The UK has recently witnessed a surge of violence and unrest following the tragic murder of three young girls by a young man later identified as black. Prior to his identification, far-right extremists seized upon the incident to stoke racial tensions, falsely portraying the perpetrator as a Muslim asylum seeker. In reality, the youth, is of Rwandan Christian heritage and was born in the UK. The ensuing riots, fuelled by misinformation and racial animosity, have led to widespread property damage, confrontations with law enforcement and hundreds of arrests.
Amidst this chaos, Sir Tom Windsor, former Chief Inspector of the Constabulary, has made controversial remarks condemning the rioters, labelling them as individuals of “low intelligence and even lower morality.” (Speaking to Mishaal Hussein, PM, Radio 4, 5 Aug 2024). While his remarks might be seen as harsh, Sir Tom paints a vivid picture of the rioters—individuals who seem to fit the classic mould of murderous, malodorous thugs, swilling beer and spewing racism as they hurl missiles, set fire to libraries and hotels, and attack anyone who is black, looks like a Muslim, or appears remotely foreign.
No one should be outraged by Sir Tom’s estimation. To all appearances, the rioters are brutes—or at best, beasts of the field with language. However, the interesting question is, how did they end up like this? After all, they share the same human form as Sir Tom. Are they, by some divine or natural decree, inherently inferior to the esteemed knight, incapable of the knowledge and moral principles that would make them civil beings like himself?
To unpack this question, rather than focusing solely on how the “brutes” behave, perhaps we should examine how they are forced to live. Do they earn a decent wage to buy decent food? Do they live in housing and streets that are not only decent but well-kept, safe, calm, and aesthetically pleasing? Do they enjoy robust educational and healthcare systems free of private exploitation? Do they attend schools that are pleasant green spaces, nurturing minds to love beauty and care for others and their environment? Are they taught that those who seek asylum here would not endanger themselves if they, too, lived in an equitable world that did not hoard opportunity and plunder wealth?
Surely intelligent Sir Tom would know all this. If society forces people to live like brutes while possessing every means to allow them to live well, should it be surprised when they behave like brutes?
Of course, individual agency and responsibility must be considered. Indeed, most people, even when facing unfair disadvantage and harsh conditions, do not immediately resort to brutish behaviour and may even become more humane, as seen among those who aided mosque-goers and helped clean up in the aftermath. Nonetheless, society cannot demand its citizens be saints while treating them like brutes, forcing them to choose between “eating or heating,” begging from food banks, and taking the lowliest jobs for the lowest pay, assuming there is work to be found. Society’s immediate concern should be cohesion and equity based on peace, law, order, and prosperity—not the morality of the citizen. Although, it also goes without saying, society should never act in a way that undermines individual morality.
Bestowed with this responsibility for societal cohesion and equity, those who govern must ensure that conditions for fulfilling this mission are met. In The Republic, which is not known for its progressive, egalitarian views on social justice, Plato nonetheless acknowledges that those with sufficient means are discouraged from errant behaviour. “What has been the value of your wealth?” Socrates asks a wealthy Athenian named Cephalous. “That I have not needed to do those things that are considered against the law so as to live a good life,” answers Cephalous. Even 2,500 years ago, it was understood that sufficient means to live well, with all needs met and perhaps a little more, while not a guarantee against errant behaviour, is nonetheless the best way to minimize it.
Ideally, the means to resist errant or brutish behaviour should reside morally within the individual. But in reality, some may not muster the moral resources to always remain civil because, unlike Sir Tom, not all have had the privilege (at some point, at least) to develop them. Certainly, some by nature may be inclined to be moral to the last. Others, however, may reach their limit sooner. And some may even decide to put their morality aside in the face of perceived injustices.
Except for alleged saints and rare individuals such as Gandhi and Mandela, moral integrity in the face of injustice is not an infinite and inexhaustible resource. In recognition of this, society’s responsibility, given to it by the citizen, is to provide the means that support the moral integrity of the individual—not to condemn the individual as irredeemably and solely responsible for their moral degradation.
Perhaps the ideal of true social justice will never be realized. But let it be known to Sir Tom that those unintelligent, immoral brutes among us are not destined to be so by birth but are nurtured by the very system that now condemns them.
So if we are to talk about intelligence and morality, surely the knights, lords, politicians, and captains of industry—honoured no doubt for their intelligence and moral integrity—must bear a greater responsibility for the breakdown of society than those actually breaking it down.
In science, finding solutions means getting to the bottom layers of reality. In society and politics, which are anything but scientific, it means going straight to the top.