A boogeyman died this last weekend. Well, to be more accurate it was a boogeywoman. Myra Hindley, Moors Murderess and English hate figure for over 30 years, died peacefully in her sleep. Almost everyone in the UK knew her by name. She was practically unknown outside the UK; bearing in mind the US churns out serial killers whose sadism makes Hindley and Ian Brady seem like a benevolent Aunt and Uncle, this is hardly surprising. She died without having been forgiven for her crimes, or at least not by the UK public. Are some things so terrible that they cannot be forgiven, no matter how sincere the repentance? Before looking too closely at that question it's worth reminding ourselves of her particular claim to immortality.
She, at the behest of her lover Ian Brady, participated in the abduction, torture, rape, and murder of a number of youths in Manchester (There is an official count, but if I'm honest I find that I'm starting to disapprove of the practice of keeping a scorecard for different murderers; I think it was the number of people in the UK who take pride in the fact that Dr Harold Shipman was the worlds most prolific serial killer that gave me an opinion on this, but I digress...). After putting their victims through a fairly grotty version of hell (ironically, the murder of the victim that led to their capture died quickest of all; Brady took an axe to him) in the name of getting themselves horny, they would bury the remains on the Moors in the North West of England.
One of the things that set this particular case apart was the fact that Hindley and Brady had made audio tapes of the rape and torture of one of the young girls (I'm rather ashamed to say that I can't remember her name; I believe I've already made the point in the past that it is curious how we recall the murderers and not the murdered). The tape was played in court, and Hindley's complete callousness to the fate of their victim guaranteed her the enmity of anyone and everyone who ever read any details of the case. Thanks to the efforts of the media, everyone in the UK ended up reading such details on a semi regular basis. Why was this the case? Well, it was probably because Hindley had, over the course of the last 36 years, reformed and sought parole at every available opportunity.
The tabloids greeted every new parole hearing with a barrage of headlines of the "This Evil Old Hag must be Flayed Alive!" variety, coupled with numerous interviews with relatives of the victims, forced to relieve their grief anew, all of whom (unsurprisingly) wanted Hindley kept in prison for the rest of her life. (Brady is less troublesome as far as the press are concerned; he has been on hunger strike for the last 3 years as he is determined to die. The state is equally determined to keep him alive. Brady's less than idyllic childhood notwithstanding, bearing in mind the suffering he has caused others, this seems entirely appropriate.) Even the news of her death was greeted with the sort of bile normally reserved for newly captured paedophiles. But what of Hindley herself?
Here is a woman who had converted to Christianity in her time in prison, had the backing of numerous humanitarians in her quest for freedom, and who was described by pretty much everyone who came into contact with her as "no danger to the general public". She had done (she claimed) her best to assist the authorities searching the moors to find the last victims (one body has never been found and quite probably never will). Surely this goes some way to redressing the imbalance caused by her crimes?
To be blunt, no. Not in my opinion anyway. Though I dislike the media's manipulation of public opinion in order to paint her as a demonic presence on earth, I dislike even more the idea of a serial killer being released at any point before their death. Some of the arguments used in favour of her release are pretty much all laughable (and I realise that I was in favour of the release of the Bulger killers; the difference being that those boys are young enough to have been rehabilitated), ranging from "She's accepted God into her life and so the Christian thing to do is to forgive her" to "Far worse crimes are committed today, and the perpetrators of those may well be released soon". The former means approximately fuck all when one considers the tendency towards mania shown by many of those who are committed to the religion of their parents' choice. The latter is perhaps the most insulting thing one could say to those affected by the murders; is crime now to be downgraded retrospectively?
I also resent the holier than thou posturing of those good souls who could find it in their hearts to forgive her (and yes, I am being sarcastic; it's rather easy to forgive a wrong done to someone else, quite another to forgive it when done to you or those dear to you). Their implication that, because they were magnanimous enough to forgive her, then everyone else should be, smacks of the smug self-righteousness of the left-wing do-gooder (by which I mean that shower of spunkwits who do their utmost to impose their morality on everybody else. Though their motivations are different they're no better than the religious and political right, and give the left wing a bad name).
What is more, they then mewl about how unjust it is that Hindley languishes in prison (as opposed to languishing under a few feet of dank earth on a moor). Well, sorry to break this to you, but Justice was created to serve the will of the majority. Whether whipped up into a hate fuelled fervour or simply reading the facts of the case, I rather think that it would be the will of the majority that Hindley live her life in captivity. The do-gooders response is usually along the lines that "The majority are wrong", followed by a thinly veiled piece of patronising sophistry that implies that what people need is to have their minds made up for them by a privileged few who have the intellectual capacity to make the correct decision. Which is, again, horseshit. These days we hear a lot about the right trying to reserve power to a few. This rather obstructs our view of the fact that certain of the left wing are equally inclined to elitism. Beware of anyone who says that they know what you should be thinking.
To sum up, there very definitely are some things that are unforgivable to some, and not to others. It's up to the majority to decide what can be forgiven. No one can imagine Adolf Hitler being given leniency had he thrown himself on the mercy of the Jewish people, so why should a once-evil woman be treated any differently if most people do not believe that she should be free?
Wednesday 20 November 2002
Monday 4 November 2002
We are the dead
1984 is my favourite book, and it's influence on me is clear in pretty much everything I write. Here, I make that influence more explicit than usual.
"We are the Dead"
That line, from Orwell's 1984, is Winston and Julia's acceptance that they have no hope in life. In the context of the whole book, we later find out that although they were quite correct when they said it, they didn't really know what they meant or what the implications of that statement were. It takes continuous physical and psychological torture at the hands of O'Brien (the strangely charismatic and, by our standards, quite insane Inner Party member) for Winston Smith to truly appreciate that it is not just he and Julia who fall into this joyless category. It is everyone outside of the ruling inner party. The Proles, the outer party, the continually warring factions; everything exists solely for the benefit of those privileged few who have control over their own lives. Everyone else may just as well be a walking corpse for all the independence that they are allowed.
1984 is probably my favourite piece of literature of all time. A chilling warning about the inherent inhumanity of totalitarianism (although very much a product of post WWII UK in tone), it is a bleak view of a bleak future that, happily, has not come to pass. Or at least, certainly not in the unremittingly grim fashion that Orwell predicted. The basic fear that Orwell expressed was of a dystopian world where we no longer have control of our own lives; a return to the medieval times of total slavery to a privileged caste. The hellish Party of 1984 kept the population servile by convincing them that they were actually happy with their lot (they did so by numerous methods that, if I were to detail them here would take up more than even you have the patience to read...), and being as how my mind works the way it does (i.e. in a rather rambling and slightly neurotic fashion) I've found myself wondering if the same could be said of us.
Do we have control of our own lives, or are we little more than serfs who have been distracted from our servitude by pretty baubles and garish soap opera’s. Obviously, one cannot look at the minutiae of everybody's everyday life, so you'll forgive me if I break our lives down into these nice, easy to remember sections; work, play, and love (by which I mean both friendships and sex. In some cases both...).
I've always believed in getting the bad news out of the way first, so let's have a look at work. This is the area that many who believe that we are already living in a world of shit tend to hold up as proof of their belief. And in truth, it's probably not too difficult to see where they're coming from. Very few people are spending their working life in a job that they feel valued and which bolsters rather than knocks lumps out of their self-esteem. But whose fault is that? To a certain extent it is the fault of society (and, by implication, those at the top of the heap who shape society to suit their needs). We are encouraged to get some sort of 9-5 job, though of course we are all encouraged to get the best paid job available. Modern life compounds the pressure; we need money to pay the bills and to live a comfortable life. Our own fear of poverty is probably the final factor involved; we are told that we need to live a certain lifestyle and, good little drones that we are, we try our best to do so. To opt out of the rat-race is (unless you are fortunate, wealthy, talented, lucky, or for preference, all four) to kiss goodbye to the bland and almost identical dream life that we all aspire to (and as I write that, I am reminded of the book "Brave New World", where hypnosis is used to teach sleeping children what kind of life they will enjoy as an adult, thus vast swathes of people grow up to want the same things out of life).
Yet however unattractive we are encouraged to believe the alternatives are, there are at least alternatives. In 1984, there was no freedom to choose. There was not even the illusion of that freedom. If I were to be especially cynical I would say that we do have the oldest and most basic right of free people; the freedom to be destitute. That would, however, be misleading. We do have that freedom which was denied to Winston (historically, we probably have more freedom than at any other point in history), it's just that few of us choose to exercise it. In respect of work I believe that we do have control of our lives. It's just that most of us have chosen to abdicate responsibility for making that choice.
In the world of leisure time, we are certainly not trapped in the 1984 nightmare. Again, we have more leisure time now than at any other time in the history of mankind. There are restrictions on what we may choose to do with our time that we may not like (anti-drug laws continue to place a paternalistic straightjacket on how one chooses to spend ones own time, and those bleating idiots who bray their mindless refrain of "drugs are for losers" are probably the most totalitarian types that one can encounter; their "I don't like it ergo no-one should" attitude is typical of the unimaginative and the intolerant. If you don't like it, no problem; nobody is forcing you to. So stop forcing others not to), but by and large we are left to our own devices on the condition that we do not cause any harm to others.
If there is a problem with our leisure time, it is that we ourselves do not make enough use of it. This is our life and our responsibility. Yet when I have heard (and made) complaints about any aspect of my spare time, it is rare for the blame to land at ones own door. If one is not happy with an aspect of ones life outside of work, then surely it is up to us to try and remedy that?
Finally we have our love lives and our friends. This was and still is the most abhorrent aspect of 1984 for me; the gradual destruction of the social bonding structures that we would recognise in society and the replacement of them with loyalty only to Big Brother. Winston had no friends, only acquaintances whom he feared as possible informers. We do not have that in our lives (or at least, not in modern western society; Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and pretty much anybody's Russia all featured this entertainingly unpleasant addition to their social lives). We are free to make friends and enemies as we see fit. I've never felt forced to like somebody whom I could have cheerfully shot, nor do I feel any pressure to hate somebody to whom I am indifferent. The prejudices that do exist in society (racism and sexism being at the top of the scale, PC-manufactured bias' such as weightism at the very bottom) are all a matter of personal choice and although we may occasionally feel pressure to 'fit in' by taking on the prejudices of a peer group, there is no cage of rats attached to our face that forces us to do so.
As to our love lives...well, if I were going to make a complaint about this it would be that we have rather too much freedom of choice. Not because of things like the soaring divorce rate (which I care little about; I'm in favour of renewable marriage contracts as a valid solution to this problem), but because I'm still pissed off that my girlfriend dumped me. Grrrr....
But joking aside, no-one can realistically say that this aspect of our life is out of our control unless we choose to hand over control of it (i.e. by picking one of the various flavours of religion that seek to tell you what to do in the bedroom). Winston and Julia didn't really love each other. Their relationship was an act of rebellion against the state and so had little to do with their feelings for each other. I'm not going to be so smug as to say that if they were truly in love then they would not have betrayed each other, because I am in general agreement with the cliché that you always hurt the one you love. But their sexual encounters were as close as one could get to romance in a world where the only love that existed was the love of power. Whilst that love plays a large part in the real world, it is certainly not to the exclusion of everything else. Speaking personally, although I think that love is hard work I also think that it gives us the most joy out of life. It makes life a lot more worthwhile and rewarding than it would otherwise be. If today's world really were like the one inhabited by Winston and Julia, no-one would even understand what that joy meant. So maybe we are not making the most of our life, but we are most emphatically not the dead.
"We are the Dead"
That line, from Orwell's 1984, is Winston and Julia's acceptance that they have no hope in life. In the context of the whole book, we later find out that although they were quite correct when they said it, they didn't really know what they meant or what the implications of that statement were. It takes continuous physical and psychological torture at the hands of O'Brien (the strangely charismatic and, by our standards, quite insane Inner Party member) for Winston Smith to truly appreciate that it is not just he and Julia who fall into this joyless category. It is everyone outside of the ruling inner party. The Proles, the outer party, the continually warring factions; everything exists solely for the benefit of those privileged few who have control over their own lives. Everyone else may just as well be a walking corpse for all the independence that they are allowed.
1984 is probably my favourite piece of literature of all time. A chilling warning about the inherent inhumanity of totalitarianism (although very much a product of post WWII UK in tone), it is a bleak view of a bleak future that, happily, has not come to pass. Or at least, certainly not in the unremittingly grim fashion that Orwell predicted. The basic fear that Orwell expressed was of a dystopian world where we no longer have control of our own lives; a return to the medieval times of total slavery to a privileged caste. The hellish Party of 1984 kept the population servile by convincing them that they were actually happy with their lot (they did so by numerous methods that, if I were to detail them here would take up more than even you have the patience to read...), and being as how my mind works the way it does (i.e. in a rather rambling and slightly neurotic fashion) I've found myself wondering if the same could be said of us.
Do we have control of our own lives, or are we little more than serfs who have been distracted from our servitude by pretty baubles and garish soap opera’s. Obviously, one cannot look at the minutiae of everybody's everyday life, so you'll forgive me if I break our lives down into these nice, easy to remember sections; work, play, and love (by which I mean both friendships and sex. In some cases both...).
I've always believed in getting the bad news out of the way first, so let's have a look at work. This is the area that many who believe that we are already living in a world of shit tend to hold up as proof of their belief. And in truth, it's probably not too difficult to see where they're coming from. Very few people are spending their working life in a job that they feel valued and which bolsters rather than knocks lumps out of their self-esteem. But whose fault is that? To a certain extent it is the fault of society (and, by implication, those at the top of the heap who shape society to suit their needs). We are encouraged to get some sort of 9-5 job, though of course we are all encouraged to get the best paid job available. Modern life compounds the pressure; we need money to pay the bills and to live a comfortable life. Our own fear of poverty is probably the final factor involved; we are told that we need to live a certain lifestyle and, good little drones that we are, we try our best to do so. To opt out of the rat-race is (unless you are fortunate, wealthy, talented, lucky, or for preference, all four) to kiss goodbye to the bland and almost identical dream life that we all aspire to (and as I write that, I am reminded of the book "Brave New World", where hypnosis is used to teach sleeping children what kind of life they will enjoy as an adult, thus vast swathes of people grow up to want the same things out of life).
Yet however unattractive we are encouraged to believe the alternatives are, there are at least alternatives. In 1984, there was no freedom to choose. There was not even the illusion of that freedom. If I were to be especially cynical I would say that we do have the oldest and most basic right of free people; the freedom to be destitute. That would, however, be misleading. We do have that freedom which was denied to Winston (historically, we probably have more freedom than at any other point in history), it's just that few of us choose to exercise it. In respect of work I believe that we do have control of our lives. It's just that most of us have chosen to abdicate responsibility for making that choice.
In the world of leisure time, we are certainly not trapped in the 1984 nightmare. Again, we have more leisure time now than at any other time in the history of mankind. There are restrictions on what we may choose to do with our time that we may not like (anti-drug laws continue to place a paternalistic straightjacket on how one chooses to spend ones own time, and those bleating idiots who bray their mindless refrain of "drugs are for losers" are probably the most totalitarian types that one can encounter; their "I don't like it ergo no-one should" attitude is typical of the unimaginative and the intolerant. If you don't like it, no problem; nobody is forcing you to. So stop forcing others not to), but by and large we are left to our own devices on the condition that we do not cause any harm to others.
If there is a problem with our leisure time, it is that we ourselves do not make enough use of it. This is our life and our responsibility. Yet when I have heard (and made) complaints about any aspect of my spare time, it is rare for the blame to land at ones own door. If one is not happy with an aspect of ones life outside of work, then surely it is up to us to try and remedy that?
Finally we have our love lives and our friends. This was and still is the most abhorrent aspect of 1984 for me; the gradual destruction of the social bonding structures that we would recognise in society and the replacement of them with loyalty only to Big Brother. Winston had no friends, only acquaintances whom he feared as possible informers. We do not have that in our lives (or at least, not in modern western society; Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and pretty much anybody's Russia all featured this entertainingly unpleasant addition to their social lives). We are free to make friends and enemies as we see fit. I've never felt forced to like somebody whom I could have cheerfully shot, nor do I feel any pressure to hate somebody to whom I am indifferent. The prejudices that do exist in society (racism and sexism being at the top of the scale, PC-manufactured bias' such as weightism at the very bottom) are all a matter of personal choice and although we may occasionally feel pressure to 'fit in' by taking on the prejudices of a peer group, there is no cage of rats attached to our face that forces us to do so.
As to our love lives...well, if I were going to make a complaint about this it would be that we have rather too much freedom of choice. Not because of things like the soaring divorce rate (which I care little about; I'm in favour of renewable marriage contracts as a valid solution to this problem), but because I'm still pissed off that my girlfriend dumped me. Grrrr....
But joking aside, no-one can realistically say that this aspect of our life is out of our control unless we choose to hand over control of it (i.e. by picking one of the various flavours of religion that seek to tell you what to do in the bedroom). Winston and Julia didn't really love each other. Their relationship was an act of rebellion against the state and so had little to do with their feelings for each other. I'm not going to be so smug as to say that if they were truly in love then they would not have betrayed each other, because I am in general agreement with the cliché that you always hurt the one you love. But their sexual encounters were as close as one could get to romance in a world where the only love that existed was the love of power. Whilst that love plays a large part in the real world, it is certainly not to the exclusion of everything else. Speaking personally, although I think that love is hard work I also think that it gives us the most joy out of life. It makes life a lot more worthwhile and rewarding than it would otherwise be. If today's world really were like the one inhabited by Winston and Julia, no-one would even understand what that joy meant. So maybe we are not making the most of our life, but we are most emphatically not the dead.
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