In reflecting on the increasing
distrust and anger on both sides of the Police Vs. Policed situation
we are witnessing now I am again reminded of the dictum: Woe be to
those who become too separated from that which sustains them.
It's a good deal more complicated here,
of course, because, human nature being so profoundly susceptible to
prejudice, one group ends up not being served very well at the very
least, and/or truly dis served to an egregious degree that's more
than the majority ever wants to admit.
It is also complicated for another
reason, however. A combination situation that shows up in other
service situations to various degrees, but seldom to this extent.
That combination is the simple fact that policing is,
unquestioningly, inherently difficult, and dangerous. But it is also
faced with the absolutely essential requirement to be formed on the
foundation of impartial service; to protect everyone with equanimity,
establishing a balance of calm assessment with a firm fairness in the
application of the rules a society has deemed prudent to enforce upon
itself. A balance that's not suppose to prejudge anyone, but be ready
to react as the situation demands so as to limit exposure of the
general populace to further possible harm.
You don't have to dwell on a definition
like that to come to the conclusion that it's a pretty tall order.
Maybe inhumanely so in the ordinary sense of what fallible people are
capable of day to day; even very strong, and well intentioned
individuals. And yet, here we are, demanding that one sub group of
our collective do this very thing, day in and day out, for decades at
a stretch.
Having the kind of imagination that I
have, the empathy to a fault that goes with it, I cannot help but put
myself into their shoes. Just as I put myself into the shoes of those
who don't fare so well on the receiving end. But as big as my
imagination is I still can't fully comprehend what it would be like
to have to deal with the most troubled of us every working day. The
whys and wherefores of these troubles are another issue altogether,
and certainly contain ample amounts of both personal, and external,
bad choices. The point is that, if all you do is deal with the
collateral damage you are bound to get changed in one fashion or
another, and the probabilities in that context would not be favorable
for good change outcomes.
I have thought about this sort of
seemingly irreconcilable realities for decades and the best solution
I have been able to come up with is one based on the assumption that
we all need to spend time walking a ways in the other persons shoes.
And in that do we see the necessity of never allowing any one group
to shoulder important aspects of what sustains us. We should all take
turns handling the difficult, onerous, or distasteful necessities of
social cohesion. Which is not to say that everyone must necessarily
take a turn at policing specifically. Certainly not everyone would be
physically, or emotionally, capable, but that doesn't mean there
wouldn't be other categories of the difficult they could do.
My thought has always been that each
City State (for lack of a better term... I recommend you read the
book “Rethinking the City” by Steven Liaros for a splendid
argument on how that form of granularity of organization would be not
only be desirable, but quite understandable from a historical
perspective.)
would come up with an as comprehensive
a list as possible of all of the things that would need to be done to
support an at least partially self sufficient entity of this size.
The next step, however, and just as important, would be to categorize
these tasks and then declare that each citizen had to pick at least
one or two (or whatever), from each so that no one could escape their
share of the difficult. And then, after what ever total number
required were selected (say something between 6 and 12), each
individual would then spend a week or two working at each task in
sequence so that nobody got stuck in any one of them.
To say that there will be difficulties
in this is only to state the obvious. Many, if not most, of these
tasks will have skill requirements few will posses. And finding
solutions to that shortcoming will not be easy to say the least. As
someone who understands the power of information properly organized,
and retrievable within a dynamic application of context, I remain
hopeful that it can be done. It will certainly take generally capable
people to achieve it, but achieving that is possible as well because
education will truly be an integrated, and seamless, part of every
day community life.
From my point of view the bottom line
here is that, however difficult any of this rethinking of how we are
organized is to implement, we simply have no choice but to try. The
alternative is just not an option if we are to survive in any form of
what we have always hoped human beings are capable of. It's another
choice we need to make, and one that won't wait a whole lot longer.
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