Everyone keeps asking me what anyone hopes to gain by burning and looting. That's not really the way to look at it. There is no gain. When something is off balance, there is pressure to a return to balance. The further something is from the balance point, the more erratic and unpredictable it becomes. It's all about Power and the deal we make with Power.
We let Power tell us how fast we can drive, how tall our grass can grow, and a multitude of other rules and regulations that don't mean anything, except without them we would have chaos. In return for knuckling under and obeying the rules, Power promises to maintain order. It's a pretty good deal for us. We get to have nice things like cars and houses and clean water, without having to turn our house into a fortress to protect our stuff from our neighbors.
There are always a few people who want to steal our stuff. They steal our car, break into our house, they might even dump oil in our water. Power keeps these people under control. They maintain order. They made a deal. Order is the opposite of chaos. As long as Power keeps their side of the bargain, all is fine.
Power has limited resources. It depends upon the cooperation of most people, to keep the unruly people under control. When most people start to get the feeling that Power is not keeping up the bargain, bad things happen. Power can't do it all. When enough people decide to go out in the street and confront Power, to demand the bargain be kept, it doesn't matter how orderly they are. It doesn't matter how peaceful they are. Power doesn't have the resources to keep order when too many people decide to be a little disorderly.
Power can't be everywhere at the same time, so the few people who never respected Power in the first place, do what they've been wanting to do. There is no plan, there is no goal. They just want to steal and break stuff, and Power has its hands full at the moment.
The only thing Power values more than keeping Power, is keeping order. Without order, Power is useless. Without order, Power has nothing to offer and it's very likely some other Power will come along and make a new bargain. It happens all the time. We call it revolution.
In the case of Baltimore, Power lost sight of the critical element in the great bargain. If you want a person to cooperate, they must have something at stake, if they don't cooperate. You can't threaten a person who has nothing to lose. The death of a man in police custody is an extreme thing. For every extreme thing, there are thousands of moderate things. What's moderate compared to a fatal spinal injury? Maybe a concussion. Maybe a cracked rib. If the Baltimore Police can fatally injure a man who is handcuffed, how many did they moderately injure?
Every person who was mistreated by the Baltimore police has parents and brothers and sisters and friends. The guy with the concussion may have a criminal record, and maybe deserves to have permanent brain damage, but who thinks his mother, the licensed practical nurse, is going to forget what happened. Will his father, the Postal Carrier, think his son got what he deserved from the police?
That's not the way it works.
If Power wants to keep the bargain, they can't do it by hurting people. The bargain is, "cooperate and we will keep you safe." There is nothing in the bargain about "refuse to cooperate and we will kill you." No one signed up for that deal. If anyone in Baltimore wants to restore order, they need to go back and figure out when it was that people decided they had nothing to lose.
We let Power tell us how fast we can drive, how tall our grass can grow, and a multitude of other rules and regulations that don't mean anything, except without them we would have chaos. In return for knuckling under and obeying the rules, Power promises to maintain order. It's a pretty good deal for us. We get to have nice things like cars and houses and clean water, without having to turn our house into a fortress to protect our stuff from our neighbors.
There are always a few people who want to steal our stuff. They steal our car, break into our house, they might even dump oil in our water. Power keeps these people under control. They maintain order. They made a deal. Order is the opposite of chaos. As long as Power keeps their side of the bargain, all is fine.
Power has limited resources. It depends upon the cooperation of most people, to keep the unruly people under control. When most people start to get the feeling that Power is not keeping up the bargain, bad things happen. Power can't do it all. When enough people decide to go out in the street and confront Power, to demand the bargain be kept, it doesn't matter how orderly they are. It doesn't matter how peaceful they are. Power doesn't have the resources to keep order when too many people decide to be a little disorderly.
Power can't be everywhere at the same time, so the few people who never respected Power in the first place, do what they've been wanting to do. There is no plan, there is no goal. They just want to steal and break stuff, and Power has its hands full at the moment.
The only thing Power values more than keeping Power, is keeping order. Without order, Power is useless. Without order, Power has nothing to offer and it's very likely some other Power will come along and make a new bargain. It happens all the time. We call it revolution.
In the case of Baltimore, Power lost sight of the critical element in the great bargain. If you want a person to cooperate, they must have something at stake, if they don't cooperate. You can't threaten a person who has nothing to lose. The death of a man in police custody is an extreme thing. For every extreme thing, there are thousands of moderate things. What's moderate compared to a fatal spinal injury? Maybe a concussion. Maybe a cracked rib. If the Baltimore Police can fatally injure a man who is handcuffed, how many did they moderately injure?
Every person who was mistreated by the Baltimore police has parents and brothers and sisters and friends. The guy with the concussion may have a criminal record, and maybe deserves to have permanent brain damage, but who thinks his mother, the licensed practical nurse, is going to forget what happened. Will his father, the Postal Carrier, think his son got what he deserved from the police?
That's not the way it works.
If Power wants to keep the bargain, they can't do it by hurting people. The bargain is, "cooperate and we will keep you safe." There is nothing in the bargain about "refuse to cooperate and we will kill you." No one signed up for that deal. If anyone in Baltimore wants to restore order, they need to go back and figure out when it was that people decided they had nothing to lose.
