Saturday, May 2, 2020

An Aggressive Culture Applied to a Pandemic

If a local culture does not value education, such that the public education system is weak, and furthermore engages in and enables aggressive behavior, even self-protective statements and efforts can provoke aggressive responses based on ignorance. In such a culture, authorities may be particularly unlikely to stem such aggression, and they may even be inclined to engage in active or passive aggression against victims rather than enforce laws and rules. For existence, police called on a noise complaint at an apartment complex may willfully or unwittingly turn on the complainer not due to lack of noise, but, rather, out of ignorance as to what constitutes a residential disturbance, fear of confronting people who are disturbing others, a desire to inhibit future calls or simply due the aggressor’s bidding by blaming the victim for complaining. Besides indicating a corrupt, sordid police culture, that of the locality itself would likely be compromised. During a pandemic, such pathology might be especially transparent because it is clear when people and authorities are not only not enforcing laws and organizational policies geared to protecting both employees and customers, but also acting against public health by turning on the victims. The case of Arizona and, more particularly, the Phoenix police department, is particularly revealing.