Recent events revolving around outlaw motorcycle gangs put an interesting spin on conflict between the Habermasian concepts of ’system’ and ‘lifeworld’. The internal workings of these gangs and their relationship to wider society are interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, the gangs themselves encourage a very tight knit sense of solidarity between members but the expense of fostering distrust towards any outsiders: ordinary ‘civilians’, the police, other gangs. This kind of mistrust and insularity has the interesting effect of creating its own kind of micro system which stands at odds against a multiplicity of other systems. Now, these gangs originated after the Second World War, in the United States, created by returned G.I.’s who were dissatisfied with kind of overly regimented life they had endured in the armed services, and these same gangs were given a huge boost by the Vietnam war, their ranks being swelled by traumatised conscripts and those eager to escape the machinations of a system which seemed utterly alien and alienating. In Australia, these gangs now seem to be dividing along racial lines; Shia,Sunni, Islander, European and so on. In each instance, I think it could be reasonably argued that members of each group felt, (or feel) that their life world, their beliefs about the way the world should operate and the their capacity for free and open communication with others was threatened. The logical consequence was to band with others who felt similarly disaffected, forming their own shut-off life-world. The natural consequence of this insularity was the formation of a system (with its own laws, codes and procedures) , which could not and cannot relate the enclosed life-world of the gang to the life-world of society as a whole, i.e., as mentioned previously a system/system relationship. The consequences of this kind of relationship are obvious; the gangs turn to crime as the only way their particular system can be supported, and thus wider society naturally comes to view them with disapprobation.
What approach then, should system that represents the life-world of wider society take to dealing with the kind of criminality that these rogue systems present, particularly a society that is committed, and least prima facie, to pluralism? Should these organisations be banned wholesale? Should they be forbidden to recruit new members? The N.S.W state government has just passed laws restricting membership and operating conditions of outlaw bike gangs but interestingly enough, the director of public prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery has recently come out as saying that this approach is a dangerous threat to civil liberties as a whole; a threat to the ’system’ so to speak.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/bikie-laws-a-threat-to-rights-says-cowdery-20090515-b62e.html?page=-1 This then becomes a variation of the ‘thin edge of the wedge’, if the government can chose to ban a particular group of groups by preventing free association, what is to stop them form silencing their political opponents, or other groups which they may be at odds with? In this instance, the intention is good; outlaw biker gangs are a serious problem but I think a better way of addressing the problem is looking at the underlying reasons for their criminality; the reasons for the insularity of their life worlds- systemic tension, between racial groups, economic groups and so on. Of course this approach is far more nebulous and difficult than banning these groups outright, nor am I suggesting that the behaviour of these groups is in anyway justified, but the consequences of the legislation represent the kind of impingement of the system on the life-world which fosters anomie, rather than alleviating it.
