Terrorist or Banker?

HOW DO WE JUDGE?

On what basis can you determine if someone is acting in a 'good' or a 'bad' way? Is it through their actions, or the motivations of those actions, or the resulting consequences? In legal judgements all three get taken into account, but usually the greatest emphasis is placed on the consequences, above the other two. This is especially the case involving crimes against the person. If you hit someone and they fall over you can be charged with assault. But if the same action results in them hitting their head on a sharp object and dying, the charge becomes manslaughter. And if there were any way to prove that the motivation for the action had an underlying intent to kill then the charge would be upgraded to murder.

But, away from the strictures of the law, how do we judge someone, according to our own personal morality and ethics? Does motivation play a greater role in determining our views?

These thoughts have been prompted by the novel I'm currently reading, A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks. Set in the week preceding Xmas 2007, it follows the lives of various characters who are all loosely connected in different ways. One of these, Hassan, is a young muslim man who has been radicalised and is now involved in a plot to carry out bombings in London. Another, John, is a hedge fund manager who has become extremely wealthy by exploiting loopholes in financial regulations.

Let's be clear, neither is a likeable character, and as the reader I find myself wanting to see each of them suffer some form on downfall as the plot reveals itself. As I write this I have only read the first quarter of the book, so there are plenty of revelations still to come. But what has already surprised me is the difference in my reactions to those two characters.

For John I have nothing but contempt and distaste. He is amoral, selfish, greedy, driven by nothing except his own advancement. Ethics are things for other people, less 'successful' people, in his world. On the page he comes across as a character without a single redeeming quality, and someone who has done a lot of damage to many lives.

But for Hassan I feel a great deal of sympathy. Given that he is involved in plans which may result in the deaths of innocent people this feels like a curious inversion of morality, and I had to ask myself why I should feel this way. On the face of it you would think Hassan the less deserving of any fellow feeling, given the possible consequences of his actions.

The answer lies in motivation. Hassan is performing his actions in the belief that they will help bring about a better world. He is utterly misguided of course, but also sincere. There is a sense of a decent human being lurking within, someone who, if removed from the pernicious influence of his mentor, could be persuaded, through reason, so see his mistakes for what they are. It would take much work, for has been very effectively brainwashed, and faith in religion can be hard to overcome, but the potential is there within him.

I see no such hope for John. He is not only convinced that he is right, he wouldn't care if his wrongs were pointed out to him. If they get him what he wants then they are not wrong, not in his eyes. John is the archetype of the legacy bequeathed by Thatcherism, the 'greed is good' mantra and the reckless profiteering that crashed the economy in 2008, and with it ruined, or at least made a lot worse, the lives of so many people who played no part in bringing about the problem

Of course Faulks is a fine writer and he knows exactly what he's doing in manipulating the emotions of the reader. This is fiction, not real life. In reality we react more strongly towards physical violence than to crimes (and here I use the word outside it's strictly legal sense) which enrich the few at the expense of the many. It's part of our genetic and sociological makeup to abhor brutality. Financial crime is often too abstruse to evoke genuine anger. It's the skill of the novelist to make us go against our natural instincts, to react in ways we didn't expect and thus challenge our own beliefs. And to recognise that motivation is often the best determinant of the real worth of a person.

The Fascists are still out there

YOU KNOW YOU SHOULDN'T....

But sometimes it's just so hard to resist.  You know it's all too easy, you should try for something more ambitious.  But you can't stop yourself giving in to temptation to have a bit of fun.

Yes, it's so easy to find yourself taking the piss out of far right loons who post gibberish on a public forum.  Especially when they are repeating, and actually give every indication of believing, something that's been discredited so many times you wonder how they can type when they must be in the foetal position out of sheer embarrassment at behaving in so crass a manner.  (Presumably Farage has a broom handle stuck up his back to prevent his spine spontaneously rolling into a ball whenever he says that 75% of our laws are made by the EU.... total bollocks of course.)

In this case it was that old favourite of the desperate fascist, that Nazism was a form of socialism.  The clinching argument always being the word 'socialist' is part of the party's name.  I can only assume they also believe that the DDR was a fully functioning democracy and the TPA actually represents taxpayers.

But this nutter was taking it to another level.  His justification was just that bit more towards the fruitcake end of the spectrum.  He believes it because.... Hitler said so.  Which is perfectly reasonable when you recall the one thing we all remember about wee Adolf was his inability to tell a lie.  Or was it something to do with cherry trees?  I'm always getting those two mixed up.

When you're still pumping out this level of nonsense, even when a right wing historian writing in a right wing paper is able to point out why you're talking out of your anus, you really are outing yourself as a genuine fruitloop.  He compounds it with his ever-so-modest nomenclature, a Twitter persona of 'Richard Lionheart'.  No, nothing narcissistic or egocentric about this chappie, he has his feet firmly on terra firma.

So I gave in a took the piss.  Just a little.  And settled back.  Wondering if he would be daft enough.  Maybe he'd just laugh.  There must be somebody on the far right who has a sense of humour, I mean look at the illustrious line of famous right wing comedians we see so often.....

No, me neither.

Sure enough, the bait was taken.  Clueless as to what was going on, he followed the usual pattern.  Gets irate, becomes abusive, then puerile.  Followed by smug at having 'vanquished' another' lefty', and seeking the approval of his sycophantic fascist mates.  A kind of virtual mutual masturbatory session.

But out of this amusing little encounter I did have a more serious thought.  The main stream media will tell you differently, because it's not in their interests to say so, but possibly the greatest threat we may be facing right now, even more so than climate change, is the gradual rise of fascism in what we refer to as The West.  In some cases it's overt, with the likes of Golden Dawn in Greece.  In most it's far less obvious, coming in under some cloak of respectability.  I used to joke that ukip was just the BNP for people who didn't want the neighbours to think they were racist, but they have proved to be a more insidious influence on UK politics, dragging it towards the extreme right.  It's a relief to see support for them steadily falling, but that tendency towards fascism remains worrying.

There's no clearer illustration of this than what's happening in the campaigning to be the next US president.  Two men are commanding most of the headlines, both viewed as extreme by US standards.  On the one hand there's Donald Trump, becoming increasingly more racist, increasingly more outlandish, and increasingly closer to what we understand as fascist.  Although most of us over here would view him as a caricature, he's being taken seriously by an awful lot of people over there.  They seem to have forgotten what the fight in World War Two was really about.

For a country with their dark history of McCarthyism it feels like a huge leap forward that so many people are beginning to look at Bernie Sanders as a possible president.  An avowed socialist, he stands for many progressive values that have had little opportunity for expression at the top level of US political life.  Like we do in Europe, he believes that healthcare is a right of all, not a privilege of the wealthy.  Radical stuff by American standards, when they are so used to doing without many of the rights we enjoy here (or do for now, but that's a whole other story....).

And therein is the dichotomy that gives the lie that fascism has any link to socialism.  Trump's popularity is based on raising fear and hatred, of defining people as 'other' so that there is an enemy to focus on, obscuring the empty rhetoric behind it.  Whilst Sanders offers hope.  Hope of change, hope of a fairer society and a chance to start  reducing the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy.

Hope of hatred?  I'm with Bernie.


PS  Now, do I send a link to this post to 'Mr Lionheart'?  I know I shouldn't, but....