We can all agree, I think, that what's happening in the United States of America right now is unfortunate, unwanted and unproductive. But I also think it's taking the easy way out and unproductive to simply say that the riots and looting are bad and that the ones participating in those violent acts are bad people.
source: Wikimedia Commons
That's why I think the below linked video is one to watch. It introduces us to Émile Durkheim, a French sociologist who died in 1917, and who - together with Karl Marx and Max Weber - is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science. Durkheim was of the opinion that crime has a function in society, and that function is that crime exposes needs that are not met in that society. The example given in the video is somewhat morbid and centers around medical science's need for fresh corpses. It was forbidden back then, as it is now, to dig up freshly buried corpses, but grave-robbery was a crime often committed to fulfill that specific need. Grave robbery exposed this need, and instead of just condemning the perpetrators Durkheim suggested it might be more productive to also address that need. The crimes that are committed right now expose a need as well, and that is to put a stop to the economic injustice that lay at the root of so many social struggles, racial struggles, as well as the overarching class struggle. Like Vaush says in the video: happy people don't riot.
Looting and rioting is bad, especially when it's done from an opportunistic perspective and has nothing to do with the actual political fight that indeed needs to be fought. But we can't leave it at that. It doesn't suffice to, as Biden proposed in his address to the nation, to make the police shoot criminals in the legs instead of the heart, or to "outlaw choke-holds", or to say we need to stop the militarization of the police-force without addressing the deeper systemic causes of that militarization. What makes the unconditional condemnation of the rioters and looters even more egregious, is that anyone with two or more brain-cells saw this coming from a mile away; this social unrest and everything that comes with it, was to be expected. And now Trump has threatened to call in the military itself to "aide" local authorities that are unable to put an end to the upheaval. To be continued, I guess...
Should we Condemn the Rioters?
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