POLITICS

Know your rights! 👨‍⚖️

Do UK citizens have a right to bear arms? Americans are well-known for having (and in some cases celebrating) a right to possess firearms in their Bill of Rights. But what about Brits?

Well, we (kind of) also have a right to bear arms. But, almost no one has heard of it… because it’s pretty much useless! Article 7 of our Bill of Rights [1688] is still on the statute book:

It’s pretty much useless because it is a right that can so easily be taken or changed. For a start, there’s the outrageous sectarianism in ‘Subjects which are Protestants’. This wouldn’t survive section 4 of the Equality Act 2010.

Even more bizarre for a ‘right’ is that phrase ‘as allowed by Law’. This is almost perfectly pointless. It’s like Parliament saying ‘you can do this, until you can’t, because we say so!’ Indeed, competitive pistol shooters needed special permission from the Home Secretary to practice before the 2012 Olympics. Usually competitive pistol shooters can’t train in the UK at all.

💡 Things to consider

• ‘It depends’ asterisk: This is an extreme case, but it tells us something about rights in the UK. Rights are always stuck with a fat ‘it depends’ asterisk. Unlike in the US, the UK has a sovereign Parliament which cannot bind its successors. So, it would be meaningless for a Parliament in the 17th Century to declare an endless right that any subsequent Parliament could then take away.
  This might on its face seem sensible, given how much trouble there is with US gun control. But it puts an asterisk on all rights. Even long standing ‘rights’ could be swept away by simple majorities in Commons and Lords. We still have rights in force from Magna Carta 1297 and the Habeas Corpus Act 1679 which could be taken. Do you think rights set down in some cases hundreds of years ago should still be in force? Or should each generation work out anew what matters to them?

• The Brits compared to the Americans: One disturbing fact is how few Brits know or care about their rights. Americans are so rights-conscious that they have taught us all about their right to bear arms, or ‘pleading the fifth’! What article would a Brit plead if they wanted to avoid self-incrimination? Well, we should plead the sixth (Article of the European Convention on Human Rights)! Should people be more aware of their rights? If yes, then how?

• Contemporary relevance: This all has contemporary relevance, because, at the time of writing, the UK government is trying and failing to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda. The reason they have failed so far is because such a plan goes against various international rights laws, including the ECHR. As with firearms, it is within the power of Parliament to take away these rights should it wish to. Under such circumstances it’s important for UK citizens to know their rights, and know what is right.

🔎 Find out more

• Oxford Constitutional Studies Lecture series – Rights

• Human Rights Act 1998: Does it need replacing?

This scoop was written by Dr Matthew Williams, Access Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. His videos on the Jesus College YouTube channel are amazing if you’re thinking of applying to university, especially at Oxford or Cambridge. Be sure to check it out! 🙌

LANGUAGES

Is there any crime or punishment in Crime and Punishment? 👮

Crime and Punishment is a novel written by the famous Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, published in 1866. It focusses on Raskolnikov, who lives in St Petersburg, has given up his studies, and lives an impoverished, lonely life. He plans to murder Alyona Ivanovna, an untrustworthy pawnbroker, for money. He tries to convince himself that this murder would be justified, as she was unfair to her customers, and he would give some of the stolen money to charity. He believes himself to be a superior being who exists above the morality of contemporary society, but ends up wrought with guilt, leading to a mental breakdown as his previous justifications for the murder shatter before him.

💡 Things to consider

• What are crime and morality?: The notions of crime and morality are social constructs – whilst you might argue that people may have an innate sense of morality, the perception of certain actions as moral or immoral is something that is heavily influenced by your society.  So, if you view crime as a term that describes an immoral action, then this is also a notion imposed by our society.  Dostoevsky suggests throughout Crime and Punishment that a collective understanding of morality can only be applied to people who share this understanding, and who feel that they belong to the society that imposes these moral and criminal judgements.   Therefore, Dostoevsky would argue, the murder that Raskolnikov commits may not necessarily be criminal/immoral.  Raskolnikov believes (at least initially) that it can be justified, according to his own sense of morality, so Dostoevsky makes us question this perspective – whether we can see how, for Raskolnikov, who is almost completely isolated from society, the moral codes of this society just don’t apply to him.

• Can you unsubscribe from a society and its moral code?: According to Raskolnikov, you can! He perceives himself to be a sort of ‘Napoleonic superhero’, believing that he is superior to the ordinary human, so is beyond the judgement of these inferior beings. As such, it seems that Raskolnikov simply unsubscribes from the moral codes of contemporary Russian society, as he doesn’t see himself as a part of the society that governs these codes. Moreover, unusually for the time, the Raskolnikov of the start of the novel is an irreligious figure, meaning that he does not have the Christian interpretations of crime and sin that most members of the largely Orthodox society would have. So, from Raskolnikov’s perspective, it really seems that there is no crime or punishment, as he doesn’t believe he has committed a crime, and thus views his punishment (exile and manual labour) as nothing more than an inconvenient legal formality. At least, until his mental breakdown and intense onset of guilt – but that’s for another day.

• Lost in translation: So, if there isn’t even necessarily any crime or punishment in Crime and Punishment, why did Dostoevsky give the novel this title? We need to consider that the novel’s original title wasn’t the English Crime and Punishment, but Prestuplenie i nakazanie. And this is where it gets interesting. The Russian language has no articles (words for ‘the’ or ‘a’), so perhaps there are some missing in the English translation: if it were The Crime and the Punishment, would that change our perception? I think so, as it pinpoints them as specific incidents, rather than broad philosophical concepts. Moreover, I’m not convinced that ‘Crime’ is the best translation of ‘Prestuplenie’.  If we pick this word apart, we get something like ‘across-step-action’.  We can’t do this with the word ‘crime’. But, we can with the word ‘transgression’, when considering its Latin roots.  So, we get a sense not just of a legal ‘crime’, but of the crossing of some kind of border – the border of morality. This makes a lot more sense considering what we know of the novel, which focusses on whether you can cross a moral border even if you don’t agree that the border exists in the first place.  Therefore, I suggest that the reason there may not truly be any crime or punishment (in a general, conceptual sense) in Crime and Punishment is because this is not what the novel is actually called: it is The Transgression and the Punishment.

🔎 Find out more

• Criminality, Morality, and Guilt

• Crime and Punishment: A Timeless Exploration of Morality, Guilt, and Redemption

• Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky's Warning to Big Dreamers (YouTube)

🍒 The cherry on top

• 🎬 Films: This YouTube video discusses what Metamodernism is and what it looks like in film, and chart how the movies have evolved since their modernist origins. Try to link what you learnt to any movies you’ve watched recently. Great if you’re interested in Film Studies or Literature!

• 🏛️ Greek Mythology: Ever wanted to know more about the Olympian Gods or the Titans? This website is a free reference guide to the gods (theoi), spirits (daimones), fabulous creatures (theres) and heroes of Greek mythology and religion. Great if you’re interested in Classics, Greek, or History.

• 😪 The Joy of Sulk: Full of implicit rules and paradoxes, sulking is a marvellous example of intense communication without clear declaration. This is a super interesting article touching on ideas in Philosophy, Linguistics, and Language.

👀 Keep your eyes peeled for…

• Applications for University of Oxford’s UNIQ 2024 are now open

• 8th January - University of Cambridge Davidson Young Inventors Challenge sign up deadline

• 10th January - Balliol College Oxford Talk on Animal Sleep and Hibernation

• 10th January - University of Oxford Discover Computer Science Workshop

• 10th January - Christ College Cambridge Grounds Tour

• 10th January - LSE Discovery Session

• 10th January - University of Wolverhampton Student Finance Webinar

• 11th January - University of York Open Lecture: Does Meritocracy Threaten Social Equality?

🗳️ Poll