Categories: uncategorized
Date: 04 September 2005 11:31:34
I must admit that I am absolutely fascinated by how human beings behave in situations where the normal systems of law and law enforcement cease to exist in any meaningful form. Hence my interest in accounts of life in the Nazi death camps (i.e., Primo Levi) and those who put up some kind of resistance to the violence of the new law (i.e., Oscar Schindler). It is they who whilst in some ways are the most tenaciously individualistic are contrarily cursed by an undeniable solidarity with their fellow humans, regardless of their racial, religious, etnic, gender (etc) differences. Usually such a solidarity is presumed to reside in those who risk their lives for others as a part of their working life, i.e., police, firefighters, etc. But just occasionally, when the systems of law break down and people have nobody to tell them how to behave (and thus have to make up their own laws) the truth is revealed, that some of those most vociferous in upholding the law in normal life become rapists and murderers who lie to conceal such acts by those they consider to be their own, unencumbered as they are by any notion of human solidarity.