After all, what is robbing a bank compared to founding one?
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
This quote is the epigraph to Ricardo Piglia’s novel Money To Burn. Though we briefly discussed Brecht’s words in class, my own feelings around it are a bit different. My immediate thought after reading this was culpability—that criminals and the established order are equally culpable for their actions and that all those actions are not that different from one another. No group is free from dirt.
It’s probable that I’ve been taken in this direction for two reasons. First, I am unfamiliar with Brecht’s work. Second, a quote in the novel is very similar to an excerpt from the book I read immediately before: Norman Mailer’s Miami and the Siege of Chicago. In Mailer’s work of nonfiction, he details the 1968 Presidential Conventions. That of the Democrats took place in Chicago and was marked by protests against the Vietnam War, which resulted in extreme violence on the part of the Chicago Police Force. Regardless, the two quotes that resonated are these:
“They know they are lucky; they know they are getting away with a successful solution to the criminality they can taste in their blood.” Miami and the Siege of Chicago, Norman Mailer (174)
“The police always act in the conviction that the gunmen behave just like themselves, meaning that gangsters have the same unstable sense of balance when it comes to taking decisions or precautions as does the common man to whom a uniform—representing authority—has been handed, along with a weapon and the power to use it.” Money to Burn, Ricardo Piglia, (144)
Though the circumstances relayed in each book are quite different, the sentiment is the same: there is no clear line between good and bad, in fact the similarities between different sides can be astounding. It’s very possible that because these quotes reminded me of each other, I’m reaching to make them fit both with each other and with Piglia’s epigraph. Nonetheless, I see a connection there.
In a sense you're right. No one has clean hands. However,Piglia (and Brecht) are, in my opinion, aiming at political rather than moral judgment. It really would not matter much if the police behaved in an ethical manner--although Piglia (and, again, Brecht) would be amazed if that's the case. The founding of a bank is more criminal than robbing the bank simply because the bank implies institutionalized robbery. (The recent events in the US banking and investment system could be seen as examples of Brechts dictum).
ReplyDeleteThank you for clearing that up, Juan. I knew there was something I was missing. Regardless, I'm always pleased when I find echoes of the same idea across classes.
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