The Death Penalty
Monday, October 12, 2009
Reportedly, several of Derrida’s final seminars were on the death penalty. I don’t have access to the seminars, so I only know the basic outlines of his argument as found in various interviews — basically, the death penalty isn’t just one penalty among others; its removal would change the concept of law. Drawing on Agamben, however, I would note that even in non-death-penatly countries, police power has been steadily increasing, so that in the UK, for example, the state can’t officially sentence you to death, but police can murder someone in cold blood for running to catch a train while being brown. If I had to choose between a highly ritualized and regulated use of state violence to kill and a completely discretionary and situation-based use, I think it’s pretty clear what I’d choose. Obviously those aren’t the only options, but getting rid of the former without getting rid of the latter doesn’t seem to get us much further. The real sea-change will be when police officers can no longer expect impunity when they use violence on the job.
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I don’t know about the New School material, but I’m fairly certain there’s a lot of material from “The Unpardonable” seminar floating around the intracampus network. If you’re interested, I can look into it when I’m on campus tomorrow.
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 4:57 pm
That’s such a naive view of UK politics – almost as naive as stating that in the US you pretty much don’t even need to run for president if you are brown…
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I was thinking of one specific incident.
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 8:51 pm
[...] may be blinkered in terms of ignoring the arbitrary killings that happen outside legal procedures. Drawing on Agamben, however, I would note that even in non-death-penatly countries, police power has… I think that’s about right in terms of focusing on what is often missed in political theory: [...]
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 4:16 am
Well yes – but to say that the police have to power to shoot people in the street on a whim in the UK is hardly a clear statement about the state of British policing – I appreciate your point that this is undoubtedly a result of a nanny-state mentality, but there is hardly a precedent there for your claim that the police have power to kill “brown” people running for trains… They undoubtedly do not – hence why Sir Ian Blair lost his job and a number of personel were demoted as a result of their inability to follow protocol – ironically enough, the huge swathes of protocol meant that no one had a hope of following them to the letter – perhaps this is what you’re getting at?
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 5:28 am
Okay, so they were demoted. That’s still a far cry from being charged with murder for, you know, murdering a guy.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 6:05 am
I didn’t mean to slander the UK — I thought it would be clear that I was referring to just that specific case, to anyone who was familiar with UK politics.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 7:57 am
I have no specific information about Derrida’s thought on the subject, but the distinction you say he’s drawing sounds in line with a Foucauldian distinction of power of death vs. power over life. Foucault would situate the growth of police power within the dynamic of power over life. So a growth of police power in non death-penalty states shouldn’t be viewed as contradicting Derrida. (What fits this very simplistic version of the theory less well is somewhere like the US, where you have the death penalty and also increasing police power.)
Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 6:01 am
In India, there are numerous incidents that define the violence apparatus of the police forces. They rubbish their actions citing instinct and by taking the responsibility after the brutality. Responsibility not really in the true sense of a guilt, but the acquittal in the sense of kolakowski’s ‘Law of infinite cornucopia’. It is disgusting to think of the removal of one form of brutality and then replce it with something else that becomes nothing short of an evolutionary process in becoming brutal.