The Blackmail Paradox
Blackmail is
illegal in most countries. As it should be, I felt. After all, unlike some acts
that are crimes without making any sense (like suicide or blasphemy), surely
blackmail is, well, a black and white issue, right?
Apparently not.
There is even a term for it: the paradox of blackmail. Let us understand it. An
example would explain the paradox.
If workers
threaten a strike unless their pay is increased, it is not considered illegal.
But if you threaten to expose someone’s affair unless he pays you, that’s
called blackmail. And hence illegal. But from a purely logical point of view,
shouldn’t a “Give me money or else” threat always be considered blackmail?
That’s the paradox.
I know, I know,
some would argue that the difference between the two is the motive. The workers
are demanding more wages often because of their existing wages being low.
Whereas the blackmailer of the above example is just out to make some easy
money.
Not so fast. The
counter-argument to that exists: what if the blackmailer needed the money to
pay for a close one’s critical surgery? But the law on blackmail doesn’t factor
in for motives, does it?
Next, in the
blackmailer case, let’s flip
who initiates the offer to pay in
return for maintaining silence:
“If you had offered to pay me for my
silence, and I’d agreed — then we’d have the same outcome, but this time it’s
legal.”
Note that the
secret in question here (having an affair) isn’t something illegal to begin
with, so why is this transaction illegal when initiated by one party but not so
when initiated by the other party?
I had never
thought of things that way!
Even more
surprisingly, it turns out there’s no
resolution to this paradox even today. Northwestern law professor James
Lindgren puts it thus:
“Most crimes do not need theories to
explain why the behavior is criminal. The wrongdoing is self-evident. But
blackmail is unique among major crimes: no one has yet figured out why it ought
to be illegal.”
Do you have an
answer? Remember, we aren’t talking the moral aspect here: only why blackmail
should be a crime in the law books?
Well we are at it once again: the same old dharma-sankat issue!
ReplyDeleteYes of course, many of the points brought in are thought-worthy and help us brood on, "are not ever so many things subjective/relative and arbitrary?" True, and that is how life goes!
With all my acceptability of the fundamental philosophical principle about dharma being a bugbear and also that "relativity rules", I am still not able to simply tow the finish line, "why blackmail should be a crime in the law books?"
I am for clear, and preferably harsh punishment, for blackmailers. I won't mind even if the victims takes the law into his own hands and ruthlessly punishes (even terminates) the blackmailer, a thought I give similarly to terrorists. [Terrorists can be put down even if law has to be twisted, in my opinion, prima facie. There is a great difficulty in that line of thinking of course. "How far we can go, with that way of superseding proper legal ways" becomes a tricky issue always.] That apart, I have as much sympathy for the blackmailer as I have for those who hold people to ransom, by way of another example. Many other crimes too may be there like this, possibly.
Yes, the legal system cannot be perfect, but we can also be confused, from time to time. Consider these: We have had legal systems that punishes those who attempted suicide but failed to die; with monumental effort, India did away with it only recently. Another example: Even the Great Britain had a legal system to treated homosexuals as 'criminals', as recently as post World War II. And then, we have the US considering any voice for communism as illegal, during the Cold War times, driven entirely by paranoia! (I use that word because, in some other democratic countries they did not consider Communism as illegal, and they even granted the party to exist, so long as they go with the democratic legal provisions. Not one of them lost their democratic existence because of that, not one, so far. Communism never won by vote to ensure its authoritarian inflict forever subsequently - it did totalitarianism only by forceful take-over, never through the democratic route. --- I know this particular point will lead to never ending debate. So I am ready to admit, "My point is invalid and wrong. I admit defeat", the moment any argument is put up against it. No defense is worth a dime.)
And, here we are, debating whether blackmail can have a legal basis to be considered a crime. The only supporting argument could be that "this debate can be there for anything and everything!".
Immanual Kant, I distinctly recall, has proved that there is no fundamental basis for 'ethics'. It is all nothing more than social acceptance. Law is similar too. No amount of logic and reason can succeed in the direction of absoluteness. We just have to use discretion to arrive at reasonable law, period.