Out of the three novels, the police from The Parable of the Sower have stuck out to me the most and felt the most like the police we have today. Maybe it was because the police from The Handmaid's Tail and 1984 have different names than just "the police." However, some aspects of the way the police act are very reminiscent of our own police. For example, Lauren accuses the police (although not to their faces) of "finding evidence" to convict whoever they decide is guilty. This definitely seemed like a critique on the corruption within our police system. More specifically, the police's habit of getting false confessions out of people in order to close cases and ensure they keep making money. In many communities (especially in some poor African-American communities), the police will find a way to get a confession out of an innocent person by offering them a shorter sentence if they confess. In these communities accepting these shortened terms is actually a better deal than going to court and losing (which they often do even when they're innocent--maybe because of racism but that's a different issue). It's even become quite common in some of these communities to spend a lot of time in jail having never committed a crime.
Additionally, the lack of cooperation with police from the community and the distrust of the police by the community remind me a lot of the way our own justice system works. The blatant corruption and the public knowledge of the police's tendency to wrongfully convict (or kill) people causes a lot of animosity towards the police. This kind of animosity creates a system where very few people actually trust the police. (For example, even for me as a white guy who also looks pretty harmless, my dad has always told me to avoid police and talking to police at all). This applies especially to certain communities where people just run when they see the police, whether or not they've done anything.
The final thing that reminds me a lot of our society from the parable of the sower is how expensive the police are. In a lot of situations, a functional police force can be a necessary thing to have. They can even save lives. To me, this doesn't remind me of our actual justice system (although court fees are a thing and lawyers also cost money so maybe it's not too far off) it reminds me a lot of our healthcare system which costs way too much and causes people to just not go to the doctor when they're sick. Anyway, what do you guys think, am I reading too much into this or are the police from The Parable if the Sower very similar to our own?
I agree that the police from POTS are the most similar to our own police system. I see it as a continuation of the whole society of POTS already being very similar to ours. Though it is very apocalyptic, the general structure is still quite similar to ours, just where some things have gone very wrong. I see their police system as quite similar: structurally like ours, just really bad in some extreme ways that ours isn't.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the police, like most things in Parable of the Sower, mimic our world, but are taken to an extreme. I like your comparison of the paid police force to our healthcare system, because it’s upsettingly accurate. Besides that, I wonder how different Parable of the Sower’s police system is from ours. It’s fairly obvious now that police forcing false confessions and otherwise forging evidence or mistreating suspects isn’t uncommon. So there’s a distrust from some people that is similar to Lauren’s perspective. Many people avoid contacting the police and try to handle situations themselves, like residents of Lauren’s neighborhood do. It almost seems like the police in Parable of the Sower are one of its least exaggerated aspects!
ReplyDeleteThis is certainly something interesting to think about. The police are the states way of enforcing the laws on the common people. Because the police in 1984 and the handmaidens tale are so powerful it reflects how powerful the government is. no one trusting the police in the Parable of the sower reflects how everyone views the government as powerless to stop the carnage outside of the walls. In our society the police seem a little bit more like those of 1984 or handmaidens tale where they are powerful and reflect a powerful and maybe slightly oppressive government.
ReplyDeleteVery nice post Izzir. I agree with most of what you said, including your comments on the POTS policing system being similar to ours. I see a lot of similarities here, with the few obvious exceptions being that they do somethings to the extreme. Maybe you could say the POTS policing system is like a caricature of ours?
ReplyDeleteI definitely see the connections between the parable of the sower police and ours. Another thing that was brought up in our class is how the police take longer to get to poorer places compared to richer places. In parable of the sower we hear they take like an hour or more to get there.
ReplyDeleteI think you are right to draw a comparison between the police of Parable of the Sower and the police of the real world. That being said, I think that our society often does not give our police enough credit and is far quicker to magnify the flaws in our police system than to celebrate its strengths. I think that our police are very much a force for good. The police in Parable of the Sower, not so much.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting and important topic to consider. There are definately a number of aspects of POTS that mimic our world today. Therefore, the novel is a great critical thinking tool! Your comment about our how expensive and often times unaccessible our healthcare system is intriguing because I can see the connection to that and the police in POTS. I think in our world and theirs, it all comes down to power and who holds it. And that's often the scariest part to analyze.
ReplyDeleteGreat work!
DeleteGreat blog post Izzy. I agree with almost everything you said. The POTS system is very similar to the system we have in our world. I would go as far to say that the Parable of the Sower has many things that resemble our modern world we live in today.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that this is 100% true. In the majority of places(especially in more conservative places) the police are trusted. Not only are they trusted, but they are respected. However what your pointing out is correct in the locations where the cops aren't respected.
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