Many reasons can be offered for the high levels of petty crime we live with today. Drug addiction breeds crime to pay for the habit. Boredom can lead to youth turning to crime, if for no other reason than the buzz. All these ideas are valid. But some reasons are not quite so obvious, but are valid nonetheless.
One possible reason finds its roots every time a law abiding person rushes to a shop for new, fashionable clothes, or moans about some sleight they have been forced to take. We all exist in a world where the slightest abuse leads to victimhood, and a society that glories in our ability to buy what we want. Wants, it seems, are what we want more than anything else.
RIGHTS v DUTIES
The obvious reason for this is an innate selfishness throughout the modern world. But we can go deeper than this. It is not so much selfishness, but an absolute belief that we have rights, from the right of the consumer, to human rights. Rights, it seems, is the new philosophy, the new religion, with a new priesthood of lawyers to make sure we get them.
In such an environment, an apparent or perceived lack of rights can easily lead to crime, whether theft to produce the goods, or violence to return a sleight. From as early as they can think, children are taught about these rights. And if a child knows nothing but rights, rights will be all that interest the child.
But there is a balance to rights in what is known as duties. In previous times, duties came above rights. Indeed, rights could only be achieved once duties had been performed. Duties tied the person to society, to wedlock, to parenthood. Duties were the thing you had to do, and usually do gladly, for the reward of rights was not far behind. In a balanced society, selfishness was kept at bay.
BREAKING THE CONTRACT
We can here see how the prevalent credo of society in general can give a hint to a reason for crime in the particular. For if there is one thing crime lacks, it is a sense of duty. So in a way, all society can be seen to be to blame for the modern crimewave said to be with us. However, we can take the argument even deeper than this.
Duties grow from a sense of oneness with the society to which you belong. When the modern world arose after the 18th century Enlightenment, the idea of a ‘contract’ arose between the government and the governed. It was a simple contract. Both had rights and duties. Duties by the person were a guarantee of duties to the person by the state. This bonding was the centrepiece of society.
With the rise of super capitalism in the 1980s, all this changed. A new mood arose that duties would not be returned by the state. And it was inevitable the people would replace duties with rights. Until the State reintroduces their part of the contract, rights will rule, and crime will thrive.
© Anthony North, March 2003
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