Wednesday 14 March 2018

A Very Special Sort of New Zealander.

Deaf Ears: In vain do those seeking to radically curtail high-speed Police chases point out to those very special New Zealanders who insist that "The Law" must be enforced - at any cost - that the offences for which drivers are pursued by the Police are more often than not quite trivial. Violations of the road code and petty thievery are crimes punishable by fines, or a short spell in prison – not death.

WHENEVER A POLICE CHASE ends in tragedy, a very special sort of New Zealander steps forward into the spotlight. The contribution offered by this kind of Kiwi never varies. What happened is all about “The Law”. The offenders, otherwise known as the dead and horribly injured, are solely to blame for the tragic outcome of their offending. They chose not to stop when ordered to do so by the Police – a crime. As law-breakers, they simply had to be apprehended and punished. Any other course of action is unthinkable. The Law is The Law.

When, as so often happens, high-speed Police chases ending in high-speed collisions leave not only the offenders, but also entirely innocent citizens, dead and injured, this very special sort of New Zealander does not blink.

They understand that even the slightest acknowledgement of the right of innocent road-users not to be put in danger unnecessarily can only end in some form of limitation being placed upon the obligation of the Police to pursue and apprehend law-breakers. That cannot be allowed to happen. Innocent road-users are, therefore, straightforward collateral damage: unavoidable casualties in the brutal but absolutely necessary war against disobedience and disorder.

In vain do those seeking to radically curtail high-speed Police chases point out to these very special New Zealanders that the offences for which drivers are pursued by the Police are more often than not quite trivial. Violations of the road code and petty thievery are crimes punishable by fines, or a short spell in prison – not death.

For these special Kiwis, the original justification for the Police pursuit is irrelevant: it is the offenders’ open defiance of authority that constitutes the real crime. Allow people – especially young people – to defy authority and the entire social structure is put at risk. Hounding these miscreant drivers to their deaths, and even to the deaths of innocent road-users, is a small price to pay for the maintenance of law and order.

The mindset of these special New Zealanders is very similar to the mindset of those conservative white Americans who refuse to condemn local law enforcement for killing unarmed black Americans. Even when there is clear video evidence of a police officer emptying his firearm into a defenceless African-American who is running away, white juries have refused to convict the accused. In the eyes of these conservative American whites, law enforcement’s “thin blue line” is all that stands between them and an America in which the rights of “Real Americans” are no longer respected.

The rigid character structure of this particular type of human-being has for long been the special study of psychologists and sociologists. Taken in its entirety, it is referred to as “The Authoritarian Personality” and is distinguishable by the presentation of some, or all, of the following behaviours:

Conventionalism: Adherence to conventional values.
Authoritarian Submission: Towards in-group authority figures.
Authoritarian Aggression: Against people who violate conventional values.
Anti-Intraception: Opposition to subjectivity and imagination.
Superstition and Stereotypy: Belief in individual fate; thinking in rigid categories.
Power and Toughness: Concerned with submission and domination; assertion of strength.
Destructiveness and Cynicism: Hostility against human nature.
Projectivity: Perception of the world as dangerous; tendency to project unconscious impulses.
Sex: Overly concerned with modern sexual practices.

At the core of the Authoritarian Personality lies a deep-seated and all-pervasive fear of complexity. The simpler the world can be made to appear, the more these authoritarians like it. Clear boundaries and strict rules are crucial to easing their manifold anxieties. The idea that the world might best be rendered in a multitude of shades and colours – as opposed to black and white – both incenses and terrifies them.

It’s why these very special New Zealanders are so willing to countenance the death of youngsters whose only real crime is being stupid – and even the death of people who have done nothing wrong at all – rather than offer the slightest challenge to the authority of the Police. When all that’s holding you up psychically is the rigid and unforgiving structures of patriarchal hierarchy and laissez-faire capitalism, letting go is not an option.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 13 March 2018.

7 comments:

greywarbler said...

I think this description of attitude from your post is at the heart of this consent to be punitive beyond reason or fairness. Many people are prepared to sacrifice the lives of others as:
unavoidable casualties in the brutal but absolutely necessary war against disobedience and disorder.

Somewhere subservience has smothered the spirit of protest against injustice. The desire for a good, fair, workable society has been overlaid by a debilitating sense of obedience to authority, and distaste or even hate for dissenting views. The emails or texts read out by Radionz often state this attitude in the simplest, crudest thinking. But from all of what is received, they choose to repeat these to their audience as the voice of the righteous citizen.

(And I am a dissenter right here in choosing to name it RadioNZ. I didn't choose to change its name to a set of alphabet letters that is supposed to mean something, but maybe not as we know it. Spell out your intentions I say, state that Radio is the vital hub of the communications network that you government bods and technologically addicted advisors are no doubt planning. Will I be disdained, you betcha.)

Guerilla Surgeon said...

It does seem to me that unless someone is wanted for something bad, the cops could maybe just go around to their place afterwards and haul them away? Teenagers got no damned impulse control most of the time anyway. They don't think, they just floor the accelerator. When I was a kid we made a game of it – not too proud of it now mind – but they used to be a place or two which if you could reach it and get in and switch off your lights, because these things usually took place late at night, you could actually lose them. Stupid stupid stupid. But not worth the death penalty, and certainly not worth involving innocents. To my relief nowadays, at least traffic was so sparse at 2 o'clock in the morning out in West Auckland in those days that you basically only involved yourself and the cop.
But there you go. In spite of all the talk about individual freedom and liberty, conservatives do tend to be authoritarian, when it comes to people they consider beneath them committing minor crimes. In my experience though when it turns out to be their kid, it's instant flash lawyer.

Kat said...

Another past mistake combining Traffic control with the NZ Police. Like the mistake with the right hand rule it should be reversed. Perhaps a dedicated and specialist traffic force would filter through to the NZ Police the dangers of giving chase wily nily. We are a small country, nobody escapes for long.

And yes I agree with you greywarbler Radio New Zealand it should be and that "National" bit tagged on the end should be erased.

GJE said...

When is some bright spark going to invent a device to zap the ignition of a fleeing vehicle...cant be that hard..problem solved

GJE said...

When is some bright spark going to invent a device to zap the ignition of a fleeing vehicle...cant be that hard..problem solved

Anonymous said...

Just a thought. I'd suggest more people die on the roads than through gun violence and bullets. Yet masses in the U.S. and elsewhere call for strict gun control, which makes good practical sense.

Speed is the major cause of road death. We have the ability to prevent speed by regulating / limiting auto performance. Why aren't we calling for this when any cars that can go over lethal speed are more freely available than guns?

Guerilla Surgeon said...

I think if there was some way other than an electromagnetic pulse to zap the ignition of the fleeing vehicle it would have been done by now. Unfortunately in EMP would probably have too many side effects. :) Pity.