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Created: December 25, 2002
Latest Update: December 25, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Illocutionary Acts: Refusal to Be Complicit

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, December 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This essay is based on a Los Angeles Times Associated Press article on December 25, 2002, in the Nation section: Homeless Say Thanks With a $3,000 Gift Backup.

What a lovely story for Christmas! A New York policeman was suspended for refusing to follow an order to arrest a homeless man who had nowhere else to go. As a result of that refusal, he was suspended without pay for 30 days, this month just before Christmas. And he has five children.

Research showed long ago (SIMSOC, a simulation of social behavior) that those within a society's class structure who are closest to the lowest class are more aware of the needs and suffering of the lower class and are more likely to offer aid. The theoretical explanation given is that the further we are from the class structure, the less we understand it, and the more "unreal" it seems. That would mean that city councilmen with power to pass laws to alleviate the homeless would be less likely to have a "real" awareness of what it is like to be homeless. The sergeant was clearly less able to empathisize with the man he ordered arrested, and so were the officials who carried out the suspension. The policeman, particularly if he walked a beat, might have been closer to the reality of the situation, and so could empathize more effectively. More in the spring on this aspect of the class system, and our distorted knowledge of classes that are farther from our own class.

Discussion Questions

1. In what way does the concept of complicity come into this situation?

   Consider the conflict between following a direct order and between knowing that that order will cause harm or injury. Consider the extent to which one must have a meaningful grasp of the situatedness to know that. Are there clear cut answers to the issue of harm or injury?

2. Can one be complicit when one is following orders? What ethically does complicity mean? Would the policeman have been "guilty" of causing harm to the homeless if he had carried out the order? What if the policeman had merely voiced his concern for the homeless man, but carried out his order?

   Consider the reality of a world in which the steady and functional running of the system does occasionally harm or injure those who fall through the cracks? Is it ethical, moral, foolhardy, or some strange mix of all of the above to refuse to play any part in that harm, even if one is not directly inflicting the harm?

3. What about the five children of the policeman? What if one must choose a greater or lesser harm in refusing to be a party to the harming of others?

   Consider the role of fear for one's own security comes into play when one has responsibility for others. Consider also the extent to which such fear can separate us and make us lose site of the humanity the community owes to its all. And consider the lesson of humanity taught to the children. Would that lesson have been as clear to the children if the officer and his wife had not been firm in their commitment to see his action as integral to his integrity? Is there a clear answer to that question? Or might one child see his father as a strong man of impeccable integrity, and another, who would have preferred a new bike, seen his father as "soft" and not forceful enough to get what his family needs? What if his wife had been looking forward to his promotion next week?

4. Assume the homeless man was eventually locked up anyway? Was the policeman's gesture of refusing to arrest him meaningless in that case?

   Consider the illocutionary power of each refusal to cooperate with the harming at another in each story as it plays out. In the sense that we become aware of the cruelty of complicity, and become aware of the possiblities of refusing complicity, we come to understand one another.

5. What about the complicity of the officials who enforced the suspension? Can you imagine their reasoning?

   Consider the importance for any military of police unit of obedience for the protection of all. But then consider the dismay we face when military or police units, under the name of orders, forget their humanity and go beyond what is necessary for the protection of others. To answer this question, consider the potential harm the homeless man representeed.