May 11, 2008
When to ‘have a go’.
Yesterday, Saturday 11th May 2008, a 16-year-old boy, Jimmy Mizen, was murdered in a bakery shop in Lee, Lewisham, south-east London. He had turned 16 the day before, and this was his first day at work. I did not know him or his family, but this killing feels personal, because it took place within a seven minute walk from my home and less than 100 yards from Lee Railway Station, which my wife and I use every day to get into and back from work. I have never been inside that bakery shop, but my seventeen year old son knows it well. His school is just around the corner and according to him the people there are nice and make great sandwiches.
Judging from the available reports, this was a random act of violence. No gangs, drugs or personal grudges appear to be involved. The suspect, a teenage boy who is still at large, had become aggravated at being asked to leave the shop and had smashed the shop window. Jimmy, acting as a good and responsible citizen, intervened to try and calm the situation and paid for it with his life.
This senseless death brings on a sense of sadness and futility - even tears in heaven won’t help dry the tears of those left behind. It also creates a dilemma. How do I advise my son - a strapping 17-year old with a strong sense of right and wrong - to act if he finds himself in a situation similar to that faced by Jimmy Mizen? His instinct would be to intervene to calm things down or to help the victims.
One comes on an almost daily basis across situations where some injustice is perpetrated or some outrage committed. Old people, visibly pregnant women and the disabled get shoved aside by able-bodied louts and loutettes trying to grab a seat on the train, the tube or the Docklands Light Railway, or to expedite their exit from or entry to the carriage by a second or so. Groups of big teenagers try to extort or steal money or valuables from smaller kids. Drunks engage in abusive or threatening behaviour or molest fellow passengers on public transport or on the street. Ill-mannered pigs throw garbage in the street or in someone else’s garden. Racial abuse escalates into shoving and pushing around and worse. Ticket collectors on the DLR get abused and assaulted by fare dodgers. A young man races down a shopping centre with a handbag obviously not his own, with a woman in hot pursuit yelling ’stop thief’. Screams for help from some dark alley or wasteland.
I am sure most of those who read this have their own list of personally witnessed offensive and criminal behaviour. “Notify the police” is a cop out (pun intended) in most of these situations. Even when the forces of the law are willing to stir themselves for the kind of contingencies listed above, they will almost surely arrive too late to do any good. “Round up reinforcements and jointly have a go” can be useful advice. There is safety in numbers, and all but the most out of his gourd miscreant is likely to tone down and back off when faced with a posse.
But often you will find yourself in a situation where either you are the only bystander or your fellow-citizens act like the villagers in High Noon and put their personal safety first. When do you cross the line between good citizenship and reckless self-endangerment? It’s tough enough to make these choices for yourself, but what advice do you give your seventeen year old? “Be like Marshall Will Kane”? “Just trust your judgment”? “Don’t do anything rash or foolish”?
Stop the world, I want to get off!
Your question was answered thousands of years ago: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Or to paraphrase: Do as you would have others do.
So imagine yourself in the position of the shopkeeper whose window is shattered, or the elderly woman shoved aside on the train. What lessons would you wish the citizens around you to have learned from their fathers?
This principle is one of the chief defining characteristics of a civilized society. Such a society would therefore herald Jimmy Mizen’s death as an act of heroism; certainly tragic, but the very opposite of “senseless” or “futile”.
If following the Golden Rule were always easy and safe, there would be no need to state it… Nor to teach it to our children.
Posted by: Nemo | May 11th, 2008 at 4:45 pm | Report this commentI believe that the deeper reason for this increasing lack of civility is that a capitalist system that focuses on individual freedom so much, causes this… Even if capitalism is best at allocating resources, it surely doesn’t have to be civil.
Posted by: george | May 11th, 2008 at 7:48 pm | Report this commentA 17 year-old is not one you can teach. He is already too mature to uncritically imbibe whatever a parent wishes to guide him with. Furthermore, even if he was open to admonitions and guidance, a person’s instinctive reaction in such situations cannot be learned, or unlearned. Their are good people and bad, brave and fearful. There are people with an innate sense of propriety who rage at the slightest sight of any injustice committed. These things are genetically preprogrammed or — as Jean Calvin would have it — people’s actions are predestined.
Posted by: RCS | May 11th, 2008 at 10:01 pm | Report this commentTo Nemo: the Golden Rule is part of the answer, but it is not sufficient for the situation under consideration.
Consider the following situation (far from hypothetical, unfortunately). I am a seventeen year old who somehow managed to pick up some moral values. I observe another kid getting robbed of his/her iPod; as far as I can tell, it is threats rather than actual violence that prompt the victim to hand over the gadget. Do I intervene, running the risk that a knife or switch blade may appear and end my life?
If the worst that could happen to me were a black eye and a collection of bruises, it might make sense to have a go. But even if I am willing to risk my life in the pursuit of a rather small measure of righteousness, do I have to right to risk the happiness of those who care for me and love me? I don’t believe that the majority of parents, siblings, friends and other loved ones would smile sadly but proudly because my life had been sacrificed to support this rather limited enforcement of private property rights.
So, if possessions or property are at stake, I believe the Golden Rule would be obeyed by comforting the victim rather than intervening to try to prevent the robbery. I certainly would not want a stranger to risk his/her life to stop my possessions from being taken from me, if it were reasonably clear that my life or health were not threatened. If physical wellbeing or life are at stake, I believe the Golden Rule would call for an intervention. But judgement does enter the equation. Achieving the right combination of morals and brains on the spur of the moment is a daunting task. Hence my blog.
Posted by: Willem H. Buiter | May 11th, 2008 at 11:22 pm | Report this commentYou paint a difficult delimma. It would seem the optimal solution depends on the scenario (this may have been your economic point): (1) when threatened, find others to group with, yet (2) when not threatened and observing another threatened, avoid grouping with the threatened.
There is safety in numbers. That is a motivation for many kids to join gangs.
However, there is also danger in gangs. One is required to show allegiance. One is also required to fight other gangs. Disobediance can be severely punished.
My humble suggestion is that your son becomes proficient in a realistic, street fight oriented martial art. Some examples include haganah, krav maga, military combatives, etc.
Personally, I had a few dust ups. I was able to get out of each without severe damage. Unfortunately, the opponent wasn’t as lucky (please don’t think I am bragging) even though I tried to limit the damage I caused. In each dust up, the training was invaluable.
Also, through training you meet others who will serve as backup. You end up hanging out with the people you train with… so if someone wants to have a go, your fellow combatives students are usually around. Yet, because of the nature of the training, the group naturally avoids confrontation (unlike gangs). They also have a tendency to avoid drinking (a violence risk factor); bad for fitness competition like grappling or MMA.
The guys I have sparred with were quite capable of quickly killing someone. Yet, each and every one of them has been, in ordinary life, quite gentle and very kind. I can’t think of a single incident where one abused his power over me (N~5). But I would never think of going up against them.
I hope this helps.
Posted by: Tough Call | May 12th, 2008 at 6:21 am | Report this commentWhy would anyone intervene in low level disorder? The best outcome is that the offender appears in court at some point and is highly likely to walk away or get a non-custodial sentence, leaving you to live in fear of retribution; the worst outcome is your own death. Any economist should see it’s therefore daft to bother.
The solution is simple, but unacceptable to the chattering classes that run our country and are insulated from these situations by their wealth.
More social order can now only come from far harsher and more visible punishment. Pumping money into community projects, tagging, asbos, young offender drama groups etc has failed. Jailing troublesome kids is only likely to give them more criminal ideas and contacts, or get them hooked on drugs, and when they are released who would employ them? So why is there no call for a return to corporal punishment, which is quick, shaming, easy to apply and cheap? This could range in severity from a couple of days without food, to a day in a public stocks, to a serious lashing. It is severe, but so is the level of disorder in society, and it has been seen to work around the world, eg Singapore, and throughout history. From a human rights aspect, surely there is little difference between that and months in prison, and the money saved can be used for drug rehabilitation, literacy projects etc. for those who want them. What is more likely to make a yob think twice - a month or so in a comfortable prison with meals, TV, etc or swift physical retribution?
Posted by: Techmeister | May 12th, 2008 at 12:43 pm | Report this commentTechmeister: even if I agreed with your remedy (and I don’t, though the stocks do hold some appeal) I can only imagine you are living in dreamland. Who is going to catch the miscreant in order to charge and punish him? You would need a policemen in every shop, bar or tube carriage in the land. Are you advocating vigilante justice?
Posted by: Jobes | May 12th, 2008 at 1:18 pm | Report this commentJimmy was presumably standing up against the lack of respect shown for the community in which he and you and (as a not-too-distant SE London resident) I live in. It is sad to think that his heroism would probably not have been recognised if he had been successful in defusing the situation.
The problem is not at the level of individual spur-of the moment actions to “have a go” or runaway. The problem is that there can be little community cohesion and spirit in large cities. If you have a commitment to where you live and the people you live with the Goldern Rule mentioned above works well because reciprocity is more likely. This (a) deters crime in the first place – as it is more likely that criminals will be known and hence caught; and (b) acts collectively and decisively against crime when it occurs by encouraging people that they have something to loose by not “having a go”.
The Goldern Rule works very well when there is collective investment in the community and hence collective loss when an outrage is committed. It struggles in areas which encourage anonymity where neighbours are unlikely to know each other.
I don’t have the answer to this problem of community, except perhaps to ensure you know your neighbours – it is unnatural to live as isolated households in close proximity. But I am certain that the solution does not involve more people being trained in violent methods. Violence is risky and chaotic due to its tendency to spiral out of control and encourage participants to use ever higher strength of force. It doesn’t help collective responsibility either.
Posted by: TJB | May 12th, 2008 at 1:43 pm | Report this commentJobes: No vigilante justice - it’s a given that there should be more police on the streets. Charging and punishment done in the usual way - magistrates for low level offences/ punishments and courts for persistent offenders and more severe punishments.
You don’t need a policeman in every shop, but when yobbish / antisocial behaviour is discovered by the police it shouldn’t just be moved on, ignored or dropped in the courts process; there have to be more punishment options, more cheaply and quickly delivered that include some sense of retribution for the society these crimes are gradually destroying. Zero tolerance policing in the US has shown that if the crucial 5% or 10% of problem makers are stamped on, the rest quickly come more into line, not least because it tends to be the same offenders over and again, and because young people actually crave rules and are easily influenced, for good and ill. Our civilization has to take back the monopoly of violence, and the confidence to use it where necessary, because it is nearly lost. Then you will see vigilanteism.
Posted by: Techmeister | May 12th, 2008 at 4:02 pm | Report this commentLike TJB, I think the way to frame the problem is as a prisoner’s dilemma. In the US — and England apparently — we are in a bad equilibrium, where petty criminals do not expect intervention and this emboldens them. My husband is from a different culture and he intervenes all the time in situations where my natural instinct is to lay low. He is actually quite skilled at defusing situations — in part because this is one of the skills he was expected to learn growing up.
In the bad equilibrium of the prisoner’s dilemma — there are no good choices. But personally I think it’s wrong to teach a child to be fearful. Be honest about what the costs can be, but don’t tell him that you expect him to walk away from such situations. He is 17, he needs to make his own decisions without parental pressures.
There’s another difference between our world and cultures half a world away. We have become so insulated from death that we think we have a right to life. The impoverished world knows a different reality: Each life is a gift from God that can be taken away at any moment. Each death is God’s will. And no one can fight God’s will.
Posted by: My thoughts | May 12th, 2008 at 7:08 pm | Report this comment