Imagine a really evil small town cop. We all know this character from American road movies. But unfortunately he is not entirely fictional. Even if you are a decent police officer (most are - of course), you probably agree.
So just imagine now that this guy has taken you into custody for some reason (justified or not does not matter for the purpose of this post).
How should you react?
Let’s assume first that you are just scared from him and that he - somehow - can notice that.
How would he receive this? Of course he would not think much about it. But still: your fear would probably trigger a sequence of emotions in his mind:
- "He thinks I'm dangerous and evil"
- "He must hate me!“
- "I'm only doing my job!"
- "True, sometimes I beat up the detainees. But they sure deserved it!"
- "He is so unfair!"
And you see, from a purely emotional perspective you have already acquired the property of „being unfair“.
And now: are „unfair“ people not the reason why we need law enforcement?
Therefore - in the worst case - the bad cop might decide that you „deserve some special treatment“.
Not a good outcome. And you didn't even say a word!
Now just imagine that you were are able to „see“ - instead of the evil cop - something that lies deeper: the young boy who once wanted to become a police officer. The young boy who is still alive deep inside him, buried under countless layers of „body armor“. The young boy who once chose the profession because he wanted to help people.
Maybe you saw him only for a second.
But this would allow you to estimate the enormous amounts of frustrating contradictions, horrible memories from crime scenes, insults and loneliness which must have been required to wear down the once beautiful young boy into the present remains deep within the adult cop. A boy who is now terrified from himself and despises nothing more than people who hold up a mirror in front of him.
If I say „see“, I don't mean only „think“ or „understand“. This is not enough. It's not enough to advise, pity and patronize. Imagine rather that you see yourself in him. The you who loved playing „cops and robbers“ in grandma's garden. The you who once handled the neighborhood boy too roughly. The you who wanted to be the most powerful person on the planet to save us (and your guinea pig!) from all the villains.
If you were able to see the „cop“ in this way, it would not matter much what you would say or do in the following. Equipped with this magic connection, everything you would say would be also the right thing to say.
Ultimately he would let you go (even if that were illegal - he obviously doesn't care much anymore)!
Of course this is difficult and surely we can’t always succeed with this kind of stunt. But in any case you could - after having „seen“ some other people like this in the past - just assume that it is ultimately possible to see yourself in him too. That it is possible to see oneself in every person.
This is not as good as the second case but still much better than the first case. He would probably - after some minimal bureaucracy and a reasonable fine - lose interest in you quickly and release you.
But this post is not intended to be practical advice on „how to handle bad cops“ (they are not common enough to justify such an effort!). I wanted to hint at something more fundamental:
The way we see the world determines how we experience it. Our fears, indifference and hopes are often self fulfilling prophecies.
And then another, a bit more provocative thought: is the cop in the first case not - somehow - right if he finds us unfair? Is „not seeing ourselves in others“ not always a small act of neglect?
Maybe most of all a neglect of ourselves.
Image: Pixabay / Mikael Elmgren