He Who Lives by the Tusk ...

 

 

I.

 

As a matter of fact, I'm not what some would term an elephantophile. 

 

For whilst I wouldn't describe them as pig-tailed monsters, they're a bit too big and grey for my tastes and do sometimes possess a look in their long-lashed, colour-blind eyes that makes me uncomfortable. And don't mention those appalling feet and toenails!   

 

Putting these things aside, however, I have nothing against them and in the unlikely event an elephant should wander into my backgarden, I would happily give them a sticky bun to eat (providing they were careful not to tread on the cat). 

 

 

II. 

 

In contrast, I would not be so considerate of those involved in the illegal ivory trade. 

 

For if you wish to speak of monsters, then look no further than those who participate in the slaughter of African elephants and threaten them as a species with extinction. No wonder Joseph Conrad described the ivory business as the vilest trade that ever disfigured the history of human conscience.

 

It's chilling to recall that during the 1980s, 75,000 African elephants were killed annually for the ivory trade and their population was reduced in number from around 1.3 million to 600,000. 

 

Even more horrifying and depressing is the fact that the trade continues today, if on a reduced scale; approximately 20,000 elephants are now killed by poachers each year in Africa - more than the number of elephants being born - and the population now stands at around 415,000 individuals (to which one can add the remaining 50,000 Asian elephants).         

 

Of course there are other threats to the survival of the elephant, such as habitat destruction, the enclosure of farmland, and global warming. But poaching remains a real issue and there is an increasing demand for ivory in China and the Far East, where it is used for luxury items no one really needs.    

 

Apparently, ivory which is seized by the authorities is eventually destroyed, either by crushing or incineration, and this is believed to deter the poaching of elephants for their tusks, suppress the illegal trade in ivory, and foster public support for the conservation of elephants.

 

Whether that's true or not, I don't know (one might imagine it would simply push up the price), but over twenty countries have adopted this policy, including Kenya, which held the first high-profile ivory burning event in 1989, as well as the largest, in 2016, when 105 tonnes of ivory went up in flames. 

 

If it were up to me, rather than destroy the ivory I'd manufacture crosses and spikes from the material on which to crucify the bodies and impale the severed heads of poachers. I'm sure this savagely ironic method would prove a more effective deterrent and be something that the elephants would approve of in their ancient wisdom. 

 

For he who lives by the tusk must surely die by the tusk ...        

 

 

Gallows Corner (Reflections on Capital Punishment and Lessons in Paganism)

I.

Living as I do just north of the notorious road junction known as Gallows Corner - a large roundabout with five exits, a flyover, a nearby retail park, and an above average number of collisions -  mean my thoughts often turn to the subject of capital punishment; particularly in the wake of some ghastly local crime, such as the murder of Jodie Chesney ... 

I'm not suggesting that they should demolish the drive-thru KFC and re-erect the gallows as a place of public execution, but it has to be asked what should be done with violent felons who have placed themselves outside of the law and society and what role cruelty, punishment and death (as a form of truth) should play within the socio-legal space.


II.

Historically, as Foucault notes, public executions were always about more than justice; they were a theatrical display of force within a system founded upon a notion of sovereignty. But we, of course, no longer live in such a world; as citizens and as subjects, we are are constituted by a very different regime of power - one that has given itself the task (and the right) to administer life, rather than take it.

Such a regime - let's call it liberal humanism - prides itself on its ability to sustain and coordinate life within a system of law and order: "For such a power, execution was at the same time a limit, a scandal, and a contradiction." It's because this is the case - because having to execute a prisoner is an embarrassing sign of failure - that most Western democracies have abolished capital punishment (and why those states that still carry out executions do so behind closed doors as a joyless, bureacratic procedure witnessed only by officials and a few selected individuals). 

It's not that they - we - have become more humanitarian or more squeamish; death isn't carefully evaded or hidden away within our culture due to a heightened moral sense or some peculiar form of modern anxiety, but due to the fact that death is that which frustrates (bio-)power's desire to micro-manage every aspect of an individual's life. 

III.

Again, I'm not saying that we should attempt to turn the clock back and resurrect violent spectacles or what Nietzsche would term festivals of cruelty, though one suspects that here in Essex - home of the witch trials - there would be an enthusiastic audience for such.

I'm just reminding readers that, as Foucault suggests, public executions were once an occasion also for the exercise of popular power; a chance for citizens to directly vent their anger and make their views known; to not only rejoice in the execution of a criminal, but to mock those who act with pretensions of higher (universal) authority.   

Perhaps there is still something important to learn from Lyotard's lessons in paganism after all ...


IV.

By the term paganism Lyotard refers to a style of thinking which affirms the idea of incommensurable differences founded upon an ontology of singular events. For Lyotard, all things - including crimes - should be considered on their own terms, without attempting to arrive at a universal law of judgement that can make sense of (or do justice to) each and every unique happening.       

In other words, paganism is a kind of godless politics; one that abandons One Truth and One Law in favour of a multiplicity of specific judgements that have no pre-existing (ideal) criteria to refer back to. This would, arguably, allow us to develop a kind of post-Nietzschean legal sytem wherein judgement becomes an expression of an active and affirmative will to power.   

I have to admit that I find it difficult to see how this plurality of judgements would work in practice, but that might simply be because I lack the constitutive imagination to do so (a Kantian notion that Lyotard also invokes in his work on paganism).

See:

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 1: The Will to Knowledge, trans. Robert Hurley, (Penguin Books, 1998); see Part Five: 'Right of Death and Power Over Life'.

Jean-François Lyotard, 'Lessons in Paganism', The Lyotard Reader, ed. Andrew Benjamin, (Blackwell, 1998). 

Elephants Can Be Murderous Too

Illustration from An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon (1681), by Robert Knox

I have received an email from someone who read the recent series of elephant posts published on Torpedo the Ark: the tragic tales of Tyke, Topsy, Mary and Chunee.

Describing themselves as an elephant lover and a passionate supporter of animal rights, they write to thank me for displaying "compassion with innocent, gentle and highly intelligent creatures forced to suffer needless cruelty at the hands of man".

Now, whilst it's true that I do sympathise with wild things in captivity and dislike all forms of cruelty to animals, I think it should also be mentioned that elephants - which are undeniably intelligent - are not always so gentle. And I'd never describe them as innocent; certainly not in the way in which I suspect my correspondent is using the term.

For not only are wild elephants - particularly the young males - prone to violent and aggressive behaviour (in India, they regularly enter villages at night, damaging property and causing human fatalities), but beasts co-opted into human society have long been complicit in warfare and capital punishment.

Execution by elephant, for example, was once common throughout SE Asia; the supposedly gentle giants happily crushing, dismembering, or impaling prisoners with weaponised tusks. The animals were not only smart and versatile enough to be trained in the sophisticated art of torture, but seemed to derive pleasure from the opportunity to exercise power, inflict pain and test out their deadly skills on unfortunate victims.

The point is this: you can throw someone to the wolves or to the lions if you simply want them to be torn to pieces; but if you really want to extend their suffering and have them murdered by an animal rather than merely killed, then you're going to have enlist the help of an elephant.    


Note: the spectacle of elephants executing captives both horrified and fascinated European travellers and there are numerous written accounts. The practice was eventually suppressed by the colonial powers that controlled the region in the 18th and 19th centuries.