Retributive justice

For some reason, this skit reminded me of some of the discussions we have had about retributive justice.

Also here. Also, not that they have the woman character get hysterically and angry.

Out for blood

Our friendly narcissist correspondent reader shared this article about Lance Armstrong. I thought the reporters action oddly paralleled that of what I've seen from a lot of people who have been burned by sociopaths. Worth reading in its entirety, here is main thrust of the reporter's reactions:

What I wanted was to find him slumped in his uneasy chair, naked nails on the wall, haircut in his hands, not even a poodle by his side.

I wanted someone who was sorry -- sorry for what he'd done, sorry for what was next, sorry to be stuck in his new, sorry life.

But that's not what I found.

Lance Armstrong is happy. In fact, he looks better at 42 than I've ever seen him, less gaunt in the face, thicker in the chest, bluer in the eyes. I found a man sitting in his den, surrounded by his seven Tour de France chalices, his 3-year-old, Olivia, on his lap, kissing him and laughing.

Really pissed me off.

I came to see ruins, not joy. I came to see a man ruined for lying to me for 14 years -- and letting me pass those lies on to you. Ruined for lying to everybody. And not just lying to the world, but lying angrily, lying recklessly and leaving good people wrecked in his lies.

It wasn't enough he'd been stripped of his seven wins, not enough that, so far, he'd lost half his estimated $120 million fortune to lawsuits, had to sell homes, his jet, lost every single endorsement (another $150 million), his earning capacity, and his association with the very foundation he started and built, Livestrong-- with two more lawsuits to go.

Yet here he was telling me he was "at peace" with it. I didn't want him at peace. I wanted him in pieces.
***
"People are going to call bulls--- on this, but I've never been happier. Never been happier with myself or my family. My kids suffer no bullying at school. Nobody says anything to them. They're doing great. Anna and I are extremely happy and content. It's true."

As I left, I thought about my motives for coming at all.

If a man has suffered the loss of more than half his wealth and 100 percent of his reputation, how much more blood should I want? I felt a little shame in coming at all.

As I come to the end of my sportswriting career, I wonder whether I need to make peace, too. Peace with the athletes who thrilled me, then disgusted me. Pete Rose, Ben Johnson, Mark McGwire, Marion Jones, Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong. Peace with letting myself be thrilled, and then fooled, time and again. Why carry it as I go? And if Armstrong is over it, why aren't I? "You've got to live life no matter what's going on," Anna says. "Cancer teaches you that. Life isn't going to wait."

So I forgive Lance Armstrong for all the lies, though he's not asking for my forgiveness. And maybe I forgive myself for letting myself be lied to in the first place. And I thank him for the hope he still gives the millions who still believe in him, though I'm not one of them.

I like that the reporter was aware that a lot of his negative feelings were his own pride being hurt because he was duped, but you wonder what did he expect?.The reporter thinks he is somehow special that he would be treated differently than everyone else in the world? (For a better reaction to Lance Armstrong, see Matthew McConaughey.) And maybe part of me has a hard time taking sports seriously, but it also reminds me of this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt "you have been honest with yourself and those around you"? Really? Because I think word on the street is that Eleanor Roosevelt was a closeted gay woman in a sham marriage as someone's beard, which may or may not constitute fraud on the entire American people. But we aren't pissed at her, I guess because she didn't hurt hundreds of other cyclists who would have placed slightly higher than they otherwise did (although, again in weighing pros and cons fashion, Armstrong arguably did more to benefit cycling as a whole by raising awareness and popularizing it than he ever hurt it as a whole or hurt individual cyclists, even in the aggregate.)

Our narcissist reader's thoughts:

When narcissists like Lance stop caring about being admired, they change in a fundamental way.

Before his striving was focused on winning and getting away with it - securing as much admiration as he could. Now he's probably focused on helping his kids, staying on good terms with his wife and managing his investments. That is, more utilitarian concerns. If you offered Lance enough money, he might star in a porn film to benefit cancer victims, because he'd think, "well, my reputation is worth nothing now, but we can turn my celebrity into money for cancer victims, so let's go!"

He is probably still noticeably psychopathic. If Lance thinks, "that was a good day", and you ask him why, it is probably because he ate some nice food, had a big orgasm and made a lot of money in the market. That is, thrilling. He might not remember days as the one where he had a deep emotional conversation with his partner, someone opened a door for him and he felt gratitude or he took a walk and felt wonderment and awe that he is alive, has legs that work, eyes and a mind that sees, etc.

Journalistic justice: a parable of Jean Valjean

Those who have read or seen the various adaptations of the book Les Miserables are probably familiar with the protagonist Jean Valjean. Spoiler alert, he stole some bread, went to prison for a long time, and then was branded for life as a felon, unable to live an honest life because no one would give him a second chance. But that's not where the story stops. Instead of just submitting to his fate, he breaks his parole, changes his name and starts a new, honest life . . . until his past catches up with him, in the form of the justice-hungry watchdog Javert.

Along those same lines, I read a bizarre article in the NY Times lambasting someone who had committed a crime and then attempted to start a new life, "An Inmate and a Scholar". Apparently the triggering event for the article was that this convicted felon (whom I won't name, in an effort to avoid connecting it on Google with the term "sociopath") had published a paper in the Columbia Journal of European Law on Turkish nationals and the EU. The NY Times reporter, Alison Leigh Cowan (who seems to specialize in maligning?), does not suggest that this young man plagiarized, falsified, or otherwise misrepresented himself in the paper. Nor does she allege that he has done anything wrong in the recent past (apart from the activities leading to his conviction) so much as she insinuates that his past makes him an inappropriate candidate for a legitimate future as a barrister/scholar.

The facts of our inmate/scholar are basically these: he is the child of a conwoman. He perpetrated a Ponzi scheme at the age of 19. After a confession/conviction ("I did what I did") and serving his time, he was deported (Turkish national). Any money he earns beyond satisfying his basic needs is earmarked to repay his Ponzi scheme victims. In the decade since, he has graduated with honors from prestigious European schools. His applications to these schools were open about his past -- he referenced it in his application essays and his former lawyers wrote letters of recommendation. He did not tell everything to everyone, though, and that is not enough for our intrepid reporter.

Reporter Cowan works hard to suggest that she has caught him red-handed trying to escape from his past. For instance, she mentions that he added a middle name that is not reflected in his American official paperwork -- a clear sign that he is hiding something. She liberally quotes from classmates that found it "shocking" to learn that he an ex-con (shout out to my former classmates who may have found it "shocking" that I had been diagnosed as a sociopath, or to my gay friend's former classmates who might find it "shocking" to find that he is married to a man, or my transgender friend's former classmates who might find it "shocking" to discover that he is no longer a woman.) Despite people's alleged shock at having known an ex-con (?), none of his friends or associates suggested that he ever materially misrepresented himself. And do we have a duty to disclose everything about ourselves to everyone we meet? Cowan goes into great detail about whether or not the inmate/scholar was supposed to check a box on his school applications for certain types of past criminal convictions, but ultimately comes up with nothing, at least in my opinion. (The school defined relevant convictions as "offenses of a violent or sexual nature against a person, or something on the order of drug trafficking," and cautioned prospective students against overdisclosing in violation of the Data Protection Act of 1998). So apart from a general reluctance to expose more about his history than absolutely necessary, that's it for his bad behavior. And as one of his mentors said:

“Here’s a guy who paid a very heavy price and is trying to put his life back together. . . . It’s not that he’s averse to publicity and trying to hide . . . but he’s trying to survive.”

It's hard to read Cowan's article and not wonder what the NY Times found print-worthy about this tale. Although Cowan's reporting style is just-the-facts, it is still manipulatively written to suggest that the inmate/scholar has done something wrong in attempting to move on with his life in the way he has. And in doing so, Cowan joins other journalists (Caleb Hannan, and others) who have chosen to make torrid details of people's personal lives international news. I understand that part of journalism is incidentally ruining people's lives (interestingly, journalism is considered one of the top 10 professions for sociopaths), but there doesn't seem to be anything incidental about this (similar to the Essay Anne Vanderbilt story). Rather, ruining a life seems to be the point of this particular story. And why? This type of public shaming is even more difficult for me to understand than the typical ruin-someone's-life Twitter justice you see against people who violate social norms (possible racism and the too-soon). Is this just blatant journalistic pandering to the desire of the proletariat to be an armchair judge/jury/executioner? Or is Cowan just a Javert type who believes that people shouldn't be able to run from their past?

Why do I care about this story? There is the public shaming thing, of course, but his story speaks to me more personally as well. This guy seems to be a young sociopath figuring things out: his mother was a conwoman, he was a very talented conman, he was described by federal investigators as "brilliant and probably capable of doing anything," and according to the NY Times, his sentencing judge:

did not doubt his desire to reform, but she worried if “in point of fact, he doesn’t yet know how.” His “moral compass,” she said, was simply “not present or not functioning." 

So this story struck a personal note with me, as someone who has also had my career prospects ruined, at least to a certain extent. But at least I sort of brought it on myself. This guy just committed a crime and paid for it. He didn't ask to have the media hound him for the sordid details of his past.

But this problem of trying to escape from a past is not isolated to sociopaths, or even to wrongdoers. Everyone makes mistakes of varying degrees or chooses to live a different way, unfettered by constraints from the past. How much should that keep them from having functional adult lives? Some jurisdictions are instituting a right for young people to wipe their digital slates clean, so youthful indiscretions wouldn't unduly limit their life options. But that policy is only viable if no reporter can come along decades later and use that information against you. Should we believe that people are redeemable or not? Apparently most of the inmate/scholar's classmates did, or at least they said that they “judged him only on the present," and found him to be an exceptionally friendly and helpful classmate. Unfortunately, present performance is often not good enough for the Javert types who are looking for their pound of flesh.

See also Anne Perry (especially the comments section of the video clip, which are predictably all over the map).

J'Accuse: Twitter justice

As a sort of follow up to yesterday's post that referenced justice and mercy from a religious standpoint, I thought this piece on the Dylan Farrow open letter accusing Woody Allen of molesting her was interesting. Under the title, "The kangaroo court of Twitter is no place to judge Woody Allen":

First off, I don't know if Woody Allen abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow and nor do you. I only know what I am inclined to believe and what the reasons are. Those reasons are, in fact, opinions. Some are to do with this particular case, some with the way that victims of abuse are routinely dismissed, some with the way Hollywood operates. Some are to do with the films he makes – the texts themselves – and some with the context: the context in which so many perpetrators walk free. That context is changing.

When the custody battle between Farrow and Allen took place in 1992, social media was not around. Right now online, especially on Twitter, many people are absolutely certain that Allen is guilty. Just as they are absolutely certain that Amanda Knox is guilty, just as they will be absolutely certain that what I am saying here is wrong. There is not a lot of nuance in Hashtag Justice. There is a hashtag #IBelieveDylanFarrow.

I hesitate (just slightly) to write again about social shaming as an increasingly prevalent method of enacting mob justice. But I thought this case provided an opportunity to share a parallel example of a legal point of view -- the infamous Dreyfus Affaire, in which a French Jewish artillery officer was railroaded by a corrupt justice system because people were so certain he was guilty of his alleged crime (espionage). Evidence was falsified and secret court proceedings were held to accommodate the feelings of the masses. As Emile Zola argued in his own open letter to a newspaper, "J'accuse":

“Above all beware of this line of the reasoning . . . : ‘It is possible that Dreyfus was convicted illegally, but it was justly done; that is enough.’ . . . It is a serious error. . . . See to it that the supremacy of the law is undisputed, and through the law rid our hearts of this respect for reasons of state that is absurd in a democracy.”

What Zola is describing is the very definition of a kangaroo court -- picking an outcome, and then coming up with a procedure that will guarantee this outcome. Zola was arguing against this method of justice because we will almost never be able to determine "the truth" with absolute certainty. Since we will almost never know (or agree) about who should be punished, why, and how much, our only hope is to ensure that we follow fair procedures for determining guilt. In the United States this idea is enshrined in the Due Process clause of the Constitution, which guarantees that nobody shall be deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of the law. There is no constitutional guarantee that the justice system accurately identify wrongdoers or uniformly dispense justice for the simple reason that it would be impossible to do so. But we are seeing a resurgence of the idea that mob justice can be real justice. This is why the Dreyfus Affaire is perhaps more relevant now than ever. As Adam Gopnik argues in his review of Louis Begley's, “Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters”:

It showed that a huge number of Europeans, in a time largely smiling and prosperous, liked engaging in raw, animal religious hatred, and only felt fully alive when they did. Hatred and bigotry were not a vestige of the superstitious past but a living fire—just what comes, and burns, naturally. 

Sound familiar? It reminded me of this comment from yesterday's post:

It's important to delineate sociopathic impulses and "emotional overload". Sociopathic impulses have a basis on having a lack of emotional barriers (ie. regret, grief, and remorse) which would typically inhibit/prevent fulfilling the impulse. Emotional overload have a basis on overwhelming rational barriers (ie. logic, situational awareness).

So I understand why sociopaths can be scary -- we don't have any of the emotional barriers. But empaths can be scary too, especially when their emotional sense of right and wrong overwhelms rational barriers.

Put 'em down

This currently has 150K plus likes on Facebook?

I'm having a hard time following this argument. Is it because certain types of human life are more valuable than others?

A utilitarian view of justice?

From a reader:

I am an empath who has been reading your blog with interest. I thought I'd share with you something I read recently about the Moï (a pre-modern society), from an older British book (from the 50s) about Vietnam and Southeast Asia (the book is called "A Dragon Apparent" by Norman Lewis). What's interesting about the Moï's view of justice is that it's very utilitarian and doesn't involve any special kind of outrage at anti-social activities. It's an example of a system of justice that isn't based on morality, but on expediency. Feel free to use this in your blog, if you find it interesting as I do (keeping in mind that Lewis is a journalist and travel writer, not an anthropologist).  Here's an excerpt:

"The other aspect of the Moï way of life that seems to have created the greatest impression upon those who have studied them is that, although, by Occidental standards, crimes are few, the conceptions of right and wrong seem to be quite incomprehensible to them. In their place, and incidentally governing conduct by the most rigid standards, are the notions of what is expedient and what is not expedient. The Moï is concerned rather with policy than justice. Piety and fervour have no place in his ritual observations. Contrition is meaningless. There is no moral condemnation in Moï folklore of those who commit anti-social acts.

...

"Among the Moïs retribution is swift and terrestrial. The wicked – that is, the ritually negligent man – is quickly ruined. If he continues to pile up spiritual debts he is certain of a sudden death – the invariable sign that the ghostly creditors, becoming impatient, have claimed his soul for nonpayment.

"The thing works out in practice much better than one might expect. Crimes against the individual such as theft or violence are viewed as contravening the rites due to the plaintiff’s ancestral manes. The aggressor, however, is seen as no more than the instrument of one of the spirits who has chosen this way to punish the victim for some ritual inadequacy. The judge, therefore, reciting in verse the appropriate passage of common law, abstains from stern moralization.

...

"There is no distinction among the Moïs between civil and criminal law and no difference is made between intentional and unintentional injury. If a man strikes another in a fit of temper or shoots him accidentally while out hunting, it is all the work of the spirits and the payment to be made has already been laid down."

 Excerpted from A Dragon Apparent by Norman Lewis (first published in 1951) 

I remember there was some discussion a while back about the benefits of restorative justice over retributive justice. Despite the proven benefits of an amoral justice system over one that demands blood for blood, people insist on clinging to an idea of people as being evil and deserving of punishment for the crime yes, but particularly for the temerity to challenge the conventional moral and social order.