Fragements of an Ethos Under ConstructionBy now, the case of Kim Walker, his daughter Jadah Walker and her deceased boyfriend James Hayward has become the topic of popular discussion across Canada. The comments section on the Globe & Mail website which posted the news of a second-degree murder verdict in the trial of Mr. Walker has quickly reached 260 posts. The comments vary dramatically, ranging from outright support of Mr. Walker's actions to condemnations of his murder of the twenty-four year old boyfriend of his daughter. Those supporting Mr. Walker speak of a sense of justice for which 'the law' at best approximates and perhaps more often misses by a wide margin. Their opponents speak of equivalence - Hayward may have been a drug-dealer (and user) who had led Jadah Walker into a hollow shell of her former life but can that be worth an arbitrary death sentence dealt by five bullets from a 9mm handgun. Others illuminate another important dimension to this case: Kim Walker did not hide from his crime, in taking responsibility for it he not only guaranteed a guilty verdict for himself but saved the courts the burden of prosecution. A move which in the days of year-long multimillion dollar trials for known criminals provides stark contrast. A man, with whose actions can be at the minimum sympathized, and who takes full responsibility for his actions, is penalized (perhaps) harsher and more efficiently than those whose actions are entirely despicable and whose very existence upon this planet can hardly be tolerated.
What is Justice?The responses to the Walker case bring about a central question. Justice for whom? Which naturally begs the question, what is justice? In terms of the Old Testament we know it as equivalence, as pure bodily exchange: eye for an eye; tooth for a tooth. The growth of modern society has seen certain judicial 'advances' which have largely upended such understandings of justice. The state has assumed the position of victim, the crime, one against civil society as a whole (this is why, unlike in civil cases, the victim or his kin do not participate as the prosecution). Philosophers such as Hegel have argued that this is the result of the realization of the relation between individuals and society as an organic totality. Michel Foucault makes a similar argument, noting that criminal actions disrupt the carefully balanced machine of exploitation and as such effect the whole as much as the individual.
An important result of the shift from individual exchange as justice to state justice can be witnessed in the sentencing of convicts. Whereas equivalence governed the biblical model, the state's assumption of the role of victim allowed an enlarged ability for magnanimity. A state, as the culmination of the whole of civil society, is not brought to its knees by a single criminal action against an individual. As such, it is able to punish without the requirement of equivalence. An eye for a tooth perhaps, or a fine. In fact, the slow abolition of the death penalty through the world has been made possible through such magnanimity.
In the Walker case, such magnanimity can be clearly acknowledged. The state, through the jury and court system, dealt the defendant a sentence of second-degree murder which carries with it a minimum ten-year sentence. A life for ten-years. Certainly no equivalence there, and yet, exchange still prevails. Like a commodity, a life has been cashed in for a sentence, for punishment. This is the still the overarching meaning of justice which, while it has changed quantitatively, as we have just witnessed, it has not changed qualitatively. Exchange still predominates:
Criminal Act = Punishment
Furthermore, justice maintains its association with punishment. Forms of punishment have varied widely over the millenia, from the bodily exchange of eye for an eye or a pound of flesh to more 'humane' models of incarceration, but the motif of punishment has been resolutely maintained. To maintain equilibrium, punishment must be the currency of justice and every criminal act is just another "dollar amount" of punishment. After all, a criminal must "pay for his crime."
A second aspect brought to light by the Walker case is the issue of justice in a more cosmological sense. Kim Walker's actions can be seen in the light of a reaction, a response, to an original wrong (the drugging of his daughter by the older and experienced user/pusher Hayward). Justice, as exchange, is a two-piece operation. Here we have three pieces, the original wrong-doing, the 'injustice', the illegal 'justice' of Walker and then the sanctioned 'justice' of the state. Under the principle of exchange, a cosmological equilibrium is sought, a balance that supersedes the individuals involved. The lack of this balance can be witnessed by the strong reactions toward the conviction of Walker. Some have propounded his innocence based on the logic that the original wrong was 'done justice' by Walker's murder. Others, citing the imbalance of drugs/murder/incarceration troika are focused more upon the lack of what could be termed a 'proper exchange of justice' by Walker and thus agree in principle with his conviction, although they may quibble as to the quantity (as above) of punishment deserved.
Thus these two, related aspects, reveal notions of justice as exchange and equilibrium.
Justice for whom?
We began earlier with the question "justice for whom?" and then proceeded to interrogate what justice itself means in our society. Returning to our original question, we must recall the fact that the state has assumed the role of victim in the process of exchange and equilibrium known as justice. As we saw in Hegel, this is related to the fact that an individual considers him or herself part of a larger whole, a social network, a family and any action within a part of a family affects every member. In Foucault, we caught sight of a more sinister but similar approach. From both of these philosophers we should take away that justice is clearly primarily for the state, whether we choose to see the state as kindly or exploitative. The good of the 'family' comes before the good of the individual (in our case the victim or victim's family). Thus, individual justice, justice for individuals, is not a possibility unless said individual adjusts his notion of justice to correspond with that of the state's.
The Walker case raises the question, had the community sided wholeheartedly with Walker's actions, would justice be done? If, so to speak, the sale was ratified by the public rather than by the law? The courts say no, naturally. Without law there is no justice. Thus, justice is removed from the domain of people. There are very good reasons why this is so, mob rule (democracy), could mean that might makes right, that justice serves only the powerful. Whereas within law, justice serves all. It makes justice objective, neutral, and thus just. But, at the same time, we know that justice serves the state. This is not meant to be a cynical interpretation because the state is meant to represent the good of all. Thus justice is hardly unbiased. It has an directive which supersedes those involved in the particular crime. It is a justice that supersedes justice itself for its aim is maintenance of the state. Like the justice of parents separating two warring children and sentencing each to their rooms irregardless of "who started it", the state is not acting on the behalf of its "children" except to prevent continual disturbance. Thus, the goal of state justice is the avoidance, the minimalization, of disturbance to the continuity and
being of the state.
Vigilante Justice
Vigilantes have long attracted support, if rarely so in reality then with adulation in fantasy. Robin Hood, Zorro, Bat/Super/Spider-man to name a few of the crusaders for justice in an unjust world. The more modern heroes, the 'men' are also more complex. Modern society will not readily accept a one-man judge, jury and executioner and as such, the comics give us the reserved vigilante. The daring hero who catches criminals in order to bring them to justice, state justice. The vigilante is not permitted to mete out punishment but only capture and deliver the criminal to the 'authorities'. Thus, the moral authority still lies within the state system and as such justice still serves the state and not the individual.
The case of Walker stands against this tradition. Kim Walker served his form of vigilante justice, five bullets to the body of a twenty-four year old man. In the days before the murder, Walker had realized that justice, as he conceived it, would not serve him. The traditional instruments of state justice, the police, would/could not act and so he formulated his own plan. A plan that four years later has his daughter, the original victim, calling him a "hero" as he is led from the courthouse to serve, in the name of justice, for his actions.
Perhaps Kim Walker's realization, fatally, was that justice as equilibrium does not serve the interests of the individual, just as market exchange does not serve the interests of the individual. Primarily, it is designed to maintain the system, which, unless we are naive, serves some rather than others. Thus, Kim Walker moved outside of exchange. He committed and act of justice (which I do not claim to be just). In that act he not only took the life of a young man, James Hayward, but also challenged the state. The state accepted only to discover that Walker confessed and took full responsibility for his actions.
What is perhaps most disturbing is that Kim Walker confessed to the crime and took responsibility for his actions. The trial itself was a formal proceedings that was designed to determine quantity (it chose a medium amount in comparison to first-degree or manslaughter charges that were sought). The details were not in dispute. Hegel saw that in his state-system, the criminal desired punishment to negate his responsibility for his actions. Thus the criminal for Hegel takes responsibility for his crime and calls on punishment to absolve it. Clearly, this is not how the courts work and yet in this case it is. Walker is almost portrayed as a martyr for doing so.
Ethics of Vigilantism
The danger of the Walker case is that it reveals the lack of 'justice' within the system. There are certainly other cases that also amply serve this point, however, few with the shock value. The danger I speak of is the realization that the justice does not serve the individual or even the collective of individuals in many cases. This could mean an increase in vigilante forms of justice out of the realization that justice-as-equilibrium is no longer a popular model. The increase in individual ethos that have come in part through neoliberal economic reforms also place a new emphasis on individual action and responsibility that could play a part.
Further, while the state may be legally just it is difficult to argue they hold the moral authority over even individual acts of justice which are done within an arena of public support. Thus, the moral ambiguity arising from the state's perceived inefficacy will open a gray area that will prevent an easy resolution and re-establishing of the state's monopoly on justice.
Justice as Exchange
While justice has be monopolized by the state, its ownership can only belong with the people. Thus I cannot critique the actions of individuals for attempting to re-assert justice against a morally-deficient state. Some philosophies and ideologies posit an ultimate authority in the state without an organic tie to the public. This endows the state with a being which is independent of that which composes it. Others state that the state is no more than the collection of its people but then justice cannot be separated from public whim. More likely, the state is a collection of both public consent and institutions which function to add rigid elements to its constitution. These rigid elements, such as laws, are designed to counter the influence of the people; however, when these laws or institutions (such as that of justice) fail in themselves it is the responsibility of the people to reform them. Justice is a fluid concept and as such requires constant reworking. In spite of these rigid elements, justice cannot reside within them, they can only exist as an extension. In the last analysis only individuals exist and thus only individuals can be the ultimate bearers of justice. Thus, Walker's decision to take justice in his own hand was an assertion of his ontological role in bearing and establishing justice.
Whereas it is difficult to strip an individual of the realization of his or her carrying the ultimate arbitration of justice, I can critique the notion of justice so employed. The common notion of justice is as exchange, as punishment, as we discerned above. Justice as punishment is justice as revenge, and yet revenge is posited as the exact opposite of justice. Superheroes and vigilantes moral inability to punish villains is precisely because their actions could be perceived as vengeance. The state is supposed to remove this aspect and yet it instills it within the system of exchange. Moving beyond reaction, revenge or
ressentiment (Nietzsche's word) is moving to justice as justice. It is only in this analysis that Walker can be critiqued. Justice is in all of our hands unless we abdicate our responsibility and defer it to mechanized state. But the justice that is in our hands is one of responsibility and overcoming-of-vengeance rather than the simpler displacement of inner rage on the outside world.
Its been over a month since I last posted a song on the blog and my guilt has actually kept me from making good on my commitment to spreading the good news of the lord, indie music. Part of the problem has also been that I scooped up a lot of good cheer over the holidays including 5 new albums (some of those which made my top 10 of 2006 had not been purchased and obviously earned the honour, including Matt Mays' excellent When the Angels Make Contact album as well as Pink Mountaintops Axis of Evol. Moreover, a free week or two of downloading from my favourite bittorrent site (the best way to listen to new music) has given me a whole new library of tunes to sort through and its been tough to find the one song that deserves a blog post out of the bevy of great picks and friends recommendations I've heard.
However, this post is about picking and not indecisive meanderings (save those for the philosophical posts) and the pick is The Be Good Tanyas's "Ootischenia". Besides the obvious qualities of the song, most notably lead singer Frazey Ford's drawl and the comforting old-timey rhythm, the lyrics tell a story about a small Doukhobor community in the interior of British Columbia. The song, which Ford describes as a reminiscence of life growing up in the town of Ootischenia (near Castlegar), feels like a warm embrace which I wanted to send out to all friends and family in the little town of Kelowna (OK not so little) no matter whether they've been scattered (to Ulsan, Vancouver, Toronto, etc.) or if they're still making life work in that odd little city-on-the-lake. So sit back, relax and drift away to The Be Good Tanyas' Ootischenia.
Immaculate Machine (Railway Club, Vancouver)
Casino Royale
Prague, Czech Repubic
No Heat (Cuff the Duke)
Poutine (Brados, Vancouver)
Accepted to York University's Graduate Program
Sleeman's Honey Brown
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
The Wire
Adorno's Negativity
Digital SLR Camera (Canon Rebel XT)
