I have been thinking about the idea floating around Britain that all men should be punished because some men abuse women. This contravenes all kinds of principles of justice; e.g. we are against collective punishment, for the presumption of innocence, against punishing people for potential crimes (except in extreme circumstances).
Moreover, official UK figures show that violent offences against women have been declining since 1980. Homicides of women have fallen by about 50%. Homicide rates for men rose from about the same as women ca 1960, to 4x the rate of women in ca 2000 and are declining again but men are still about 2-3x more likely to be murdered than all other victims on average - however, a lot of this is due to the illegal drug trade and young men involved in it carrying knives.
The news was that apparently 118 women were killed by men in 2020. Which is an awful figure. But there were around 800 homicides in 2020, with men making up the bulk of these.
There are violent men and they are a small minority. When we look at them they almost all grew up with violence and have undiagnosed mental health problems. We break men as children and they cannot act as members of our society. The film Once Were Warriors was a documentary.
Still, this is not why I started writing this today. It occurred to me this morning that punishment, in most societies, is based on the idea that two wrongs make a right.
I transgress a rule.
Some authority inflicts suffering on me.
I am redeemed.
Now, there are some nuances here. For example, I'm leaving out the issue of reputation. Because even if I am back in the good graces of society after taking my punishment, my reputation is damaged. If my transgression is minor, and a one off lapse in judgement, in time my reputation will be restored. If I repeat my transgression or even escalate it, my reputation begins to suffer. How other people treat me is based on my reputation. A murderer may do their time and "pay their debt to society" but they will always be a murderer. Reputation is important, even if we are not as conscious of it in the 21st century. Having a criminal record is permanent (in most cases) and has, by law, to be admitted when applying for jobs, applying for a travel visa, and so on. Once you have a criminal record your life choices become limited.
I'm also leaving out the idea of restorative justice, but this is because this idea is, at best, a novel add on to the justice system in most English speaking nations. It's not taken very seriously. And for serious crimes we really want to see harm inflicted on the perpetrator.
Still, we have this basic idea that if I transgress the norms of the group, the authority of the group is allowed to inflict suffering on me. That suffering nowadays takes the form of menial labour (community service), a fine, or imprisonment. Each is designed to cause the offender pain.
Now, in my life there was another common form of retribution and that was physical violence. Teachers employed it against boys - with heavy leather "straps" in primary school and "canes" in secondary school. There seemed to be no rules or limitations on how these instruments were used and they were certainly used a lot, until they were both banned sometime after I left school. Fighting was not allowed, but teachers beating boys was standard punishment.
I'm reminded of the Michael Moore film Bowling for Columbine where the PR guy for defence contractor Lockheed-Martin is standing in front of a very large missile, and saying "I can't imagine why anyone would resort to violence to try to solve their problems". Hmm.
But violent retribution was also common in the playground. My arm was broken while I was being roughed up because someone thought I had done something I hadn't. Or I was ostracised for years, for reasons I still don't understand. Or bullied because I wouldn't play football at lunchtime. It was also common in the home where my mother beat us with a leather strap, but was physically and emotionally violent in other ways. And there was the random violence as well, a lot of which I nowadays put down to living in the post-colonial wasteland. Māori kids lashed out against white kids for reasons that are much more comprehensible to me as an adult.
And I'm sorry to say that growing up amidst all this violence I could also be violent. Although I grew out of it in my teens.
But here's the thing. Here's where I get confused. It was drilled into me as a kid that:
two wrongs don't make a right
It's not OK to bite someone who is hurting you, to take a real example from my life. It's not OK to hurt anyone. The guy that broke my arm subsequently suffered a frenzied beating by the headmaster while I watched. Poor Adam wasn't too bright and although he did mean to hurt me, he didn't really mean to break my arm. Causing harm, inflicting suffering is wrong.
So why is it right to harm people who transgress the rules? How does that work?
It makes sense to us, according to Prof George Lakoff because one of our principle cognitive metaphors for morality is debt. By transgressing I create a debt. The simplest form of this metaphor is the Biblical idea of "an eye for an eye". This makes a little more sense than our present habit of incarcerating people. The principle is that if you cause me harm then I am sanctioned to inflict an equal harm on you. But this makes sense because, quite unconsciously, we think of the transgression has having created a "debt to society". Immorality creates a debt and debts have to be paid. If you steal my ox then you in recompense you must give me one of your oxen. The trouble starts when you don't have any oxen. How do you pay your debt to me then?
At some point someone came up with the idea that suffering was the currency in which we pay our moral debts. Just as dollars or pounds are what we pay our taxes in, so suffering is how we pay our moral debts. And this is why people who feel guilty torture themselves. Self-inflicted suffering is an attempt to pay off that debt without having to face the social wrath and loss of reputation that goes with it.
Furthermore, in religious circles we can make deposits to demonstrate our piety. Many religions have practices that involve voluntary self-inflicted suffering. Fasting is popular. By making an ostentatious display of voluntary suffering for one's faith, one's reputation is increased amongst the faithful. Ultimately one can be a martyr whose suffering is talked about centuries later.
And it need not be religious. We find people who suffer in pursuit of something admirable. There's a story that was mentioned on (TV show) QI recently about All Black captain, Buck Shelford. In a game against France, Shelford's scrotum was ripped open by a French boot and a testicle popped out. This had to have been incredibly painful! But the damage was repaired on the sideline with a local anaesthetic and he returned to play on. And we think of him as heroic. Indeed he was one of the best All Black captains ever.
Those who suffer without complaint are seen as morally superior. Stoicism in face of pain is a prized virtue.
So suffering is not simply physical. Metaphorically, SUFFERING IS MONEY. And because of this we can do with suffering any operation than is pertinent to money. We can pay our debts to society with it, but it can also be banked to become social capital. Taking on suffering can improve our reputation, which determines how we are treated.
I think of the protestors in Myanmar currently risking their lives to make sure the army know that the latest coup d'etat is unacceptable. People are dying. But they don't stop because it's a cause worth dying for - democracy is too precious to lose. But also military police are deserting because they see killing civilians is wrong.
The fact is that in our society two wrongs do make a right. But the authority to decide this is not given to everyone. The authority to harm citizens is given to parents, teachers, police, military, and judges. In my experience everyone who has the right to inflict harm abuses that power.
The changes to laws that prevent teachers and parents from violently assaulting their kids, especially their boys, are an improvement. The less brutalising that boys go through as kids the less likely they are to dish it out as adults. I doubt I would have been any good at this, however, because when I grew up violence was pervasive and part of me still wants very much to hurt the people who hurt me, though I guess many of them are dead now as it was 40-50 years ago - for me it was like yesterday. The threat of violence was everywhere and particularly in authority figures. Hence, I have an intense anti-authoritarian streak. I'm a libertarian as a result of living under the tyranny of corrupt adult authorities.
I can see, all too clearly, the problems with this culture of violence. But I can't see a way out of it. What do we do with adults who are violent that doesn't involve inflicting even more violence on them? Early life violence makes empathy very difficult. I can empathise, but I'm always hypervigilant for the change in others that indicates impending violence. You never know who is going to flip and when. I've tried all the approved and many non-approved therapies aimed at changing this but nothing seems to work. I'm stuck in a state of expectation of violence.
I think we need to be clear that no one responds positively to being harmed by others, even if they think they deserve it, even if they are willing to harm themselves due to guilt. Worse, the threat of punishment means that few people confess to crimes because it is rational to avoid unnecessary pain. Although this is complicated because confession is seen as a mitigating factor and often reduces the severity of a punishment.
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