inclination. He may call it god-inspired, socially-inspired, self-inspired but it will be equalled by a humility before all men that they could do likewise AND that he is but one err from the lowest around him. A man that close to failure will not judge too quickly and that is Virtue as well.”
Big Nose: “I doubt such a place is possible in this City for some things of good sense can at times conflict with some things of good law. You may think it well to help a slave remove his burden of chains but his Master can have you whipped with the Law for such a good deed.”
Beggar: “ As we have discussed before; the whipping, the Imposed-Will, should not interfere in the man with the unchaining, the Virtue, the Free-Will.”
Big Nose: “Beggar, I am not fooled. I see you lead us towards a place where Free-Will should judge itself and we as the Imposers of Will have no right to sway that natural leaning, come what ever the carnage but I argue...”
The Beggar held up his hand and shook his head “No, my learned friend, no. That is not where I was falling. I am an explorer, not a teacher. I don’t really know when I begin what lies around the next bend of sentence. But I do know this, or at least, think of this.
Your punishment of the boys and their decision to act as they do are as unrelated as wind and water. We see the tempest at the shore and think they are intertwined as Cause and Means but neither causes the other or is the means of the others’ existence. There is wind without water as surely as there is water without wind.
So, too, there is Virtue and there is Punishment. One has nothing to do with the other.”
Big Nose: “ What!? Do you again begin the argument that punishment cannot raise up Virtue?”
Beggar: “ Who even began that argument? Punishment has nothing to do with the Punished and everything to do with the Punisher! There can be a discussion of Virtue but it is not about virtue in the punished but rather the lack of virtue in the Punishers!”
Big Nose: “ Here and hear, boys, how the Schoolmaster gives patience to an argument that another might treat with a quicker stiffened rebuttal.” With that, he lifted his stick and grinned.
Beggar: “No man appreciates more the quiet of delayed verdict than a man who has only his arm of pleas to defend his open trial, my friends.”
Big Nose nodded. “Say it then.”
Beggar: “ If there is crime after punishment, that is, if crime continues wether by the same criminal or some other man, has punishment failed as a deterrent?
There are many who are both weak in their criminal urge and weak in their ethics. Fear of reprisal glues their step to stay shy of unlawful paths. Should want or opportunity or a greater gathering of ill will cause them to act unlawful, they will do so; they must do so because now they believe their suffering in NOT doing the crime is greater than their memory of the punishment. Indeed, they no longer are the ‘punished’ but rather have become a different man...the ‘unpunished’...a change in opportunity simply makes them the same dog with a new master...”
Big Nose: “ But I say if the punishment is harsh enough, the flesh will cringe even if the mind does not.”
Beggar: “We can execute... murder, the murderer but have we murdered murder?
We can remove the hands of the thief but have we taken away the desire of others to steal?
It would seem not, my friends. For we have punished a long time in the history of men, yet, there is still very much upon us, murder and thievery and much other mayhem. When the population is surplus, is it better to execute than imprison, for is not imprisonment an extension of cruelty?...Does the prison give peace to the thief...or peace to the City? Something is stolen, can we steal back Belonging? A plant is uprooted, murdered...does uprooting another make the garden more coloured?
Why do we do it then? This punishment? Out of fear?
The way a pack of dogs react when one is hurt...in a sense...abnormal. Turn upon it in a frenzy and tear it to bits?
Indeed, Society does have a collective fear...society does not fear itself but rather, the lack of fear. That all men are glued into a society by...fear. We must see fear in each man’s eyes...in some way. Some for fear of starving. Others for fear of taking. Some for fear of being killed, others for fear of not killing. What we see in each other’s eyes makes us equal. Even on to the fear of each other.
The fear of anyone must be at least equal to the fear society feels in its own eyes, in its own reflection.”
Big Nose: “ Do you mean by this that simple maxim ‘No man is above the Law?’.
Beggar, laughing, “ Beggars, unlike lawyers, believe many things go unseen in the Night than what is known in a Day in Court. I do not say no man is above the Law, many, many are...the law easily bows to money and prestige... I say , rather, no man is above the Fear.”
Big Nose: “ What? Why not the same debates? Money and Prestige will protect a man from Mayhem as much as protect him from the Law.”
Beggar: “ You must see your flaw already, my learned man. How can a man be protected from one ‘thing’ using the ‘thing’ which he wishes to be protected from? Was not Law invented to remove Fear?
Fear of men of man? Or was it man of men?
We have a Law which ‘prevents’ one man from killing one man. So Society ‘feels’ safe. Each man of men in that society knows a fear both of murder and the consequences of murdering.
That Society, however, can murder thousands, BY LAW, and we still feel ‘safe’. This is because Fear, when equal, becomes unknown. Just as the stink of a slaughter house is fresh to the enter but lost to the linger.
The reality is that no one is safe but all feel safe because Fear makes them equal. Like lions running a herd, no one is afraid while all heels are side by side.
Some find pleasure in their own suffering...which is never normalized..but even that suffering ‘belongs’ in the sense that it makes them human with men...if only that they correspond with fists.
See, if you doubt, how men gather to the suffering of another; rarely to assist; usually to watch and , even, mock.The movement of the herd..the lull of the blood smell when one of the herd is ‘down' and the fear ends...like sated lust...the crowd lingers in the image of beating and death and understands ...why...the ‘organized State’ wether a City or a crowd or a single murderer is, in itself, a ‘punisher’. A Punisher of individuals, dissenters, minorities, other States in its Control. Men say a murder, a beating, a punishment, an atrocity is committed because it can be committed , because it exists then it ‘is’ ordained. This then is the Will of the Order of the Universe...Violence in all its forms exists because without it, Death would not only be just Random but King as well...If people die for a reason, even if that reason is to be the victim of a murder than at least something initiates murder, controls it...Death has something greater it answers to...An Order. An Order created by the mind of Men to avoid the acceptance of Chaotic beauty controlling...and not controlling...the world.
Big Nose: “This is as absurd as hyenas terrified of crows...the larger have no need to fear the smaller...”
Beggar: “ Ticks can drive an elephant mad over a cliff while no tiger would even dare approach such a beast.”
Big Nose: “ No matter. I mean, beggar, that no rich man with his castles and guards and houses and money need fear such as thou. Where then is your ‘equal fear’?”
Beggar: “You are right. In opposites. The man who has nothing does not fear the man who has everything. For only Nothing will kill him. the man who has Everything, however, must fear...”
Big Nose interrupted: “Hah, here you will say everything, no doubt. Absurd, for how can the...”
Beggar: “No, but say , at least, something...the man with everything must fear losing something for then he has less than Everything. These two types of men exist in a society...one with everything...one with nothing. They exist together in fear...their fear combined makes Society, like earth and water make bricks with straw. Nothing and Everything combined with Fear make a City...a Society.
Two things are Nothing and Everything. To all Men in some way. Property and Brutality. Some men have no property, just brutality. Some men think they have no brutality because they have property. You see, we define a brute, thus giving brutality, as an animal wild. Without restraint, without cage.
What better cage than walls. Walls of wood. Or brick. Or satin. Or tapestry. Or mud. Or social class. Or ignorance. or blood.
So the more men have of what is truly men, their walls, the less it would seem they are of being brutes. So it would seem.
No jackal, however, ceases to become a jackal just because we put it in a cage.
Subservient perhaps yes; so now it is a little of the dog, a little of the jackal...it is men.
In our case, however, remember that men put men inside the cages, the walls. There are men on both sides of the cages, the walls. And walls around those men...like a maize...we have not removed brutality, we have separated it. Separated it by men and walls. Sometimes many men with only a few walls of Laws or Punishment or Persecutions. Sometimes a few men possessing many many walls, even walls of gold, even walls of broken bone and torn flesh.
So even men who seemingly have everything, every wall up around them must fear...fear the loss of those walls. Fear the sounds of scraping and digging; chipping and breaking that they, rightly or madly, discern with their ears.
Who knows, maybe it is only the
The Seven Days of Wander Page 31
