of Justice": While Camus does introduce the topic of "machinary of justice," in the case of Mersalut, by a legal definition, he is guilty of murder; there is no question whether he actually did do the murder; therefore,I would argue that realistically the many cases that we may see in the criminal justice system are cases where innocent individuals are sent away or if someone did commit a crime, they are punished more heavily. Yes, Kerry-Ann, you are correct, sadly Black and Hispanic men.
While Camus opens up a philosophical debate of society persecuting someone becuase they do not show remorse, which may also be Camus's attempt of introducing the rift from the Judeao-Christian morality, we have to focus our attention to what is practically occurring withing our own criminal justice system; the first is re-evaluating and ammending our sentencing laws, and the incapacitation model that our system is built upon.
Beyond our criminal justice system: Since Kerry-Ann brought up the victims, Black men and Hispanic men, within the prisons and jails of this country, I have to bring up the invisibile victims of our criminal justice system; I am referring to the individuals who are being held in Guantanamo, who are being held in secret prisons in other countries, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, and Pakistan. These programs actually began under President Clinton and are still continuing. We do torture; proof has come out and an individual was waterboarded 266 times, we used insects, we slammed men against the walls. How can one torture another person than by taking their childhood years away; in Guantanamo, we locked up there is a young boy who was 13. Now he is around 19, he has tried to commit suicide numerous times, and the first word he learned in English was "nigger" becuase he was a Black Muslim. Men are going blind becuase of the lighting. Human Rights Watch released a report that more the 70% of the individuals were suffering from
psychotic symptoms.Reports have also come back from Guantanamo since President Obama stated that he will close Guantanamo, the guards have become meaner.
Furthermore, while President Obama has done great work in being more transparent, it has been his team that blocked the writ of habeuas corpus cases that were filed on behalf of detainees from Baghram(the prison in Afghanistan where an inmate died from the torture). You may want to watch Taxi To The Dark Side, an Oscar Winning Documentary on torture after 9/11.
I only bring these issues up becuase these individuals are not discussed when we speak about our criminal justice system,yet, there is a link.
Professor Stein- I thought it was interesting that you described the jellyfish as spineless.
In the book, the jellyfish was given a "conscious" in the way that I think you mean.
I'm not entirely convinced we have a conscious in a way other species do not. And even if this human consciousness thing is all that, it still doesn't exempt us from the laws that we are subject to.
I would also have to disagree with your sentence:
"It is a given that there is not only personal dissociation but a widespread cultural disavowal that promotes blindness of one's responsibility toward the universe and its inhabitants"
IMHO, It cannot be our responsibility to "save the world"- it is not ours to save. It is also not ours to destroy. Besides, it's an impossible task. The world will not die because of humans, humans (and flora and fauna) will die because of humans. The Earth will still be there. The Universe will still be there. To me it sounds like cultural megalomania- not reserved for the "them"- the bureaucrats- but for the "us".
As for Socrates, he certainly examined his life, and I would say he certainly was oppressed- his life was taken. Like Maya Angelou's poem, is it only the caged bird who ever has a need to "sing"?
My Uncle once said to me, after I told him I’d be attending John Jay College of Criminal Justice, “Ahh, criminal justice. Now there’s an oxymoron.” Darakshan, I remembered this when you mentioned “machinery” and “justice” going against one another- but it is the attempt to restore justice on which this machine has been built, yes? Or no? You’re right, justice is relative- and it is important to question what it means. When you are the victim, I’m not sure justice can ever be completely attained. So one would wonder how plausible it is for this machine to universally apply methods of restoring justice when justice is so relative and personal. I think we all know how well (or poorly) that has been working out for us- but that is probably because our goal has shifted from restoring justice to things like incapacitation. Would it be impossible for us to come up with a satisfactory universal operational definition of justice?
People generally go to bat for the machine arguing that it is efficient, cost effective, and practical. But I think we (or some of us) have started to realize that taking measures to restore justice- for both the victim and the offender- is more efficient, cost effective, and practical.
I think there is a saying that we hate with more passion than we love. I believe that people who appear to us as “indifferent” struggle more to prove their identity than people who care and fall into a “regular” pattern. I believe they became more passionate for who they are and prove their point with more passion.
We live in a society and even though it may be unfair, we need to comply with some rules and regulations. It is the only way to avoid the chaos. And, because complying with these rules doesn’t always come naturally, we need a system to enforce this. The machinery of justice is a constrained system that tries to keep things in balance. It may be flooded with human mistakes, but we need to remember that this system is made by people, with people. I am not saying that this justice system is the best system, the same way I don’t say that democracy is the best form of government. However, in life we do not always get the opportunity to choose between good and bad, but we can choose the better out of bad thinks. I also, believe that the agencies with which we intern are the best way to bring a more humane touch to this monster, “the machinery of justice.”
Everyone is so impressively philosophical. (I admit to a little spring fever even if no one else does -- good thing I work in so many windowless offices, or my mind would wander in search of summer...) My contribution here is more observational. I've noticed that underpinning many of our recent blog conversations is a fundamental debate over reform v. revolution. Reformers have faith in "the system" but see it as broken and in need of repair. Revolutionaries have lost faith in "the system" (sometimes any system) and want to use energies to start from scratch. Suffice it to say we are more a nation of reformers than revolutionaries, even if I'd suggest that our seminar is split down the middle. Do we Rage Against the Machine (to get back to Greta's musical post), break its frame (as revolutionaries did in early 19th c. England to protest the Industrial Revolution), or do we send it to the repair shop?
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