Some time ago (PJ, April 17, 1999, p526) I pondered the awkward question of why people do things which, on the face of it, fail to make sense. Since then I have come across acts of vandalism, crimes of violence and so much perverse behaviour that I think it is high time society looked seriously at its duty to disinter motive, something apart from determining who performed an antisocial action and prescribing a punishment to meet the case.
As regards the universal verities which govern us whether we will or not, we may place these firmly in the province of the philosopher and the theologian. In a narrower realm there is wide scope for serious investigation of the motives behind acts which scandalise society and are the despair of level-minded folk, and of the individual characteristics which lead people to commit them.
The term "motive" is often invoked, according to orthodox philosophy, when there is a departure from normal reasons why someone should behave in the way that he or she does. We may talk of unconscious motivation when we cannot see a logical cause for a pattern of behaviour. There may be as many distinct reasons for an act as there are individuals performing it.
There are, however, some powerful factors influencing behaviour in any social situation.We hear much of "peer pressure" to explain the spread of juvenile delinquency. Children take drugs because they are persuaded to do so by others. They do not understand that this shows weakness, not strength. In the last analysis, it means that the individual is too spineless to follow his or her own convictions when they run contrary to those of their peers and neighbours. "Everybody does it" is not a reason: it is the abandonment of individual choice; it is the mentality of the wolf-pack.
As Wilfred Trotter argues in his classic 'Instincts of the herd in peace and war' (l919), man owes to his social habit this resistance to new concepts which would improve society, his submission to tradition and precedent, however stupid, and the fact that the government of communities tends to lie within the hands of insensitive traditionalists who are not open to experience. Trotter's text is uncannily topical when it comes to a discussion of the lax handling of goods, and food in particular, and the time and money we waste on making things which are neither useful nor beautiful.
In our time, possibly more than in the past, we are plagued by senseless vandalism and lethal violence. Our ancient monuments are defaced for no reason by people whose motives we cannot imagine, unless they are crazy. Our edifices are despoiled. We can invoke the factor of drugs, including alcohol, in the destructive tendency so rife among us. Yet we do not know. And in most individual instances we take few pains to study the possible motives of criminals.
Merely looking for a legal conviction and awarding a penalty is scratching the surface of the problem. We must invest more resources in seeking out the motives governing those who commit acts of vandalism and violence, and in inculcating socially useful ones.