Midterm - Crime and Urban Anonymity Flashcards
(13 cards)
Reading #1: Poe, murders in the rue morgue SUMMARY
he story surrounds the baffling double murder of Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter in the Rue Morgue, a fictional street in Paris. Newspaper accounts of the murder reveal that the mother’s throat is so badly cut that her head is barely attached and the daughter, after being strangled, has been stuffed into the chimney. The murder occurs in an inaccessible room on the fourth floor locked from the inside. Neighbors who hear the murder give contradictory accounts, each claiming that he heard the murderer speaking a different language. The speech was unclear, the witnesses say and they admit to not knowing the language they are claiming to have heard.
Paris natives Dupin and his friend, the unnamed narrator of the story, read these newspaper accounts with interest. The two live in seclusion and allow no visitors. They have cut off contact with “former associates” and venture outside only at night. “We existed within ourselves alone”, the narrator explains. When a man named Adolphe Le Bon has been imprisoned though no evidence exists pointing to his guilt, Dupin is so intrigued that he offers his services to “G–”, the prefect of police.
Because none of the witnesses can agree on the language the murderer spoke, Dupin concludes they were not hearing a human voice at all. He finds a hair at the scene of the murder that is quite unusual; “this is no human hair”, he concludes. Dupin puts an advertisement in the newspaper asking if anyone has lost an “Ourang-Outang”. The ad is answered by a sailor who comes to Dupin at his home. The sailor offers a reward for the orangutan’s return; Dupin asks for all the information the sailor has about the murders in the Rue Morgue. The sailor reveals that he had been keeping a captive orangutan obtained while ashore in Borneo. The animal escaped with the sailor’s shaving straight razor. When he pursued the orangutan, it escaped by scaling a wall and climbing up a lightning rod, entering the apartment in the Rue Morgue through a window.
Once in the room, the surprised Madame L’Espanaye could not defend herself as the orangutan attempted to shave her in imitation of the sailor’s daily routine and in doing so accidentally slits the woman’s throat with the razor. The bloody deed incited it to fury and it squeezed the daughter’s throat until she died. The orangutan then became aware of its master’s whip, which it feared, and it attempted to hide the body by stuffing it into the chimney. The sailor, aware of the “murder”, panicked and fled, allowing the orangutan to escape. The prefect of police, upon hearing this story, mentions that people should mind their own business. Dupin responds that G– is “too cunning to be profound.”
Reading 2: Simmel, The Stranger
What is generally known as Simmel’s “essay” on the Stranger was originally written as an excursus to a chapter dealing with sociology of space in his book Soziologie.[1] In this excursus, Simmel introduced the stranger as a unique sociological category. He differentiates the stranger both from the “outsider” who has no specific relation to a group and from the “wanderer” who comes today and leaves tomorrow. The stranger, he says, comes today and stays tomorrow. The stranger is a member of the group in which he lives and participates and yet remains distant from other – “native” – members of the group. In comparison to other forms of social distance and difference (such as class, gender, and even ethnicity) the distance of the stranger has to do with his “origins.” The stranger is perceived as extraneous to the group and even though he is in constant relation to other group members, his “distance” is more emphasized than his “nearness.”[2] As one subsequent interpreter of the concept put it, the stranger is perceived as being in the group but not of the group.[3]
In the excursus, Simmel briefly touches upon the consequences of occupying such a unique position for the stranger as well as the potential effects of the presence of the stranger on other group members. Most notably, Simmel suggests that because of their peculiar positions in the group, strangers often carry out special tasks that the other members of the group are either incapable or unwilling to carry out.[4] For example, especially in pre-modern societies, most strangers were involved in trade activities. Also, because of their distance from local factions, they might also be employed as arbitrators and even judges.
The concept of the stranger has found relatively wide usage in the subsequent sociological literature and it is utilized by many sociologists ranging from Robert Park[5] to Zygmunt Bauman.[6] Like most widely used sociological concepts, however, there has been some controversy regarding its application and interpretation.[7]
What are some of the socioeconomic, political, historical conditions that led to the rise of the “problem of crime”?
Why has crime become such a fundamental concern of modern life?
How do cultural self expressions give choice to society’s deepest beliefs, values, hopes and fears?
What is the role of strangers and urban anonymity in framing our modern conceptions of crime?
How can we use sociological concepts to analyze the role of the stranger in Poe reading?
c
What does fiction do for us?
It reveals our societal values,hopes, and fears and helps us make sense of them
It expresses our thoughts and collective understandings
MRM was first modern detective story, what were some of the central themes?
How can we control the unknown?
It shows we fear unknown criminals, we desire to find and punish them and we have faith that the power of reason will help with social control!!!!!!!!!!!!
CALM REASON/SCIENCE (BRAIN) OVERCOME ANIMAL BRUTALITY (BRAWN)
What social/historical/economic thigns have led to fear of crime?
Urbanization and immigration and industrialization have led to fear of anonymous crime and a crisis of social control
You have all these people who don’t know each other brushing shoulders. Population density is high. People migrate for work. There’s no incentive for small, self-sufficient communities. This leads to less social togetherness and a care for people/sympathy. We become distant. We become afraid of what people we don’t know will do. Who among us committed this heinous crime? How can we prevent this from happening!? Where’s our social control?
Talk about how police were the last institution to develop in the modern state…
They responded to this fear of anonymous crime. Before there were these thief-takers who would go and find the criminals for money. But police are charged with enforcement and social control. THey want legitimacy on their side. Saying they have this logic, brains, scientific way of dealing with things is SO COMFORTING to people being served and gives them legitimacy.
What does the orangutan represent?
foreignness, otherness, people for whom we have little sympathy or connection or understanding. the first people we assume capable of committing a crime. OTEHRS. people who don’t belong
What is a stranger, according to Simmel and OED/
“An unknown person; a person whom one has not seen before; a foreigner or alien; a person not one’s kin.”
Someone from whom we are distant
What is the signifcance of ebing anonymous?
It leads to a lack of obligations but also allows us to be more free.
You don’t stop yourself from stealing radio because it’s poor ole Mr. Jenkins but you also don’t have to worry about what Mr. Jenkins will say if he sees you in drag
Every human relationship is a …
talk on strangers and distance
union of closeness and remoteness
we can never be completely close or remote
physically near, socially remote: an urban stranger
there’s this tension that this outsider is in our social circles
we don’t know these people so we objectify or typify them
So if urbanness leads to this anonymity, what implication does it have for our criminal justice system?
Well, you feel anonymous so you’re more likely to do bad things because there’s not this ethical obligation - there’s only self interset pushing you to do the right thing (I won’t steal the radio cuz I care about Jenkins vs. wont steal it cuz I don’t want to go to jail).
expalin what it means that freedom and alienation exist in constant tension with each other?
you have this awesome freedom
but you also feel alienated
