The angry ape

[imomus]

"Man, proud man, dress'd in a little brief authority," Shakespeare said (before America even existed) "like an angry ape plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven as makes the angels weep."



Something happens to an American -- a person, reputedly, given to maverick ways and deeply opposed to government, bureaucracy and regulation -- when he dons a uniform. Dressed thus in a little brief authority, the American becomes stentorian: a loud-voiced, angry ape able to speak -- or so it seems -- only in imperatives. Here are a few encounters I've had with the species over the past week or two.

I'm at the L train station at 8th Avenue. A small Asian man is scurrying across the tiled hall. Two burly cops stand by the wall, seeming, by their silhouettes, to bristle with weapons. One shouts "STOP RUNNING!", but the scurrying Asian man doesn't hear. For a second I worry that he will be shot for disobedience.

My bus on 5th Avenue has pulled a couple of feet away from the stop, but is stationary in traffic. I run up and knock gingerly on the door. The driver makes to ignore me but -- since the light is long -- eventually opens. "Next time," he scowls, "be at the stop!" I apologise and thank him profusely, despite thinking that his tone is a little off.

In this land where we might, any of us, be packing heat as a constitutional right, shouldn't this kind of encounter be a little more polite? Sure, this man is on a short fuse and has been having a bad day. But what if I am on a short fuse and have been having a bad day myself? Might his rude tone and presumptuous imperative voice be the straw that breaks the dog's back?

Explaining once why he left California and settled in Rome, Morrissey made a remark about the "fascist policemen with keys dangling from their belts" you encounter in America. And if you walk down an American street with your eyes and ears open, one thing you're sure to hear will be sirens, and one thing you're sure to see will be signs with imperatives on them. Not just the imperatives of advertising ("Learn English! Go to night school!") but the imperatives of bylaws and regulations: "No honking! Penalty $300."

Sometimes you'll see a sign with an endless list of things that are forbidden: ball games, stereos, food, bicycles, smoking, spitting, dancing, photography, loitering, skateboarding, dogs, alcohol. Oh, always alcohol! Yesterday I was at a design festival in the Meatpacking District, and there was a nice little cafe where they were handing out free vodka and beer. One foolish Scandinavian visitor made the mistake of approaching the line dividing the cafe from the sidewalk and instantly the staff pounced: "This is America, you can't take alcohol onto the street!"

Then there are the looming hulks at the door of every building, whether it's a shop or an apartment block; private security staff. In the stores they say "How you doing today?" in a tone which suggests a quo vadis, a centurion's challenge. At the apartment block door it's more definitive: if you don't pass the ID test, you can't enter. I'm listed as a guest in the Upper East Side tower where I'm staying, but there have been about eight different doormen in the time I've been staying here, and I have to establish my identity (locate my name on the registered guest list) with each one of them.

People in uniform in the other societies I know don't loom and bark this way. Japanese and German policemen are ineffectual, mild creatures. The Japanese ones sit in kobans eating noodles, or wobble around on bicycles. They're always willing to help you find your way to a nearby shop or museum. The German ones sit in cars looking bored. Occasionally you'll see them en masse confronting a squat house, but mostly the German preoccupation with not appearing Nazi or STASI-like stops them from appearing in any way fascist. That's all behind us now -- the tyranny of uniformed authority, and that arrogant, barking tone it presumes to adopt towards citizens.

My theory is that authority in America (the main topic of the American TV I grew up with, which seemed endlessly preoccupied with charismatic policemen) isn't the opposite of the maverick strain in the national character, but the result of it. People in Germany or Japan have, by and large, internalised consideration for their fellow citizens because they're more collective-minded, more socially-oriented. Americans, by and large, haven't. Hence the curbside signs ordering you not to do things, and reminding you of the exact dollar price of doing them. It's the imposition on wayward individuals of consideration by force, in a society that hasn't ever quite accepted that it is one.

Comments

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

I think it has more to do with the fact that, because these various regulations change from state to state, county to county, and even city to city, when you combine this with the common right of Americans to travel freely between states, counties, and localities, you end up with a scenario in which a good many people may actually truly not know that they can't do some of these things. Especially in a city like New York. which has in recent years adopted a lot of social policies that don't exist in other places.

In any case, I think when you hear public servants barking in America, it's usually because they're jaded from having to deal with idiots day in and day out. Being overly assertive is the only way to avoid being eaten up by frustration, boredom, and a general feeling that the only value in one's profession is the retirement package.

If you visit smaller, less hectic locales, the public servants tend to be far more laid back and hands-off with the public, since there is far less public order to be maintained.

Also, you know, 9/11, and shit.

Or it's because you're in NYC

[(Anonymous)]

It's also because you're in New York, and there lots of people new to the United States that come through NYC. In other parts of the US - especially in the Midwest and South - people are pretty considerate to each other, and there are few signs dictating behavior. I recommend you stop generalizing about countries (Japan, US) - until you have seen these countries from all angles, and can make an informed judgment. And, even then, I would be hesitant to imply I knew (and disliked) the "national culture" of a country, when I am simply an outsider, and have no right to judge.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, these are good explanations. Certainly 9/11 changed the tone enormously. I remember, before that, being amazed at how lax and permissive NY cops were towards, for instance, my habit of Razor-boarding everywhere. I was never once told to get off the sidewalk. After 9/11, it seems, pretty much everything was forbidden and suspicious. The legions of private security officers ballooned. A kind of uniformed paranoia became the norm. The armed apes loomed below flags, everywhere.

Re: Or it's because you're in NYC

[imomus.livejournal.com]

YES, SIR!

Re: Or it's because you're in NYC

[imomus.livejournal.com]

But, to answer more seriously, as a British person I have a right to be alarmed by American positions. If you guys, you know, suspend habeus corpus or decide that torture is okay, we British tend to be following about six months behind you.

[(Anonymous)]

"Sometimes you'll see a sign with an endless list of things that are forbidden: ball games, stereos, food, bicycles, smoking, spitting, dancing, photography, loitering, skateboarding, dogs, alcohol."

I don't think they are really part of the same general point you are making. You can find even more signs like that in Japan but, just as in NY, they blend into the background.

[(Anonymous)]

Doesn't this just describe a non european use of public space? You're in NYC, do you really expect a bus driver to say please and thank you?! I can't comment on Japan, but see what you think to Indian or Thai police and the freedom permitted in public spaces there. A lot of the people working these kind of jobs are black too - maybe the ape bit needs re-thinking... I usually enjoy your posts, and i get your point - the US can seem conformist after Berlin - but Europe is the global first class lounge and the exception to the world, not the other way around.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I like to think Europe might one day become the world's policeman -- a mild-mannered, slightly bored one who sits in a BMW playing sudoku.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

A lot of the people working these kind of jobs are black too - maybe the ape bit needs re-thinking

I have to address this, because to me it's a fairly disturbing jump to make. I don't mention race at all in my piece, but if I had to generalize I'd say that while some of the bus drivers and many of the shop security people are black, the cops are often (like the one in my photo) of Irish extraction and the doormen often hispanic.

As a strict Darwinian I'd have to say that we are all directly related to apes; to imply -- even while seeming to abhor it -- that black people are related more closely than other racial groups is itself, it seems to me, to be somewhat racist.

The Shakespeare quote I begin the piece with sets up the binary humans / gods. In the eyes of the gods we humans are all apes, but especially those of us trumped up in the arrogance of "brief authority". To change this into a racial metaphor is to read it very much against the grain.

[gillen.livejournal.com]

Every society gets the policing that it not only deserves but which best reflects itself.

[vertigoranger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had that same reaction to that comment. What a clueless arse. I have quite taken offense, sir!

[parallel-botany.livejournal.com]

I saw a sign like this posted near a little courtyard in between two office buildings. Someone had written at the bottom: NO SMILING.

The sign was really quite comical, there were like six or seven "forbidden" things on it.

My three cool encounters with Berlin cops.

[zdover.livejournal.com]

I lived in Berlin for about nine months, from September 2006 to July 2007. I had four encounters with police that I can recall, and all of them surprised me (an American) because the cops were polite and respectful and concerned for me.

1. The French embassy story. I was meeting a friend outside the French Embassy at Pariser Platz during the Health Insurance (I think) strikes of Fall 2006. There were lots of police in riot gear in the big open area, and I was utterly confused and lost and couldn't find the French Embassy. I walked past the Hotel Adlon to a van full of dudes in green riot gear, figuring that I would as politely as possible inquire as to where the French Embassy was. This one big guy in green who must've weighed 17 or 18 stone was sitting with his legs splayed open, and he looked at first glance to be pretty American.

"Entschuldigung, und ich entschuldige mich im Voraus fuer mein schlechtes Deutsch, aber darf ich eine zweite Frage stellen?"

His manner, which I expected to be confrontational and condescending, was not at all. He was clearly amused at my attempt to speak German and told me that my German was comprehensible enough that my apology was not only unnecessary, but weird. He then sort of shrugged and said "Was war die Frage?"

"Wissen Sie wo die Fraenzoische Botschaft ist?" I asked, less timidly, but still half expecting to be searched or tazed or mocked.

Let me be clear about this part. The French flag was framed in the window of the van, just over his right shoulder. He jerked his thumb over this shoulder and said "Sie ist da, oder?" in a tone that in the best friendly sense conveyed that surely my question was so neophytic that it couldn't be meant in earnest.

I thanked him and went to the French Embassy, where I found that the door was locked and they weren't letting anyone in. When I asked if I could try the door, he politely but ironically and kind of incredulously told me that I was perfectly welcome to try the door, that he wouldn't try to stop me, but he'd already told me that it was locked and had already told me that it wasn't going to be opened soon.

In America, I have the feeling that I would be tazed for each of these things.

2. @ the Holocaust memorial around 1 in the morning I was accompanying a young Korean woman who was terrified of large cities, but was really interested in seeing the sights in Berlin. The young Korean woman didn't understand at all what the stellae were for, and was jumping from stella to stella. The cops came over and told her that she couldn't do it. I explained that she didn't speak much German, but told her as best I could given her limited command of English that we were in a kind of graveyard. I apologized to the cops and they said that it was cool, that they understood, and that it happened all the time. It was just important to remember to be respectful of the monument, for a host of reasons.

Thinking about this interaction now nearly moves me to tears. In America, we would almost certainly have been arrested for this, or at least fucked with and possibly beaten.

3. Behind the Reichstag one night a couple of American friends and I talked to some cops for about twenty minutes about various stuff. The Americans used me as a translator, and the cops were very patient and polite and proud to show off their neat city.

4. Hunting for a laundry at Zoologischer Garten, a stopped a couple of cops with a dog, a K9 unit. Before I could ask them a question, one of them said "Abstand!" and indicated that the dog was vicious and deadly serious around people he didn't know, so out of concern for my safety it would be good if I stood back. I've almost never had this kind of interaction in America.

Re: Or it's because you're in NYC

[parallel-botany.livejournal.com]

Dude, habeus corpus is so last century! Don't you know, we're reverting back to the 19th century expansionist "Wild West" brand of law enforcement? Guns a-blazin'!

Personally, I voted for Yosemite Sam (http://static.open.salon.com/files/sam1224081418.gif).

Re: Or it's because you're in NYC

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Actually, there's fairly big news about that. Apparently, the U.S. is saying to Britain that, if they release information about a British citizen who was sort of co-tortured by the U.S. and Britain, future U.S. intelligence that might bear on British national security may be withheld.

Some are speculating that the British gov't, in its reluctance to convey this information to the public, but seemingly no good reason not to, has secretly requested that the U.S. gov't issue this threat, so they can turn around and claim that British national security is on the line.

In any case, it would seem Britain is already an accomplice in the matter of torture.

Of course, that was under Bush. One of the first things Obama did upon taking office was forbid the use of any of these interrogation techniques now under public scrutiny. What we're doing now is sifting through the wreckage of the previous administration, trying to come to some sort of consensus as to whether there should be investigations, prosecutions, etc.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Hell, from what I understand, you can't even use a cell phone on the train in Japan without people getting all pissy.

Re: My three cool encounters with Berlin cops.

[parallel-botany.livejournal.com]

You think an American police officer would have just let their dog attack you? Or they would have told you to stand back, but out of some kind of power trip, rather than out of concern for your safety?

There are probably lots of power-tripping asshole cops in the US, but I really don't fear being tasered or beaten for turning down a wrong street or asking a for directions. I see police helping out people all the time, giving directions on the subway, chatting with people, and such. You make it sound like American police officers are just looking for any excuse to do harm to innocent people.

Re: My three cool encounters with Berlin cops.

[zdover.livejournal.com]

I live in a shitty little town. Almost every interaction I have with cops here is negative, and I don't go out of my way to have negative interactions with them, and I don't do anything in my life that is illegal. I suspect that cops in shitty little towns may lack for things to do, so fucking with people presents itself to them as something to do.

I live in Alabama. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a cop menaced a civilian with a dog, just for laughs.

This is anecdotal, and was meant only to reflect my own opinions, formed in the crucible of my personal experience. I'm sure there are many decent, caring American police officers. Somewhere else.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Well, I think I disagree. Police in New York and in other American cities that I know tend not to have the authority that they do in the European cities that I know. A cop or bus driver or other uniform yells at you in New York, generally you yell back. It's fine. Courtesy, Professionalism, and Respect are the hallmarks of a kind of militaristic noblesse oblige. We don't have that so much here, and so we don't get much courtesy, professionalism and respect, but we don't offer much to uniformed people either. Being in uniform doesn't make you special here, and therefore the uniform itself doesn't do the job that it does in societies where the police have more power and feel themselves to have more power.

Not that I am in any way slighting the frequent and massive abuse of the power that cops do have. There's no question of that, and there's no question that your race matters with respect to how much shit a cop can give you or how much shit you can give a cop. But in ordinary life -- that is the incidents you're describing here -- I'm much more comfortable getting into a pissing contest with a cop here than anywhere else. My experience of European civil servants, of any kind, is that if you push beyond their considerable reserves of politeness, you hit big trouble. Here the reserves are practically nil, but you can go a lot farther anyhow.

[tomwalker.livejournal.com]

I've always had the opposite experience in New York. For the first 6 months I relied almost exclusively on police, crossing guards, door men and bus drivers to help me find things...to the point that there were door men in the Village I would make the trip down just to shoot the breeze with them and bus drivers I wanted to tip. And I've never seen a bus driver happier than when he was helping to strap wheelchairs in (completely disrupting the driver's daily routine by making him put the bus in park and get up and walk to the back...my girlfriend relies exclusively on buses because only a few subways are wheelchair accessible and even if they are accessible there's a good chance the elevators will be "out of order" when you arrive, which is completely ridiculous in 2009 -- you should do an entry on accessibility in various subways throughout the world).

I didn't move to New York until well after 9/11.

Re: My three cool encounters with Berlin cops.

[parallel-botany.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. You sound rather jaded, but it's understandable. It's unfortunate.

I did see about 7 policemen wrestle a woman to the ground in the subway station at Columbus Circle. Well, one wrestled her to the ground, and the others stood around looking tough. I didn't see the incident that started it, but I was there near the beginning of the confrontation, and her situation became much, much worse after she mouthed off to the cops.

For me, that's where the control is. It's the threat of law enforcement making your life miserable if you don't show proper "respect." And by respect I mean fear. It's the same reason you can't be flip or glib or dismissive when dealing with customs agents at the airport. They have the power to fuck with you, pull you aside, ransack your belongings, make you miss your flight, not let you fly, etc. You really have no choice but to be meek and submissive with these people.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

That would more or less be the only thing it could do, were it the world's policeman.

Re: My three cool encounters with Berlin cops.

[zdover.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip.

[spoombung.livejournal.com]

Great pic, by the way. He looks like he's ready to shoot.

Re: My three cool encounters with Berlin cops.

[parallel-botany.livejournal.com]

Well, it might not be such a great tip for you, since it doesn't seem to make much difference whether or not you behave respectfully in your neck of the woods. That really stinks.