Marxism

Marxism

Marxist criticism is inherently existentialist. One cannot know anything without having been exposed to it as some sort of life experience. There is no knowledge a priori, as some of the ancient philosophers would have us believe. Rather, knowledge is accumulated a posteriori, through actual experience. Therefore, there is almost nothing that is inherent and absolute in our knowledge. It can never be purely objective, as knowledge is absorbed through the grid of our own perceptions, and that grid is in turn formed through our youthful socialization within our particular culture. For this reason, Marxist analysis does not allow gut-feeling or individual bias to play too great a role in the debate. It is more important to determine how exactly these "common sense" reactions are formed.

In this essay, I will attempt to analyze law and crime through the lens of Marxist analysis. "Common sense" tells us that police officers are the "good guys" attempting to preserve society against the chaos and disorder that the criminals represent. Nobody will agree that this general rule is universally true, as the incidents in the Rampart Division of the LAPD illustrate. The Rampart division shot unarmed people point blank and then put guns in their hands. They behaved much like gang members, with their own hazing rituals of "beating people into the gang." Another telling example is the Louima incident, wherein a Haitian immigrant was anally raped by a NYPD police officer with a plunger. Obviously, all cops are not saints, and some are worse than some criminals.

Even though the line between cops and criminals may blur, it is the oversimplified division between "good and bad" that shapes the way we treat cops and crimi...

... middle of paper ...

...n different neighborhoods, and how one is ideologically shaped by one's surroundings, it seems that complete freedom of will must be an illusion. A major reason why the ideology of free will exerts such a stranglehold on American thought is because it is essential to our system of reward and punishment, which would otherwise seem chaotic and meaningless.

Thus, the ideology of "good and bad" and "free will" serve to regulate the beliefs and activities of American citizens, as well as to generalize between certain classes, such as cops and criminals. Such ideological concepts are not based upon some sort of inherent preexisting "truth." Rather, they are the cultural coordinates by which we plot our lives. They give meaning and purpose to our lives, but they may also be limiting and work to disparage certain peoples. The difficulty is in telling the difference.