WEBVTT - Taxonomy of the Modern Mystery Story 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:25.436 Pushkin. Hello, Hello everyone, Malcolm Glapwell here we're continuing our 0:00:25.476 --> 0:00:27.596 build up to the main event in this season of 0:00:27.636 --> 0:00:31.636 Revision's History, which is a mini series on guns, six 0:00:31.716 --> 0:00:35.556 parts beginning August thirty first, which is some of my 0:00:35.556 --> 0:00:40.436 favorite work that we've ever done, a Revision's History. So 0:00:40.556 --> 0:00:43.276 please put that on your calendar and if you want 0:00:43.276 --> 0:00:46.836 to binge listen to it early without any adds. Go 0:00:46.876 --> 0:00:51.156 to Pushkin dot fm, slash plus and sign up for 0:00:51.196 --> 0:00:54.996 a Pushkin subscription anyway to get you in the mood 0:00:55.076 --> 0:00:57.956 for that series, which I will say right now goes 0:00:57.956 --> 0:01:01.196 in some very strange directions. I thought i'd give you this. 0:01:01.956 --> 0:01:04.236 It's a speech I gave at the New Orleans Book 0:01:04.236 --> 0:01:08.756 Festival at Tulane University. I asked the organizers if I 0:01:08.756 --> 0:01:11.916 could do it, an old fashioned lecture on murder mysteries 0:01:12.196 --> 0:01:15.716 and police procedurals, which I have been obsessed with ever 0:01:15.756 --> 0:01:18.476 since my dad read schrlock Holms short stories to me 0:01:18.516 --> 0:01:22.236 and my brothers when we were kids. They said sure, 0:01:22.836 --> 0:01:27.636 and I said, oh my god. So picture a packed auditorium. 0:01:27.796 --> 0:01:31.396 Everyone has book bags, and while they're waiting, they're reading books. 0:01:31.476 --> 0:01:34.236 They're not on their phones, catching up on their crust. 0:01:34.756 --> 0:01:38.196 This is a talk to a room full of serious readers, 0:01:38.356 --> 0:01:40.836 which is to say, a room full of people who 0:01:40.836 --> 0:01:43.396 are more interested in being delighted than they are in 0:01:43.476 --> 0:01:48.196 being persuaded. My kind of people. All Right, here it is. 0:01:52.516 --> 0:01:54.796 I want to thank the New Orleans Book Festival for 0:01:55.596 --> 0:02:02.076 allowing me this time today. I wanted to start by 0:02:02.956 --> 0:02:04.956 apologizing for the title. I don't know if you saw 0:02:04.996 --> 0:02:10.636 the title in the program, Eastern, Western, Northern, Southern, and 0:02:10.796 --> 0:02:16.836 over theorized and potentially absurd taxonomy of the modern mystery story. First, 0:02:17.156 --> 0:02:22.436 a simple warning that title is dead serious. This whole 0:02:22.556 --> 0:02:26.796 episode is going to get a little absurd and over theorized. 0:02:27.116 --> 0:02:29.276 So don't stand up at the end and say, mister Glawell, 0:02:29.316 --> 0:02:34.156 I found your presentation absurd and over theorized. I already 0:02:34.196 --> 0:02:40.316 warned you. I have disclosed that risk at the outset. Secondly, 0:02:40.436 --> 0:02:44.076 I've chosen to speak about crime novels because and mysteries 0:02:44.116 --> 0:02:47.956 because I'm addicted to them. I read in order spy novels, 0:02:48.116 --> 0:02:52.156 thrillers of various kinds, novels involving events that potentially threaten 0:02:52.196 --> 0:02:56.116 the safety of the entire planet, and the category that 0:02:56.196 --> 0:03:02.236 concerns us today police procedurals and crime stories and their 0:03:02.276 --> 0:03:05.236 television and film equivalents. You know when you go into 0:03:05.276 --> 0:03:08.436 the Hudson News in an airport and there's that whole 0:03:08.516 --> 0:03:12.156 wall of paperbacks. I have read every one of those 0:03:12.236 --> 0:03:15.396 paperbacks except for the ones with the word girl in 0:03:15.476 --> 0:03:20.796 the title. My daughter, who is eighteen months old, spends 0:03:20.836 --> 0:03:23.036 a lot of time in a very large playpen, and 0:03:23.036 --> 0:03:26.836 the playpen immediately abuts the bookcase where I keep all 0:03:26.876 --> 0:03:30.676 of my thrillers, and a couple days ago she reached 0:03:30.756 --> 0:03:37.396 up and grabbed Daniel Silva's The Kill Artist and started 0:03:37.396 --> 0:03:40.436 to turn the pages. Now, The Kill Artist is the 0:03:40.516 --> 0:03:44.316 first installment in Daniel Silva's series of books on the 0:03:44.436 --> 0:03:49.916 legendary Israeli assassin Gabriel Alon, involving, in this case, his 0:03:50.036 --> 0:03:54.356 pursuit of the dastardly Palestinian terrorist Tarik. It's one of 0:03:54.716 --> 0:03:58.676 my favorite books ever. And I mean, I don't think 0:03:58.756 --> 0:04:02.756 any father ever has been more proud of his daughter 0:04:04.316 --> 0:04:08.876 than I was at that moment. But as I said, 0:04:08.916 --> 0:04:12.356 it's stories about the police that concern us today, because 0:04:12.716 --> 0:04:15.756 I think that stories about the police have not been 0:04:15.796 --> 0:04:19.876 given nearly the kind of close cultural scrutiny that they deserve, 0:04:20.516 --> 0:04:25.236 which makes no sense because the attitude of popular culture 0:04:25.876 --> 0:04:30.516 towards the police is really, really weird. So, there are 0:04:30.916 --> 0:04:35.276 two million truck drivers in the United States. How many 0:04:35.476 --> 0:04:40.356 TV books and movies and novels are there about truck drivers? Right? 0:04:40.956 --> 0:04:43.996 Once in a blue moon? There are three million nurses 0:04:44.156 --> 0:04:49.036 in the United States. How many movies are there about nurses? 0:04:49.076 --> 0:04:51.956 Is there a genre of fiction devoted to nurses? No, 0:04:52.076 --> 0:04:54.996 there is not. There are four million teachers in the 0:04:55.116 --> 0:04:58.236 United States. Teachers are everywhere. There must be a ton 0:04:58.276 --> 0:05:01.716 of teachers in this room right now. How many teachers 0:05:01.716 --> 0:05:04.436 do you know personally? I'm sure all of us. The 0:05:04.476 --> 0:05:07.756 list is this long. But has any sixteen year old 0:05:07.836 --> 0:05:11.036 ever asked his girlfriend to come with him to see 0:05:11.036 --> 0:05:16.076 the new teacher movie at the multiplex? No, the creative 0:05:16.156 --> 0:05:20.956 role was taught by teachers, nurtured by teachers, encouraged by teachers. 0:05:20.956 --> 0:05:22.996 But they don't want to tell us stories about teachers. 0:05:23.396 --> 0:05:26.876 They want to tell us stories about cops. There are 0:05:26.916 --> 0:05:30.076 only seven hundred thousand police officers in this country, but 0:05:30.156 --> 0:05:35.036 they are massively overrepresented in the culture. My guess is 0:05:35.076 --> 0:05:38.836 that almost everyone in this room can name way more 0:05:39.196 --> 0:05:43.156 fictional police officers than they can name real police officers. 0:05:43.796 --> 0:05:47.276 Have you ever heard a real police officer refer to 0:05:47.356 --> 0:05:50.836 a purp? Have you ever heard a real police officer 0:05:51.156 --> 0:05:53.636 talk about a cold case. Have you ever heard a 0:05:53.676 --> 0:05:56.876 real police officer say you have the right to remain silent. 0:05:57.756 --> 0:06:00.236 Have you ever heard a real police officer say of 0:06:00.316 --> 0:06:04.156 his partner, if you're going in there, I'm going in 0:06:04.156 --> 0:06:08.596 there with you too. Or hold on, Jimmy, just hold on. 0:06:09.356 --> 0:06:15.276 Remember when we were rookies together, Jimmy, No, no, no. 0:06:17.356 --> 0:06:20.996 Virtually everything we know about the police comes from the 0:06:21.036 --> 0:06:27.636 movies and television and novels. Right, martians currently circling the 0:06:27.716 --> 0:06:30.836 United States in a hot air balloon. If I'm sorry, 0:06:31.076 --> 0:06:35.036 If one of those Martians currently circulating the United States 0:06:35.076 --> 0:06:37.916 in a hot air balloon ever gets a Netflix subscription, 0:06:38.396 --> 0:06:40.596 they will say, my god, we appear to have stumbled 0:06:41.196 --> 0:06:43.476 on a country of people running around in tight blue 0:06:43.556 --> 0:06:47.956 uniforms and wearing aviator classes. So today I want to 0:06:47.956 --> 0:06:51.876 ask the question, what have we learned from our immersion 0:06:51.996 --> 0:06:55.076 in all these police procedurals and crime novels, and what 0:06:55.116 --> 0:06:58.716 are the social consequences of that learning? Which is an 0:06:58.716 --> 0:07:02.276 important question, because I think all of those crime books 0:07:02.476 --> 0:07:06.996 and movies have really really screwed us up. Okay, let's 0:07:07.036 --> 0:07:09.796 begin with Ed McMain. Now, for those of you who 0:07:09.836 --> 0:07:12.036 may not be familiar with Ed McBain, he was, in 0:07:12.076 --> 0:07:16.116 the postwar years, one of America's most popular mystery writers. 0:07:16.476 --> 0:07:20.556 He wrote police Procedurals about a fictional eighty seventh precinct, 0:07:21.516 --> 0:07:25.876 and the officers in his precinct were all young men. 0:07:26.516 --> 0:07:29.316 They were all had very pretty wives, they were all 0:07:29.356 --> 0:07:33.596 happily married. They all got along wonderfully. They worked together well. 0:07:34.076 --> 0:07:36.036 And I want to read to you from one of 0:07:36.076 --> 0:07:39.156 the novels in that series, called The Killer's Wedge, and 0:07:39.156 --> 0:07:43.196 it's about one of the officers in the eighty seventh precinct, 0:07:43.236 --> 0:07:46.956 Cotton Hawes, who's just been transferred in from another precinct, 0:07:47.756 --> 0:07:50.316 and the eighty seventh is in a bad part of town, 0:07:50.396 --> 0:07:52.356 and he initially has all kinds of doubts about what 0:07:52.396 --> 0:07:54.836 it would mean to work a poor part of town. 0:07:55.516 --> 0:07:58.876 So this is Ed McBain talking about how Cotton Hawes 0:07:58.916 --> 0:08:02.636 is making sense of his experience. He had learned that 0:08:02.636 --> 0:08:05.476 the people of the slums were only people. They enjoyed 0:08:05.516 --> 0:08:08.076 the same pleasures he did, and they suffered a great 0:08:08.076 --> 0:08:11.556 many misfortunes would never have to suffer. They wanted love, 0:08:11.596 --> 0:08:14.196 and they wanted respect, And the walls of a tenement 0:08:14.236 --> 0:08:17.356 did not necessarily become the cage of an animal. He 0:08:17.396 --> 0:08:20.276 had learned this from the men of the squad. He 0:08:20.316 --> 0:08:22.636 had seen each and every one of them in action. 0:08:23.716 --> 0:08:26.356 Then he goes on, but he was surprised to learn 0:08:26.356 --> 0:08:28.316 that the men of the eighty seventh clung to another 0:08:28.396 --> 0:08:31.516 concept which in no way limited the effectiveness of their 0:08:31.556 --> 0:08:35.676 law enforcement. That concept was fairness. And within this concept 0:08:35.836 --> 0:08:38.196 they knew when to get tough and when to understand. 0:08:38.596 --> 0:08:42.516 They did not automatically equate slum dwellers with criminals. A 0:08:42.556 --> 0:08:46.196 thief was a thief, but a person was a person. 0:08:47.156 --> 0:08:52.236 Now this is eight remarkably idealized view of law enforcement, right. 0:08:52.676 --> 0:08:54.556 I mean, let me give you another example from the 0:08:54.556 --> 0:08:58.156 same era, eighteen fifties, which is, of course, the television 0:08:58.196 --> 0:09:02.436 show Dragnet, created by Jack Webb. At its height, Dragnet 0:09:02.716 --> 0:09:07.116 is an astonishingly popular television show. At one point of 0:09:07.156 --> 0:09:11.036 the twenty seven million American homes with televisions, sixteen million 0:09:11.076 --> 0:09:14.676 will be tuned to Dragnet. On Thursday nights when it ran, 0:09:14.716 --> 0:09:19.716 which is a number that has never been approximated since 0:09:20.796 --> 0:09:23.236 it's an insane number. And Dragnet is a show about 0:09:23.276 --> 0:09:27.636 the LPD, and it's the story of a group of dispassionate, 0:09:28.156 --> 0:09:33.276 unbelievably professional, highly competent police officers. One of my favorite 0:09:33.356 --> 0:09:38.116 Dragnet episodes involved Joe Friday, who is the hero of Dragnet, 0:09:38.476 --> 0:09:40.756 arresting a woman for a crime and at the end 0:09:40.796 --> 0:09:46.156 of the episode, the woman he arrests thanks him for 0:09:46.276 --> 0:09:51.876 arresting her, which when has this ever happened in real 0:09:51.916 --> 0:09:56.236 life ever? But it happened in Dragnet. And you know, 0:09:56.436 --> 0:09:58.636 you could make a list of the if you make 0:09:58.636 --> 0:10:00.556 a list of it's a very fun exercise of the 0:10:00.596 --> 0:10:04.236 tops the five most influential television shows of all time 0:10:04.356 --> 0:10:09.076 right sixty minutes. Probably The Real World, which kind of 0:10:09.156 --> 0:10:13.796 invents reality TV, probably put The Cosby Show on there 0:10:13.956 --> 0:10:17.676 for its influence on race relations. But it absolutely is 0:10:17.756 --> 0:10:19.756 the case that Dragnet is one of the five most 0:10:19.996 --> 0:10:23.716 influential and important television shows of all time. And it 0:10:23.756 --> 0:10:26.636 belongs in that list because what it does is it 0:10:26.676 --> 0:10:30.836 represents the first time on television that the same idea 0:10:30.876 --> 0:10:35.236 that Ed McBain has is put forth, and which is 0:10:35.276 --> 0:10:39.036 this notion that the police are good at what they do. Right. 0:10:39.476 --> 0:10:41.876 I'm quoting here from a Time magazine article on Dragnet 0:10:41.876 --> 0:10:45.476 when it first became a hit. The flood of Dragnet 0:10:45.836 --> 0:10:48.756 fan mail suggests that the US completely forgets that it 0:10:48.796 --> 0:10:52.516 is a nation of incipient cop haters when its eyes 0:10:52.556 --> 0:10:55.516 are glued on web show, that it has gained a 0:10:55.556 --> 0:10:59.836 new appreciation of the underpaid, long suffering ordinary policemen, and 0:10:59.876 --> 0:11:03.276 in many cases, its first rudimentary understanding of real life 0:11:03.356 --> 0:11:08.076 law enforcement. So this is Time Magazine in the nineteen fifties, 0:11:08.476 --> 0:11:11.876 when it was the embodiment of Middle America, describing the 0:11:11.996 --> 0:11:16.956 United States as a nation of incipient cop haters. You know, 0:11:16.996 --> 0:11:19.276 today when we think of cop paters, we think of 0:11:19.356 --> 0:11:24.796 you know, progressives, radicalized activists, civil rights zealots. You know, 0:11:25.636 --> 0:11:29.916 back then, Time Magazine is saying America, Middle America were 0:11:29.916 --> 0:11:34.076 the cop haters until people like Ed McBain and Dragon 0:11:34.196 --> 0:11:40.436 Kim along and convinced Americans that their perception of law 0:11:40.516 --> 0:11:45.556 enforcement was wrong. Right. Those shows represent a massive narrative innovation. 0:11:46.196 --> 0:11:49.116 They introduced Americas to an idea that had never occurred 0:11:49.156 --> 0:11:51.276 to them before, and that is the idea of the 0:11:51.356 --> 0:11:56.556 excellent police officer. More on the taxonomy of the modern 0:11:56.596 --> 0:12:14.636 mystery story in a moment. Now back to my speech 0:12:15.036 --> 0:12:23.076 on the taxonomy of police storytelling. Now, this is, of course, 0:12:23.116 --> 0:12:27.076 not the only way that the popular culture represents law enforcement. 0:12:27.396 --> 0:12:31.876 Before Dragon came along, the dominant narrative mode was the Western. 0:12:32.436 --> 0:12:35.436 And what is the Western? It's the parable about the 0:12:35.476 --> 0:12:40.436 consequences of the absence of institutional authority. What do you 0:12:40.596 --> 0:12:43.396 do in your little town on the plains when there 0:12:43.436 --> 0:12:47.876 is no police department. Well, ordinary citizens, possessed of no 0:12:47.996 --> 0:12:50.796 more than their own courage and a six shooter, have 0:12:50.916 --> 0:12:54.836 to restore order on their own. Now, alongside that, you 0:12:54.916 --> 0:12:58.876 had the rise in fiction of the private detective. Herkilpoio 0:12:59.236 --> 0:13:03.356 Sherlock Hoomb's Philip Marlowe Angela Lansbury in Murders, she wrote, 0:13:03.596 --> 0:13:07.076 and what is the prevailing view of law enforcement in 0:13:07.156 --> 0:13:10.036 the world of the private detective? It is that the 0:13:10.156 --> 0:13:15.436 police are present, but they're incompetent. They can only catch 0:13:15.556 --> 0:13:19.196 bad guys with the help of talented outsiders. Right, babamitters, 0:13:19.756 --> 0:13:22.796 If you've read your Sholacombs, you know all about Jola Colmes' 0:13:23.196 --> 0:13:28.596 long relationship with Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Lestrade is honest, 0:13:28.876 --> 0:13:32.596 he's dogged, he's hard working, but he lacks imagination and 0:13:32.636 --> 0:13:35.196 he can't solve a crime to save his life. And 0:13:35.236 --> 0:13:38.476 there's a moment in the adventure in the Adventures of 0:13:38.476 --> 0:13:42.396 the Six Napoleons in nineteen hundred when we have this 0:13:42.436 --> 0:13:46.876 passage Lestrade is addressing Holmes after Holmes has just done 0:13:46.916 --> 0:13:49.956 one of his spectacular feats of deduction and figured out 0:13:49.956 --> 0:13:54.356 who the real criminal is, and Lestre says, we are 0:13:54.356 --> 0:13:56.796 not jealous of you at Scotland Yard, No, sir, we 0:13:56.836 --> 0:13:59.756 are very proud of you. And if you come down tomorrow, 0:13:59.996 --> 0:14:02.436 there's not a man from the oldest inspector to the 0:14:02.436 --> 0:14:05.476 youngest constable who wouldn't be glad to shake you by 0:14:05.476 --> 0:14:09.676 the hand. So at Scotland Yard they are under absolutely 0:14:09.716 --> 0:14:14.156 no illusion about their own ability, right. They know Holmes 0:14:14.276 --> 0:14:16.956 is better than they are. They know that they're useless 0:14:16.996 --> 0:14:19.516 at this task of crime solving, and that the guy 0:14:19.516 --> 0:14:22.196 with the pipe and the crazy hat from Baker Street 0:14:22.396 --> 0:14:24.436 is the only way they're going to keep the criminals 0:14:24.476 --> 0:14:27.716 of London under control. Same thing in Agatha Christie's her 0:14:27.796 --> 0:14:31.436 kil Paro novels. Right, her kile Paro is solving crime 0:14:31.476 --> 0:14:36.236 after crime to the extent the police ever show up. Right, 0:14:37.076 --> 0:14:39.156 when they show up, they have no idea what's going on. 0:14:39.476 --> 0:14:41.916 And he looks at them, our little Belgian with the 0:14:41.996 --> 0:14:45.676 mustaches looks at the police with absolute contempt because he's 0:14:45.716 --> 0:14:48.836 the only one who can ever finger the bad guy. Right. 0:14:49.556 --> 0:14:55.396 So we have stories about highly competent cops, and for 0:14:55.436 --> 0:14:59.556 the sake of argument, let's call those Easterns. We have 0:14:59.636 --> 0:15:04.156 stories about absent cops. Let's call those Westerns, right, they 0:15:04.156 --> 0:15:09.756 are called Westerns. And we have stories about incompetent cops. 0:15:09.796 --> 0:15:14.676 And let's call those northerns, which only leaves the southern. 0:15:14.876 --> 0:15:18.876 So what's the Southern. Well, the Southern is the narrative 0:15:18.956 --> 0:15:21.676 of the police and authority as malignant. 0:15:22.236 --> 0:15:22.396 Right. 0:15:22.476 --> 0:15:26.796 Think about the great Brian de Palmer movie The Untouchables, 0:15:26.836 --> 0:15:30.156 with Kevin Costner playing the role of elliot Ness, Right, 0:15:30.156 --> 0:15:34.196 the incorruptible Chicago District Attorney elliot Ness who goes on 0:15:34.276 --> 0:15:37.116 his crusade against the mob during the heart of Prohibition. 0:15:37.556 --> 0:15:41.436 The reason it matters that Ness is incorruptible is that 0:15:41.556 --> 0:15:46.036 all around him. The police of Chicago are corruptible, right. 0:15:46.116 --> 0:15:50.436 They're not absent, they're not incompetent, They're not deaft and professional. No, 0:15:50.756 --> 0:15:53.796 they have been seduced by the criminality that they're supposed 0:15:53.796 --> 0:15:57.396 to contain. They are indistinguishable from the bad guys. That's 0:15:57.396 --> 0:16:00.716 what a Southern is, right. So these are the four 0:16:00.876 --> 0:16:09.916 kinds of police stories. Excellence, absence, incompetence, corruption, And this 0:16:09.996 --> 0:16:12.396 is the first. Here's the first of my claims. I 0:16:12.436 --> 0:16:16.796 think that every single example of a crime novel or 0:16:16.836 --> 0:16:20.396 a police procedural falls into one of these four categories 0:16:20.796 --> 0:16:25.436 without exception. So let's explore this. I assume some of 0:16:25.476 --> 0:16:29.156 you have read the Lee Child Jack Reacher series, and 0:16:29.196 --> 0:16:32.876 if you haven't, you need to start right after this. 0:16:33.516 --> 0:16:35.956 The talk is over. I once said a back of 0:16:35.956 --> 0:16:39.036 the envelope calculation based on the very large sample of 0:16:39.116 --> 0:16:42.116 Jack Reacher novels that I've read, which, as it follows, 0:16:42.836 --> 0:16:49.596 Reacher kills on average twelve bad guys per book. There 0:16:49.596 --> 0:16:53.556 are twenty six Reacher books, meaning that he has murdered 0:16:53.556 --> 0:16:56.516 two hundred and eighty four people over the course of 0:16:56.556 --> 0:16:59.396 his life. He is the most prolific serial killer in 0:16:59.476 --> 0:17:04.396 American fiction and yet twenty six years after Jack Reacher 0:17:04.436 --> 0:17:08.116 first appeared in The Killing Floor, he remains at large. 0:17:08.916 --> 0:17:11.876 This is pretty good evidence that the police are absent 0:17:12.676 --> 0:17:17.196 in the Reacher series, the Reacher novels, the Westerns. Only 0:17:17.236 --> 0:17:18.876 in the Western can you get away with killing two 0:17:18.916 --> 0:17:22.236 hundred and four people and remain a large right for 0:17:22.356 --> 0:17:26.156 the Northern For the incompetent police. We have more examples 0:17:26.316 --> 0:17:29.916 than we can count. But the one that I remember 0:17:29.956 --> 0:17:31.876 from my childhood, and many of you are old enough 0:17:31.956 --> 0:17:35.796 to remember this as well, is Hogan's Heroes, the legendary 0:17:35.916 --> 0:17:39.476 nineteen seventies sitcom. For those of you who are too 0:17:39.516 --> 0:17:43.276 young to remember Hogan's Heroes, it was a hugely successful 0:17:43.276 --> 0:17:46.276 TV show set in a German prisoner of war camp 0:17:46.396 --> 0:17:49.476 during the Second World War, in which the comic foils 0:17:49.516 --> 0:17:57.116 of the captured German soldiers were Nazi prison guards. Don't 0:17:57.116 --> 0:18:00.036 even try pitching that show today, by the way, because 0:18:01.676 --> 0:18:04.196 and why do we laugh at the Nazis, if memory 0:18:04.196 --> 0:18:10.796 serves Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz right, Not because they 0:18:10.796 --> 0:18:19.276 are malicious or vicious, not because they are ineffective or indifferent. No, 0:18:19.636 --> 0:18:23.276 we laugh at them because they're inapt. Because Clink is 0:18:23.316 --> 0:18:26.956 a self important fool, because Schultz is a clown who 0:18:26.956 --> 0:18:30.876 says I know nothing, I see nothing. Right. The literary 0:18:30.916 --> 0:18:35.796 conceit of Hogan's heroes is that is that the Nazis 0:18:35.796 --> 0:18:39.356 were the three Stooges, which is a northern That's what 0:18:39.396 --> 0:18:43.756 it is. Right. Then there's the Southern authority as malignant 0:18:43.756 --> 0:18:46.396 and corrupt. Who is the king of the Southern Well, 0:18:46.436 --> 0:18:48.836 I think it's obvious if you think about it, it's 0:18:49.516 --> 0:18:53.276 John Grisham. The plot of every John Grisham novel ever, 0:18:53.356 --> 0:18:56.076 and I say this as someone who loves John Grisham 0:18:56.116 --> 0:19:01.196 like a brother, is about the subversion of institutional authority. 0:19:01.636 --> 0:19:05.396 How does the Pelican Brief end? The richest man in 0:19:05.396 --> 0:19:09.196 the country is under indictment, as are his closest aids 0:19:09.236 --> 0:19:11.476 and all of his lawyers. The chief of staff to 0:19:11.516 --> 0:19:14.516 the President of the United States has resigned, and the 0:19:14.556 --> 0:19:19.116 President himself has wisely decided not to seek a second term. 0:19:19.436 --> 0:19:22.316 In the firm, our hero, played in the movie version 0:19:22.316 --> 0:19:25.436 by Tom Cruise, discovers that the biggest client of his 0:19:25.516 --> 0:19:30.996 law firm is a mafia crime family. The FBI gets involved, 0:19:30.996 --> 0:19:33.196 and we think the movie is going to end with 0:19:33.236 --> 0:19:38.836 the FBI helping Tom Cruise resolve the matter. But no, 0:19:39.476 --> 0:19:41.876 what does our hero do. He ends up making a 0:19:41.956 --> 0:19:44.956 deal with the mafia crime family and turning his back 0:19:45.076 --> 0:19:49.436 on the FBI. Why because the FBI double crosses him. 0:19:49.676 --> 0:19:52.676 Of course they do, right, this is a Grisham novel. Right, 0:19:52.916 --> 0:19:56.316 the law is less trustworthy than a mafia crime family. 0:19:57.716 --> 0:20:00.956 I have argued long, at hard over the years to 0:20:01.436 --> 0:20:05.236 very deaf ears that Grisham is the most important literary 0:20:05.236 --> 0:20:09.396 figure of our generation. And I'm not joking. I mean, 0:20:10.636 --> 0:20:13.476 why did so many Americans think the twenty twenty two 0:20:13.556 --> 0:20:18.356 election was stolen, that truckloads of purloined ballots were ferried 0:20:18.356 --> 0:20:21.796 around Philadelphia in the back of pickup trucks, that voting 0:20:21.836 --> 0:20:27.876 machines magically preferred Democrats to Republicans. Because these are the 0:20:27.956 --> 0:20:29.756 kinds of things that happen all the time in John 0:20:29.796 --> 0:20:33.916 grisham novels. Right, And given that John Grisham has sold 0:20:33.956 --> 0:20:38.556 three hundred million books and has had twenty eight consecutive 0:20:38.596 --> 0:20:41.756 number one New York Times bestsellers, it is a statistical 0:20:42.276 --> 0:20:45.196 certainty that a good majority of the people wearing mega 0:20:45.236 --> 0:20:50.156 hats and storming the Capitol on January sixth read a 0:20:50.276 --> 0:20:55.716 Grisham book every night before bedtime, after of course being 0:20:55.756 --> 0:21:01.836 inoculated with their daily dose of Tucker cars. Let's still 0:21:01.876 --> 0:21:05.436 more difficult example. Some of you may have seen the 0:21:05.596 --> 0:21:11.036 new Apple TV series Slow Horse, based on the mickhern 0:21:11.476 --> 0:21:15.796 Spy novels. The show is about an intelligence officer played 0:21:15.836 --> 0:21:19.276 by Gary Oldham who has been exiled to a decrepit 0:21:19.556 --> 0:21:23.956 outbuilding called slow House and along with all the other misfits, 0:21:23.996 --> 0:21:27.676 all the other rejects, screw ups, weirdos who can no 0:21:27.716 --> 0:21:32.196 longer make it within I five headquarters. So what's that? Well, 0:21:32.236 --> 0:21:36.476 that that sounds like a Northern right, It's an authority 0:21:36.516 --> 0:21:37.196 is incompetent. 0:21:37.316 --> 0:21:37.516 Right. 0:21:37.596 --> 0:21:40.156 We have a group of screw ups, but then the 0:21:40.236 --> 0:21:42.636 slow House crew go on to solve some of the 0:21:42.676 --> 0:21:46.876 most pressing national security crises of the day, which makes 0:21:46.916 --> 0:21:50.356 it sound like an Eastern like a dragnet and Ed 0:21:50.436 --> 0:21:55.916 McBain like uber competent authority. So it doesn't fit, right, 0:21:56.076 --> 0:22:01.716 Doesn't that invalidate my theory? No? No, no, Slow Horses 0:22:02.076 --> 0:22:05.796 is just a hybrid, right. It's hybrids have been around forever. 0:22:06.036 --> 0:22:09.556 If you remember how many people read Scarlet Pimpernel novels 0:22:09.596 --> 0:22:12.596 growing up. What is the scarlet pimpernel. He is the 0:22:12.596 --> 0:22:16.756 nobleman who everyone thinks is stupid but is simultaneously outwitting 0:22:16.796 --> 0:22:17.876 all of the evil French. 0:22:18.236 --> 0:22:18.396 Right. 0:22:18.596 --> 0:22:22.756 Or think about Columbo, right, the magnificent nineteen seventies television 0:22:22.796 --> 0:22:26.836 detective series, but where Peter Falk pretends to be a 0:22:26.876 --> 0:22:30.996 bumbling fool but always gets the bad guy in the end. 0:22:31.636 --> 0:22:39.236 These are Easterns masquerading as Northerns. They're Northeasterns. There are 0:22:39.276 --> 0:22:39.916 no easters. 0:22:40.476 --> 0:22:40.676 Right. 0:22:41.356 --> 0:22:44.836 What does Hamlet say to Horatio? There are more things 0:22:44.996 --> 0:22:48.556 in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 0:22:48.756 --> 0:22:52.636 That does not apply to my taxonomy. Okay, Why am 0:22:52.676 --> 0:22:55.716 I going on and on about the four categories? Because 0:22:55.716 --> 0:22:59.756 I think they're deeply problematic, and I think they distort 0:22:59.836 --> 0:23:03.396 our understanding of what policing is. And here I'm going 0:23:03.476 --> 0:23:07.276 to go on a digression and simultaneously get a little 0:23:07.316 --> 0:23:11.516 bit serious. The father of modern policing was a man 0:23:11.596 --> 0:23:15.116 named Sir Robert Peel, and he founds the Metropolitan Police 0:23:15.116 --> 0:23:17.956 Force in London in eighteen twenty nine, which is the 0:23:17.956 --> 0:23:22.036 first great urban police department. And Peel famously sets out 0:23:22.596 --> 0:23:27.396 nine principles that he thinks ought to govern modern police forces, 0:23:27.436 --> 0:23:31.116 and they are as applicable, if not more applicable, today 0:23:31.596 --> 0:23:34.196 than they were in eighteen twenty nine. They are the 0:23:34.236 --> 0:23:37.476 ten commandments of policing. They're what every police officer is 0:23:37.516 --> 0:23:40.876 taught on the first day of their time at police academy. 0:23:41.156 --> 0:23:42.436 And to give you a flavor, I'm going to read 0:23:42.436 --> 0:23:47.156 a couple of Peel's principles. The ability of the police 0:23:47.156 --> 0:23:51.116 to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of 0:23:51.196 --> 0:23:55.916 police existence, actions, behavior, and the ability of the police 0:23:56.236 --> 0:24:01.836 to secure and maintain public respect. He's another one. The 0:24:01.876 --> 0:24:06.156 police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in 0:24:06.236 --> 0:24:09.356 voluntary observance of the law to be able to maintain 0:24:09.916 --> 0:24:14.596 and secure public respect. There's another one. The degree of 0:24:14.676 --> 0:24:19.316 cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately 0:24:19.556 --> 0:24:22.196 to the necessity for the use of physical force and 0:24:22.236 --> 0:24:26.796 compulsion in achieving police objectives. And here's the crucial one. 0:24:27.396 --> 0:24:30.676 The police at all times should maintain a relationship with 0:24:30.756 --> 0:24:34.716 the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that 0:24:34.756 --> 0:24:38.116 the police are the public and the public are the police. 0:24:38.796 --> 0:24:38.996 Right. 0:24:40.036 --> 0:24:42.236 What is the word that appears in all of those 0:24:42.236 --> 0:24:49.076 principles as often as police. It's public right, public, public, public. 0:24:49.196 --> 0:24:52.276 The police are the public and the public are the police. 0:24:52.636 --> 0:24:55.116 I would submit to you that that those two sentences 0:24:55.116 --> 0:24:57.996 are one of the most beautiful and essential lines that 0:24:58.036 --> 0:25:02.796 have ever been written about the modern democratic experiment. Now 0:25:03.756 --> 0:25:07.916 where are we today with respect to Peel's principles in America? 0:25:08.236 --> 0:25:10.996 Are we a societ that believes that the people are 0:25:11.036 --> 0:25:15.716 the police and the police are the people? I'm not 0:25:15.796 --> 0:25:18.716 so sure of that. One of the ways, for example, 0:25:18.756 --> 0:25:22.636 that we measure the health and effectiveness of a police 0:25:22.636 --> 0:25:26.556 force is clearance rates. A clearance rate is simply the 0:25:26.876 --> 0:25:30.236 percentage of crimes that are solved by the police, and 0:25:30.276 --> 0:25:33.156 the most important of those, obviously, is the homicide clearance rate. 0:25:34.276 --> 0:25:37.756 And over the last thirty years, the homicide clearance rate 0:25:37.876 --> 0:25:40.996 in this country has been falling, and not by a 0:25:41.036 --> 0:25:43.916 small amount, by a large amount. Thirty years ago it 0:25:43.956 --> 0:25:49.916 was roughly seventy percent. It's now fifty percent. So half 0:25:49.956 --> 0:25:53.796 of all murders committed in the United States go unsolved 0:25:54.196 --> 0:25:56.636 by the police. And by the way, that's an average. 0:25:57.036 --> 0:25:58.956 There are many many places where the clearance rate is 0:25:59.036 --> 0:26:02.316 much lower than that. The clearance rate in Michigan is 0:26:02.396 --> 0:26:07.956 seventeen percent for homicide. In Honolulu it's eighteen percent. It 0:26:07.956 --> 0:26:11.116 also varies by neighborhoo. But if somebody was murdered outside 0:26:11.156 --> 0:26:14.276 of this auditorium here in Tulane, the clearance rate would 0:26:14.276 --> 0:26:16.436 probably be ninety percent, but in the seventh ward it's 0:26:16.476 --> 0:26:20.476 probably I don't know, ten fifteen percent. Right, That is 0:26:20.516 --> 0:26:24.636 a very, very big problem for modern society. In the 0:26:24.756 --> 0:26:31.516 classic formulation of deterrence, deterrence is a function of the certainty, swiftness, 0:26:31.996 --> 0:26:35.556 and severity of punishment. And of those three things, the 0:26:35.596 --> 0:26:39.156