The collapse of the moral universe
Lessons from a 20th century British police TV drama
One of the things I like about blogging / podcasting is that inspiration often comes from surprising places. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had in mind to write about one thing, only to find myself seeing something in the week and feeling compelled to write about that instead. This is one of those occasions. The other day I was watching an episode of Dixon of Dock Green. If you’ve never heard of it, it was a police TV drama which ran from the 1950s to the 1970s. My Dad often used to talk about it when I was growing up, although I never actually watched it (it was before my time!)
The other day, we happened to be watching TV at my Dad’s house, and an episode of Dixon of Dock Green came on. It’s not something we usually watch, or in fact, had ever watched before! It was one of the later episodes, recorded during the 1970s. I was so struck by how different it was from anything that would be made today. It seemed to inhabit almost a completely different universe - specifically, a moral universe.
In order to explain, I’ll need to outline briefly what happens in the story.
The plot
It should be noted that we did miss the first few minutes of the programme, but I think I can fill in the gaps from what we do know. The police station received a call one evening that there was going to be a robbery at a certain address, and that the men involved were “carrying shooters”. CID duly headed over to the house, armed with guns themselves.
At the end of the raid, one of the gang ran out into the back garden being chased by a policeman. There was a loud noise and some confusion, and the policemen who were at the back thought the criminal who’d run out had shot the man behind him. They opened fire, and the criminal was shot and killed.
Later that evening, the subsequent investigation revealed that the criminals hadn’t been carrying guns after all — the police had been misinformed. The rest of the programme followed what happened in that investigation.
Spoiler alert: one of the policemen was guilty. At the end of the programme, Dixon’s monologue states that it went to trial and the jury returned a verdict of “justifiable homicide”.
The law’s moral universe
What I found fascinating about the programme was the way that all of the characters seemed to inhabit a very real and present moral universe:
There was no question of any of the police being given special treatment because they were the police. The fact that they had shot and killed someone was of utmost severity.
They showed no favouritism — the thing that mattered most was for the law to be upheld and justice done. The policeman who had actually made the shot recognised his own guilt and need for consequences.
At one point a character wants to leave to try and clear his name, and Dixon prevents him on moral grounds (it was against their orders) — although he was able to send someone else. But, again, there was no question of him getting away with it just because he was a friend.
All in all, I think it was an excellent example of what policing should be: the police are not above the law. They should police ‘without fear or favour’, that is, the law should be upheld and applied impartially.
As I was watching, it struck me powerfully that I would feel safe and comfortable if our police were like this. Who wouldn’t? Everyone would be treated fairly and proportionally, under the law.
It should be noted that the programme presented — probably intentionally — a ‘rose-tinted’ view of the police, even for the time. Other programmes, such as Life on Mars (one of my favourites) show a different side of the police. Although the moral universe in Life on Mars is still very strong - but that’s a story for another day…
Has the moral universe disappeared?
Whether or not the moral universe of the police ever really existed as depicted in the programme, I think it’s fair to say that it was an aspiration at the time. They recognised it was an ideal to aim for, even if it wasn’t always true in reality. These days, however, I think the police have completely given up on it.
The moral universe of the police seems to be virtually nonexistent at the moment:
The police have been writing people up for ‘non-crime hate incidents,’ even criminalising what people say on social media.
They have arrested street preachers.
They have been criticised for ‘two-tier’ policing looking at the differences in how they policed e.g. lockdown protests with pro-Palestine protests.
In lockdowns, they went above and beyond the law in many cases to stop people meeting outside and going for walks, sitting on benches, etc.
Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of ‘real’ crimes e.g. burglaries, go unsolved - I saw a thread on Twitter about this recently which unfortunately I can’t find just now. But the record of the police in this area is dismal.
These are just a few of the ways that policing has become politicised and subject to the culture war. The police are not seeking to apply the law without fear or favour — they are trying to impose their woke beliefs by force. This is deeply troubling.
When I watched Dixon of Dock Green, it all became clear to me: I don’t want a police state. I don’t want a police force who think I need to be educated about trans issues or the like. I simply want a police force who will seek to uphold the law and apply it fairly and justly.
Sadly, I think the way the police are at the moment is a reflection of where we are as a society in general. The collapse of the moral universe within the police is not surprising given the collapse of the moral universe among the elites in general. Why should the police care about concepts like - say - fairness, when politicians don’t apply it to themselves? Why should the police care about treating protests equally when politicians don’t?
What we are seeing is decades of secularist thinking coming home to roost. Psalm 14 begins:
The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.
Psalm 14:1
When you eliminate God from your moral universe, the rest of the moral universe soon follows. What has happened with the police is happening all across our society. The question is, will we return to God before it is too late?