Killer cops, drone wars and the crisis of democracy

[Maedhros]

I've been observing an interesting (and depressing) theme to many criticisms of the Brown and Garner protests: insistence on making the alleged infractions by the victim the central issue, and objection to the notion that racial inequality is a root cause of police brutality against black people. I have been struggling to find a way to express my interpretation of the origin of these beliefs in the people making these arguments.

Today on Salon, Andrew O'Hehir published an excellent article entitled "Killer cops, drone wars and the crisis of democracy." He confronts the issues of economic injustice, racial inequality and American military hegemony with ideas from Nietsche and the black radical philosopher Frantz Fanon. Read the entire thing, it's well-written and insightful:

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/06/killer_cops_drone_wars_and_the_crisis_of_democracy/

O'Hehir discussed Nietche's concept of the "slave morality" and applied it to the modern American experience:

. . . To borrow an explosive concept from Nietzsche and turn it to new purposes, it’s about the “slave morality” that characterizes so much of American life, meaning the desire to be dominated and ruled, to give up control over one’s own life and allow others to make the decisions.

Since the word “slave” carries special meaning in American history, let me be clear that I’m not talking here about the legacy of 19th-century human slavery (although that too is still a factor in our national life). I’m talking about the plurality or majority of contemporary Americans who have enslaved themselves – in moral and psychological terms — to the rule of a tiny economic oligarchy, and to a state that serves its interests, in exchange for the promise of order, safety and comfort. That order, safety and comfort then become the absolute values, the only values; they become coterminous with “freedom,” which must be defended by the most exaggerated means. If the leaders hint that those values are under attack from sinister forces, or might someday be, the timorous, self-enslaved majority consents to whatever is said to be necessary, whether that means NSA data sweeps, indefinite detention camps, mass murder by remote control or yet another ground war in the Middle East. Compared to all that, letting a few killer cops go free is small potatoes.

I then found this passage, which seemed to express the ideas I had difficulty putting to words:

One could argue that Mike Brown and Eric Garner died because they expressed insufficiently avid slave morality, or did not do so rapidly enough. Reasonable-sounding people on TV and the Internet have repeatedly assured us, over the last few weeks, that those who submit to authority and trust the system (despite the manifest and obvious failures of the system) need not fear being killed in the street. There is a logic here, but it is the logic of military occupation that Fanon would have recognized in the colonial context, not the logic of democracy: Capitulate entirely and without hesitation, do not insist on your so-called rights, and you will be permitted to live.

"Trust the system." That's what is at the heart of these denials of racial inequality, police brutality and war crimes. We, the collective American citizenry, have over time built this System. The System gives us order, safety and comfort, and to suggest that it employs immoral methods to do so implies that we who benefit from this order, safety and comfort are complicit in the crimes wrought by the State. That's a harsh realization for many. Therefore it's much more palatable to believe that the System is working as designed, and the design is sound, rather than to face the frightening possibility that the System is broken.

I don't trust the system.

[Locrian]

1. thanks

Great article

I’m talking about the plurality or majority of contemporary Americans who have enslaved themselves – in moral and psychological terms — to the rule of a tiny economic oligarchy, and to a state that serves its interests, in exchange for the promise of order, safety and comfort. That order, safety and comfort then become the absolute values, the only values; they become coterminous with “freedom,” which must be defended by the most exaggerated means.

One could argue that Mike Brown and Eric Garner died because they expressed insufficiently avid slave morality, or did not do so rapidly enough. Reasonable-sounding people on TV and the Internet have repeatedly assured us, over the last few weeks, that those who submit to authority and trust the system (despite the manifest and obvious failures of the system) need not fear being killed in the street. There is a logic here, but it is the logic of military occupation that Fanon would have recognized in the colonial context, not the logic of democracy: Capitulate entirely and without hesitation, do not insist on your so-called rights, and you will be permitted to live.

[Maedhros]

3. I'd say that modern Americans have the means to question their relationship to the Oligarchy.

I'd go so far as to say that they understand their condition of slavery, and choose to accept it rather than take the difficult path of throwing off their chains. This is the source of the "Lesser of Two Evils" political philosophy - accept terrible policy and terrible politicians, because refusal to do so would mean a disruption in our state of order, safety and comfort.

The nasty paradox is that we believe that we are giving up order, safety and comfort for some in order to preserve order, safety and comfort for ourselves. But, in the end, we lose what we intend to preserve.

[bemildred]

10. +1.

Welcome to DU.

[CJCRANE]

4. There is something going on, both at home and abroad

that I can't quite put my finger on.

A kind of hyperviolence, a desire for vengeance and redemptive violence. And the fact that so many people don't question it, don't see that there is something wrong, that there is some new force at work, is baffling.

I can't pinpoint the source of this trend but your OP makes a start of trying to figure it out.

[Maedhros]

5. I think it's a subconscious realization that the ideals of Capitalism are failing.

We live in a world with finite resources, yet base our economies on models of infinite growth. In a world that increasingly demands that we share our resources in order to survive, our response is to dig in our heels and hoard more for ourselves.

It's the realization that humans are about to starve to death.

[Locrian]

8. boundaries

I too think it has to do with boundaries - that have never before been so immediate. We're about to hit the walls of our little petri dish that we have been thinking (and many continue to think) is infinite.

Less and less jobs that will NEVER return due to automation / mechanization / robots, etc and no system to deal with the consequences.

Combine that with a system that pits everyone against each other, and has increasing tools of control and violence....

We need more than ever to become a partnering system vs a dominator system in order to survive and get out of the zero sum game equation. And there is every indication that it will continue to increase in the opposite direction as resources diminish.


Capitalism is a great tool for some things - akin to a hammer. But it's a lousy tool to bring when you need to address any of the above.

>>It's the realization that humans are about to starve to death.

I think it's that - and that people are starting to realize (subconsciously) that EVERYTHING they think was right and proper (ie capitalism, the "good life" etc is a LIE. It's not going to be all out awakening, but it will be a gradual discomfort for "what was" at first then a disorienting free fall when they / we have no reference for the future.

Of course, many will blindly cling to what they believe were the good old days/ways. But it'll wind up driving them mad.