March 27, 2007
"We're not a civilization; we're a gang"
So says Lee Adama in this past Sunday's Battlestar Galactica season finale. Any reasonable discussion of the episode as such will contain massive spoilers, and though I'm not going to talk about most of the usual points of interest, others having done that adequately well, I do want to talk about that. So proceed at your own risk.
Adama is called to the stand - a highly irregular and illegal move - to testify in support of the defense's motion for a mistrial. He discusses the state of humanity while up there and utters the line which is the title of this post. I think he's right. But I think he may be more right than he knows: what if civilization as such is really just a glorified gang? What if legitimacy is no more than custom backed with force? Just how far are we from mob rule?
This isn't intended as a criticism of our current political situation. It's intended as a critique of human politics in general. Politics is, at root, the threat of violence. It's a testament to the competence of our politicians and diplomats - or at least to the framers of the political and diplomatic systems which current leaders incompetently run - that there is so little violence in the world. But every law carries the implicit threat of force, else it is no law at all.
What creator Ron Moore has done with Battlestar Galactica is to strip away the trappings of civilization, exposing the functioning of politics at its most fundamental level. There are just over 40,000 people in the Colonial fleet. Under normal circumstances, that number of people could be kept in check pretty effectively by a simple dictatorship. But these are the refugees of an advanced technological culture - complete with remnants of the media - that expect certain things from their government. Furthermore, the exigences of what amounts to a naval living situation render their society immeasurably vulnerable to sabotage and dissent.
Part of the success of advanced political systems is the ability to apply nuanced force, e.g. imposing real punishments less than execution. No such remedies are readily available to the "government" of the fleet as it exists, because there is no reliable way of enforcing decisions through anything less than utmost violence.
All of which brings me back to my original line of questioning: is the difference between modern civilization and gang rule one of degree or one of kind? Are we so different from "primitive" cultures that will amputate limbs for theft? Is incarceration without possibility of parole really more "humane" than forty lashes? Idealists would want to argue for a difference in kind, but I am largely convinced that it one of degree. I am also largely convinced that this is simply the nature of the beast (quite literally in fact) and that there isn't anything wrong with this or anything to be done about it.
Human law is not divine law. It is not intended or capable of producing ultimate justice. It is a temporary fix. Our God is a God of law and order, and law and order are dear to him, but he is under no illusions that humans will be capable of creating, abiding by, or enforcing any system of laws that will produce a just society. The books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings are significantly devoted to this theme. We await the coming of the High King of Heaven with both rod and staff, who will justly rule the nations with a rod of iron, yet tend his sheep like a flock.
