Boxing Day. The day after THE DAY. I must say I do enjoy it. Though no early rise for me to go out and fight my way through the sales, rather it's the most idle day of my calender (and whatever my roommate at College says, I try not to have that many). I have spent the day in pajamas and you know, I don't regret it.
So what has my epic and productive day been spent doing? I do have a pile of books to negotiate, including (finally) The Spirit Level, and yes, I know I'm late to that particular party but I don't think that's going to undermine the key findings, however I've not quite managed to get round to them, instead I've been catching up on Christmas Day TV. Specifically Doctor Who and Murder on the Orient Express.
Admittedly I saw Doctor Who on Christmas day, but I think amidst the festivities and the interruption of food and drink I rather missed some of the finer points. Murder on the Orient Express I did actually miss, we'd moved on to carols in our house and frankly I think I got a lot more out of it watching it alone today as opposed to dozing in the corner surrounded by conversation so light it felt like I was taking a warm bath in chatter.
Anyway, whatever day I happen to be watching it on it's all still very, very exciting. very Exciting because I happen to be a big fanatic of both and watch both avidly (to the extent that I still really enjoyed re-watching the Doctor, and quite possibly will watch the whole thing again in the coming days) they are both characters that inspire me to some extent- I say it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to be like either of them. Though it would have to be either really- they are two very, very different characters. (Warning, spoilers do follow on from here)
One of the things that surprised me with this latest Poirot offering was the prevalence of Religion. In all the episodes of Poirot I've seen (and my family did subscribe to that magazine that hands out a DVD of every Poirot, so I've seen a few) something quite so personal has never been open to the viewer before- but it's not just him, another prays, God and Jesus are constantly referenced- but to focus on this is to mask the real use of all this talk. For what is very apparent in this Poirot is the dichotomy of 'real' justice vs. the processes of the law. For the the first time (I think) something other than the ingenious solution of a crime is being teased out by the programme. God becomes useful as a locus of 'objective good' that can legitimately counter Poirot's insistence of 'obeying the rules' as a way of keeping good order in society- even to the extent of horrifying consequences (we see him even defend the stoning of an adulteress because it's the penalty for breaking the rules). The problem is that one individual's understanding of what constitutes justice may also result in horrifying consequences. After all, somebody is subject to a pre-meditated murder in revenge for what they did. That's not an insignificant point.
Poirot on the whole is shown constantly equating the right thing with the lawful thing- with his strong preference for total order (even the eggs must be of exactly the same size s'il-vous-plait!) this is not at all surprising, and he would probably find breaking the law to be an unthinkable act, and this contrasts strikingly with the Doctor, who in this Christmas special feels free to totally rewrite a life and invade an individual's memories in order to save 4,003 individuals. On the face simply of ends, one could easily argue that this was the 'right' thing to do but what of the precedents? More importantly of course, we see that the Doctor considers himself the highest authority he knows, he'll even interfere with the whole time stream to achieve his ends- I don't honestly think one could be any more of a 'free spirit' than one who subverts the very laws of the physical universe and risks temporal paradox just to get what he wants!
The flipside of course is that the Doctor is not an selfish character, he is motivations are always outward looking and well-intentioned, this is what gives him his consistency, this is as close as to the 'objective good' as we get with the Doctor, and even this is shaky. What we see throughout series after series is the Doctor's morality being rather subjectively applied and often situationally-dependent and Poirot sees the flaw in this- if there exist no structural bonds and we become 'laws unto ourselves'...even if we have the noblest of intentions how do we stop those who would abuse others for their own gain? The System is imperfect he says, but it stops the worst abuses. The Doctor's actions have led to war and genocide, having no more authority than himself has left him unable to control the secondary effects of his actions.
What links them of course is their brilliance, their intelligence- they make thinking cool, and I really like that, but from that point they seem to radically diverge. I said at the top of this post I wouldn't mind being either of them, but I could only be either of them it seems. In a world that has seen such systems as apartheid, the fascist and communist regimes for example it is not hard to see that obeying the authorities does not always equate with what is morally right- Acts 5.29 'We must obey God, rather than men' echoes strongly in my mind. The question is though is it better to work within and try and change that system for the better or do as much as you can as you are if necessary in opposition to the authorities- although your scope will be narrower?
For me it would try to be a matter of which results in the most good- and working within the systems involve making compromises on many other issues to score any big wins for the better- is that a moral burden that should be shouldered? Though as my friend noted when I brought this up, without authority, organization and direction one can find themselves merely treating symptoms their whole life and not solving the root structural causes of problems. It may be more praiseworthy on an individual level when a family that has little food shares it with a starving beggar and risk their own welfare compared to the man who simply directs the requisitioning of others food for wider distribution with little personal loss to himself. But the latter has done more to stop the hunger of the community in the long run than the family has.
I suppose which one is a better route depends on how one answers the question of whether it really matters if people don't want to hand over their food to this requisitioning force, and perhaps it's a sign of weakness on my part, but for me it most definitely matters- I cannot countenance the idea of using force to achieve an end- I believe that no matter what it has done for the community materially, socially, it has made a net loss that can have dire consequences in the future. Thus in my pacifistic principles I have found something that constitutes a consistent good for myself.
However that is just me, and in this era of apparent 'betrayal' by the lib dems, and a disconnected conservative frontbench of millionaires who are prescribing a highly regressive cuts regime I suppose the question beckons more than ever; is it time to start trying to take matters more into our own hands and make our voices heard rather than letting those in power just get on with it? In a democracy, we are supposedly the masters, but are our 'servants' acting according to our general will? Should we support, start looking beyond the practioners of conventional politics? Have they been finally revealed redundant, active obstacles in the making of a better world? Are they to be reformed, replaced or destroyed utterly?
Perhaps the last word should rest with Poirot, who seems in this instance to ignore his personal philsophy and take the law into his own hands, letting the murderers go free. This probably isn't surprising; the victim was truly diabolic, the court system corrupt and unjust and the crowd consensus was that these were good people. Whether they were of not is for the viewer to judge, but I suspect the scriptwriters really want to nudge the audience in one particular direction. Nevertheless the scene shows that no 'principal for consistency' is in fact ever 100% consistently applied by humans, nor should we expect it to be. To do so would be to diminish our humanity which feels as well as thinks- it's illuminating that after this momentous act, this act of 'making the right choice' we see Poirot cry (Also something never before seen and entirely unlike him). He also made the choice of the heart.
I also notice that before and after this act he fingers his Rosary.
We must obey God rather than Men.
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