Culture of Severity

A month ago, I was at a conference in the U.K. I always enjoy going over because I get a chance to catch up with people I’ve known for a while, but this time, it wasn’t very pleasant. I met up with a friend who I’d seen at conferences on and off for years and I asked him how he was doing. He told me that he was fine now, but recently he’d been deported from the US. There was some kind of a problem with his paperwork when he arrived from the U.K. so he was invasively searched, handcuffed, placed in a cell overnight, and deported the next day. According to his lawyer, he may never visit the US again.

This friend of mine isn’t alone. I’ve been reading a number of stories recently about people who’ve been treated like criminals by US Immigration for rather minor issues. 

We’re supposed to be better than that.

The thing I want to know is: what makes this sort of culture of severity happen?  It's easy to blame it all on 9/11, or claim that it is solely the result of the current administration's policies, but I think that there is more to it than that.  It seems that this sort of severity is very close to the idea of zero tolerance, the idea that if you crack down on the minor infractions, people will fall in line.  It seems to work to some degree, but it also tends to make us somewhat less than what we were.

The big question is: why?  The Zero Tolerance explanation is appealing but I don't think it's the whole answer.  The whole thing feels much less calculated than that.

Comments

[Bob]

I don't think this is a post-9/11 problem. I've heard gruesome stories about the INS before that date already. Still, something
changed: Americans seem to be willing to accept even more than before that there adminstration is doing "the right thing."

Why do US politicians talk about waterboarding instead of tackling the real issues like healthcare and sustainable sources of energy? Did their mothers not give them any love when they were kids? Why don't they feel any shame that there is people that are kept prisoner in Guantanamo even though the prisoners' files say that there is no evidence against them? Did some kid hold them prisoner in the schoolyard, and this is their way of taking revenge?

Some people think this will change with a Democrat in the White House. I don't think so. Things may change when more people start
asking questions. So thanks Michael for
doing just that :-)

[Michael Feathers]

Bob, thanks for your comment. I wish I knew of other people who were asking these questions. It's one thing to be outraged by various things, but it's yet another to really ask why.

My gut tells me that scapegoating has something to do with it. As people feel less secure, they push rules to "make" things secure. Then, they can see the rule breakers as "the other" and gain some (illusory) sense of control.

It also seems to be something that is tied to the economy. I notice that when I visit countries that are in some "bubble economy" phase there's this sense of expansiveness that wipes away the severity. It reminds me of various "bubbly" periods in the US too.

[iPhone contacts backup]

Will the culture the most factor of this problem?