Yes, it’'s _ easy_ to feel that way; for a long time I did. And days like these make it even easier.
Most of my interactions with law enforcement have been negative. I got roughed up by a cop one fine Friday night long ago because he was bored and a crusty punk was an easy target. I guess being white meant I just got beat up rather than shot. Call me naïve if you like, but I believe when you teach fear and hatred, when you dehumanize whole groups, you justify to them their behavior.
Rereading my post, I see how it can be read two ways. I seriously question the motivation of most people I’ve encountered that choose that career, even folks I know personally. Which is why we stressed that they are people, not some mythical figure. I also believe most people intrinsically tilt the scales towards good. The plus side of this is raising little humans that don’t fear everyone they meet or fear the world enough to feel they have to first reach for a gun.
? Surely you meant weed out the “bad apples” (hopefully)…
Otherwise it just seems like what pretty much everyone suspects is business as usual at the local PD.
It’s a nice idea, and it’s the sort of thing that might be beneficial to believe in regardless of whether or not it’s true.
But I’m not sure that the evidence backs it up.
See Milgram’s Obedience to Authority, Zimbardo’s prison experiment, Asch’s work on conformity, etc. Outside of science, we have the constant drumbeat of genocide and exploitation throughout history, the endless horrors of organised religion, the pandemic of intimate abuse and misogyny. Back in science again, we have the Tuskegee syphilis study, the continuing disgrace of torture psychologists, Mengele, etc.
There are always exceptions, moral heroes who stand up for what is right, regardless of the cost (but those folks are nearly always a vanishingly small minority). Plus there are all the quiet heroes working themselves into exhaustion in epidemiology labs and hospitals, nurses and social workers and justice activists and so forth. Even the worst of folks usually have some redeeming features; there are plenty of examples of brutal bastards who are kind and loving towards their granny or somesuch.
But overall? Vicious, cruel, greedy and stupid, with those factors increasing with distance from intimacy of the offenders. At their best, humans are awesome; at their worst, diabolical. But the worst is the most common, and it seems that it is much easier to encourage the worst than inspire the best.
However, I’m socially isolated, physically unhealthy, clinically depressed, and was of a fairly cynical bent even when I was sane. So I might be wrong.
I find in my daily interactions I rarely encounter either monsters or heroes. I called the cops murderers in the thread about Noble, and stand by that. They are examples of people that have forgotten the humanity of others. There are people that have done awful things throughout history, again and again, but how many billions have lived in that same period of time didn’t?
People are a mixed bag; every one of us has been altruistic at times and committed petty cruelties at others. It’s my experience day after day that most people, but not all, will do what’s right.
I’m truly sorry you suffer physically and mentally, I’m no stranger to either of those and know how they shade our view of life. I’m fortunate to have physically recovered, the other I have to remain vigilant against for life. I hope you have help you trust because no one can overcome depression alone.
The issue then becomes when society decides to grant one group near god like powers of life and death over others (O.k. that may be hyperbole, but at least “the ability to kill with near impunity”), that the reason that most of us are so mediocre starts to fly out of the window. Most people are held in check by social rules to some degree, but we’re beginning to realize that police forces operate under their own separate culture. A culture that a lot of people are realizing doesn’t quite mesh with the rules of non-police society. My cruelties remain petty for a large number of reasons, one of many is that if I started to gun down people, I wouldn’t be given time off from work, paid, then right back to work when I was absolved of responsibility for the murder I had committed…
Sigh. Ok, somehow I’ve become an apologist for law enforcement, which if anyone in the real world heard they’d bust a gut laughing.
The behavior detailed on posts here is atrocious. A lot of police abuse their position, or even just show callous indifference in their jobs. The nature of the job, and the training they receive seems to encourage this, for some. I think on this we can agree.
There’s an estimated 900,000 - 1,200,000 law enforcement officers in the US. There’s no metric to measure morally bad police, but since I said most people let’s go with slightly higher than half. Are there 500,000 to 600,000 cops that would rather steal from you or kill you than not? Maybe, but I find that hard to believe. Even if you assume all police related homicides last year were unjustified, that’s still a pretty low percent of bad actors (no information on how many cops involved with each shooting, so not even going to try on that one).
Do you often feel the need to gun people down in the streets, and is it only fear of not getting a paid vacation that keeps you in check? Perhaps there is a career track you should look into. Or you could give yourself more credit, and your neighbor too.
So, fine, I’m wrong. I’m living in fantasy land and setting my family up for shortened lives. I get it. Bad cop behavior is the point of the post and no positivity about humans shall be tolerated. This thread is bumming me out, and I’m going outside to play. Everybody is welcome to come join me, or not. Your choice.
PS. Yes, I realize not everyone can safely go outside to play, it was meant metaphorically.
