Post by annabelleleigh on Oct 11, 2008 14:10:54 GMT -5
Calling on Law & Order to Help Heal the Nation
Last week, as I watched about a third of my retirement savings circle the drain, I came across an article in The New York Times "Science Friday" section. Called "Wired for Justice" it observed that human beings have a need to punish but, under certain circumstances, we may be ill-served by this instinct.
According to the piece (by Benedict Carey, see link below), the psychological urge to retaliate has had a "protective and often stabilizing effect on communities through human history." Punishing "cheaters, liars, and freeloaders" discourages repeat behavior. It also feeds our "fairness instinct" which, though varying in good and hard times, is one of the pillars of a civilized society.
The problem with punishing Wall Street for gambling away our future (the article said) is that it could backfire on those of us already most harmed.
It seems that "Japan's disastrous delay in bailing out its banks in the 1990s was caused in part by a collective urge to punish corrupt bankers." That economy never quite fully recovered and now has been socked again by the pending global depression. (No wonder the Japanese are considered by psychobiologists to be the most pessimistic and depressed people in the world.)
The countervailing instinct to punish, it seems, is the urge to forgive. That is, in these circumstances, to bail out the companies that hold our mortgages, our stock and savings accounts, and our 401(k)s.
From the article I came away concluding that forgiveness is probably the better strategy in the long-run -- but that somehow this time, because our wounds and our anger are so deep, our need to punish must also be served.
Without that satisfaction, I believe a national catharsis and general healing will be farther off and more elusive.
And so my mind ran to Law & Order and its potential to aid that healing. I ask -- I urge -- I challenge -- Dick Wolf, Rene Balcer, and the producers and writers to turn over a string of its new season episodes to the verisimilitude of a particular type of justice.
If it's self-destructive to punish Wall Street as we need to punish it, let's try the corporate bastards on Law & Order. All of them.
If it ultimately hurts us financially to sink AIG and the bailed-out executives who then went off, blithely, to a fancy $400,000 sales "retreat" let's have Law & Order do it.
Let Jack McCoy find a way to expose the deepest infestations of greed that have sickened the psyches of our fleeced citizenry. Let the Law & Order team investigate, try and convict these corporate vermin and toss 'em in a prison hell-hole for a long, long time.
Let's get Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke too.
And while it might be a bit risky to the series corporately, how about having it deflate some of those beautiful, blown-dry and bald-head hucksters who, on CNBC, are still shilling for Wall Street -- even now, as our IRAs are shrinking down to half?
Let Law & Order become our national vermifuge.
Let it become the public witness of our pain, and the salve for our wounds.
I'm not sure there are any real politicians I can count on to do this for us. But, for almost two decades, in Law & Order I trust.
This is, after all, the role that classic Law & Order has always played. By virtually (and believably) righting our wrongs, it helps us suspend our cynical disbelief in the U.S. criminal justice system. Over a parallel period its TV courtrooms have sent many more privileged criminals to punishment than the whole of its nonvirtual analog.
While real justice seems very much in short supply, Law & Order's virtual justice can help make the necessary, human urge to forgive (which many of us, still furious, are finding hard to locate) easier to inhabit.
It is, and always has been, much more than a TV drama. Not only does Law & Order have (at least is some quarters) a stabilizing effect -- more important -- it also keeps feeding our "fairness instinct."
AL
Read "Wired for Justice" by Benedict Carey at
www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/health/research/07fair.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22Wired%20for%20Justice%22&st=cse&oref=slogin
Last week, as I watched about a third of my retirement savings circle the drain, I came across an article in The New York Times "Science Friday" section. Called "Wired for Justice" it observed that human beings have a need to punish but, under certain circumstances, we may be ill-served by this instinct.
According to the piece (by Benedict Carey, see link below), the psychological urge to retaliate has had a "protective and often stabilizing effect on communities through human history." Punishing "cheaters, liars, and freeloaders" discourages repeat behavior. It also feeds our "fairness instinct" which, though varying in good and hard times, is one of the pillars of a civilized society.
The problem with punishing Wall Street for gambling away our future (the article said) is that it could backfire on those of us already most harmed.
It seems that "Japan's disastrous delay in bailing out its banks in the 1990s was caused in part by a collective urge to punish corrupt bankers." That economy never quite fully recovered and now has been socked again by the pending global depression. (No wonder the Japanese are considered by psychobiologists to be the most pessimistic and depressed people in the world.)
The countervailing instinct to punish, it seems, is the urge to forgive. That is, in these circumstances, to bail out the companies that hold our mortgages, our stock and savings accounts, and our 401(k)s.
From the article I came away concluding that forgiveness is probably the better strategy in the long-run -- but that somehow this time, because our wounds and our anger are so deep, our need to punish must also be served.
Without that satisfaction, I believe a national catharsis and general healing will be farther off and more elusive.
And so my mind ran to Law & Order and its potential to aid that healing. I ask -- I urge -- I challenge -- Dick Wolf, Rene Balcer, and the producers and writers to turn over a string of its new season episodes to the verisimilitude of a particular type of justice.
If it's self-destructive to punish Wall Street as we need to punish it, let's try the corporate bastards on Law & Order. All of them.
If it ultimately hurts us financially to sink AIG and the bailed-out executives who then went off, blithely, to a fancy $400,000 sales "retreat" let's have Law & Order do it.
Let Jack McCoy find a way to expose the deepest infestations of greed that have sickened the psyches of our fleeced citizenry. Let the Law & Order team investigate, try and convict these corporate vermin and toss 'em in a prison hell-hole for a long, long time.
Let's get Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke too.
And while it might be a bit risky to the series corporately, how about having it deflate some of those beautiful, blown-dry and bald-head hucksters who, on CNBC, are still shilling for Wall Street -- even now, as our IRAs are shrinking down to half?
Let Law & Order become our national vermifuge.
Let it become the public witness of our pain, and the salve for our wounds.
I'm not sure there are any real politicians I can count on to do this for us. But, for almost two decades, in Law & Order I trust.
This is, after all, the role that classic Law & Order has always played. By virtually (and believably) righting our wrongs, it helps us suspend our cynical disbelief in the U.S. criminal justice system. Over a parallel period its TV courtrooms have sent many more privileged criminals to punishment than the whole of its nonvirtual analog.
While real justice seems very much in short supply, Law & Order's virtual justice can help make the necessary, human urge to forgive (which many of us, still furious, are finding hard to locate) easier to inhabit.
It is, and always has been, much more than a TV drama. Not only does Law & Order have (at least is some quarters) a stabilizing effect -- more important -- it also keeps feeding our "fairness instinct."
AL
Read "Wired for Justice" by Benedict Carey at
www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/health/research/07fair.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22Wired%20for%20Justice%22&st=cse&oref=slogin
