One particular line has been running through my mind, the "Don't forget that you are white" line from the following passage in the sixth stanza:
And the cops are puttin’ the screws to him, lookin’ for somebody to blameThe "fighter" is the "Hurricane" of the title: "...one time he could-a been / The champion of the world"—as in middleweight boxing. Maybe you saw the 1999 movie, The Hurricane, with Denzel Washington as Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Like Jim Rix's cousin Ray Krone, Carter (and another defendant) were tried and convicted twice, in their case for the murders depicted in Dylan's song. (You start to see how the music of Bob Dylan might have kept Rix going as he battled to get his cousin out of prison.)
“Remember that murder that happened in a bar?”
“Remember you said you saw the getaway car?”
“You think you’d like to play ball with the law?”
“Think it might-a been that fighter that you saw runnin’ that night?”
“Don’t forget that you are white”
"Don't forget that you are white."
In Ray's second trial, it was "Don't forget that you are Mormon," as the mostly Mormon jurors tried to sort out whether the jagged-tooth defendant (who sometimes didn't even put on underwear1! and he sure looked guilty!) didn't really bite the murder victim, as the Mormon bite-mark expert, playing ball with the law, said he did ("with scientific certainty").
But I've been thinking about the "don't forget" reminder more generally, as applied everyday in the workings of prejudice.
Don't forget that you have it made (so don't concern yourself with the poor).
Don't forget that you're a Christian (so don't go supporting gays and other people the Bible supposedly doesn't like).
Don't forget that you're a Muslim (so if someone insults the Prophet Muhammad, cut his head off).
Don't forget that you are white (so nothing Obama does can be any good).
But I've also been thinking, even more generally, that it could be a constructive, rather than a destructive, reminder.
Don't forget that you are no more deserving than other people (and they are no less deserving than you are). [Or, as some others might say: "Don't forget that you, too, are a sinner."]
Don't forget that you have no more right to inhabit the planet than other animals do.
Don't forget that you're a Christian (so love one another).
Don't forget that you're a Muslim (so help the needy).
____________
- Some Mormons (including at least one member of the jury, if Rix's observations were correct) wear "magic underwear" for protection from the evils of the world.
Morris, if every life form is equally evolved, what significance do you give to the phenomenon "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"?
ReplyDeleteInteresting post.
ReplyDeleteKen, How do you figure that Haeckel's well-established proposal that the embryonic development of an individual organism (its ontogeny) follows the same path as the evolutionary history of its species (its phylogeny) might call for some special significance with respect to my statement about current species' being equally evolved?
ReplyDeleteSteve, is there any particular way or ways in which you find the post interesting?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm a big fan of Dylan and the fact that it inspired Jim is the interesting part. Inspired him to look into Ray's case or write the book? Or both.
ReplyDeleteMorris, it depends on whether you think that the stages of embryonic development represent successive stages of evolutionary complexity. If they do, then your belief that all life forms are equally evolved comes into question.
ReplyDeleteJim got involved in the case independently of Dylan's music, from talking with his mother on the phone (the book opens with a depiction of their conversation), being interested enough because of the family relationship to look into Ray's case, and becoming sufficiently convinced that Ray was innocent to try to do something to get him a second trial.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of Part One, Jim describes driving out of Phoenix after Ray was convicted again. "Hurricane" was playing on the radio, and Jim quotes some of its lyrics (with paid permission from the owner of the copyright), ending with the statement, "Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land / Where justice is a game." He had just witnessed American justice as a game that the innocent don't necessarily win.
But Jim hadn't decided to write a book yet. His first writing about the case was in the form of a newsletter, copies of which he mailed to various members of the American Academic of Forensic Science, in the hope that some pressure could be brought to bear on its odontology section, one of whose members (the Mormon bite-mark expert) had used its "junk science" in the service of convicting an innocent man, to expose the miscarriage of justice. That has actually, to a great extent, happened, as I can attest from a presentation I was in the audience for myself at the annual convention of the AAFS, in San Antonio, three or four years ago.
The idea of writing a book evolved, Jim's thinking being that maybe a book could help focus attention on the situation. But Ray managed to get out well before the book was finished.
It's title, "Jingle Jangle," comes from "Mr. Tambourine Man."
Ken, of course "the stages of embryonic development represent successive stages of evolutionary complexity," but organisms evolved as a result of the particular evolutionary pressures they encountered in their respective spheres.
ReplyDeleteSome sequences of "spheres" led to higher stages of complexity than others. Some simpler organisms have continued to exist successfully pretty much as-is for hundreds of millions of years.
"As evolved as" need not mean "as complex as"—even if that is its usual sense.
If "as evolved as" does not mean or at least imply "as complex as," then I'm hard pressed to find a meaning for it that makes it a useful concept.
ReplyDeleteKen, thanks for chasing me to the point that I have to admit that, yes, my phrasing was inadequate. I've rephrased to "dogs and cats and birds and snakes have evolved as arduously and as long for their niches on Earth as humans have evolved for theirs."
ReplyDeleteBut I don't think that that either is the best way to express the point (from Richard Dawkins). My comprehension of Dawkins, whose writings are my main sources of this sort of information, is of course not as good as I wish it were, and it's not easy to find the pertinent passage or passages from which to try to improve my phrasing from memory. But I did bring with me to work today my borrowed copy of The Greatest Show on Earth, in which I think he discusses the concept, and I will try to find the passage(s) today if I have time.
I think I also need to say that I'm not sure Dawkins would himself ever put the point to the moral use I've put it to. Nor am I sure that there are many other people on the planet who care anyway, except perhaps the Jains, who, according to Wikipedia, follow "a path of non-violence towards all living beings."
Ken, I looked up these comments today because I've just read in Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's book, Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors: "Having survived in an unbroken line from the beginnings of life [which the authors reckon to have been about 3.5 billion years ago], all organisms today are equally evolved. [emphasis mine]
ReplyDelete"This realization sharply shows up the conceit and presumption of attempting to measure evolution by a linear progression from the simple—so—called lower—to the more complex (with humans as the absolute ‘highest’ forms at the top of the hierarchy). As we shall see, the simplest and most ancient organisms are not only the forebears and the present substrate of the earth’s biota, they are ready to expand and alter themselves and the rest of life, should we ‘higher’ organisms be so foolish as to annihilate ourselves." [p. 14]
You said back in February that "If 'as evolved as' does not mean or at least imply 'as complex as,' then I'm hard pressed to find a meaning for it that makes it a useful concept."
I suppose that one thing Microcosmos does is to explain how the term is useful. And I've checked the dictionary definition of "evolved" again. The Free Dictionary defines "to evolve" simply (in the biological context) as "To develop or arise through evolutionary processes." And Merriam-Webster defines it simply as "to undergo evolutionary change."
The central message of Microcosmos seems to be going to be that complex organisms depend on "the descendants of the bacteria that swam in primeval seas breathing oxygen three billion years ago, [which descendants] exist now in our bodies as mitochondria."
Or: Our greater complexity doesn't give us the right to say we're "more evolved," since that complexity could not have evolved without the simpler organisms' coming along with us. "The same microtubules appear in all cells of plants, animals, and fungi each time the cells divide...
"These and other living relics of once-separate individuals, detected in a variety of species, make it increasingly certain that all visible organisms [those that unlike the microbes can be seen without the aid of a microscope] evolved through symbiosis, the coming together that leads to mutual benefit through the permanent sharing of cells and bodies." [pp. 18-19]
This seems to me perfectly to express in biological terms what I was trying to express in moral terms.