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O. J. SIMPSON
by
ROBERT J. LEWIS
_____________________
'E'll
be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to pore damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in Hell from Gunga Din!
Rudyard Kipling
As I write this,
O. J. Simpson has already been found guilty of 12 charges
of armed robbery and kidnapping. Sentencing is scheduled
for December 5th.[1] Now
61 years old, he’ll probably spend the rest of his
life behind bars. Just desserts, chorus his accusers from
every corner of our wired world. But as it concerns the
all important accuser-satisfaction indices, the numbers
will in all likelihood disappoint -- especially if O.J.
finally secures the outcome he has always (if only subconsciously)
desired: just punishment for his horrific crimes. Let me
explain.
In all of Dostoyevsky’s
remarkable novels -- The Idiot, The Possessed, Crime
and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov -- we
repeatedly encounter characters who suddenly, inexplicably
do or say something that goes totally against their self-interest.
Whether during courtship, a business affair, a wedding party
or family reunion, for no apparent reason, a character will
reveal an outrageously negative aspect of himself as it
concerns pride, hatefulness, envy, jealousy, avarice, gluttony;
and in a single, uncalculated stroke destroy an outcome
he or she may have been patiently nurturing over a considerable
period of time. Since we can’t account for the bizarre
behaviour, we come to think of Dostoyevsky, through his
characters, as crazy or possessed of the irrational. As
readers, we excuse the behaviour (the madness) if it falls
within the law, or wish it institutionalized if society
is endangered by it. But what about readers who suspect
Dostoyevsky’s characters aren’t at all mad but
are in fact the enlightened ones hiding among us,
despite their self-precipitated fall into ignominy?
 Dostoyevsky
profoundly believed that all of us, regardless of culture
and religious indoctrination, and prior to any imposition
of morality and ethics, are activated by the primordial
urge to confess. All the world’s major and minor religions
have taken this into account by weaving into their fabric
and operations the rites and redemptive properties of confession.
If we’re to set store by Dostoyevsky’s characters
(Prince Myshkin, Dimitri Karamazov), the need to confess
is as insistent as a biological imperative, which means
confession need not be restricted to a religious impulse.
Thus, in respect
to the many of us outside the sway of conventional religion,
who have embraced the secular option whose ethos conspires
to deny or inhibit (via reward and punishment) confession,
we have threaded into our way of life customs and institutions
whose first purpose is to supply environments designed to
bring into unconcealment our unedited selves.
How else do
we account for the mega-events and on-going activities married
to the consumption of alcohol and drugs if not for the fact
they provide the excuse to reacquaint ourselves with those
pathways, both inside and outside the mind, that lead us
to confession? In the age of secularism, the bar or tavern
has replaced the Church, and now, in the age of the Internet,
users operating under the protective umbrella of anonymity,
are confessing en masse their real selves, but
without having to suffer the consequences. Which is why
virtual confession will always pale in its effects and satisfactions
compared to real confession.
Read the advice
columns in newspapers and popular magazines for a first
hand account of humanity refracted through the confessionals
of jealousy, avarice, vindictiveness, sloth, pride and envy
and there can be no doubt that confession, as catharsis,
corresponds to a 20,000 league-deep need to reveal ourselves
in the truth of who we are, which is why we are constantly
engineering the means and pretext that provide for it.
Dostoyevsky
(prior to Heidegger and the existentialists) was among the
first to recognize the relationship between confession and
the notion of authenticity (becoming one's authentic self),
where the former, over the course of a lifetime, is the
means to the latter -- consequences and approval ratings
be damned.
 Literature
provides marvelous prototypes of authenticity seekers. From
the first line in Camus’ The Stranger (L’Etranger),
spoken by its infamous anti-hero, Mersault, we have one
of the most remarkable confessions in all of literature:
“Mother died yesterday, or was it the day before.”
He could have just as easily said, “I think it’s
going to rain today, then again, maybe not.” In uttering
these words in a voice preternaturally devoid of emotion,
Mersault reveals himself to be unconscionably indifferent
to the passing of his mother. And yet despite the negative
judgment his offhanded remark will elicit, he speaks his
mind because more than anything he wants to be known as
he is. Later on in the book, after he has committed
a senseless murder, instead of intelligently defending himself,
he argues the reflection of the sun in his eyes caused him
to mortally knife someone, a defense that is tantamount
to admitting his guilt. When his moment of execution arrives,
he desires that the crowd greet him with "howls of
execration," and not ready-made excuses for the honourable
life he hasn’t led. If during Happy Hour the world’s
great truths get spoken, the world’s great lies are
told at funerals and obituary columns.
In the novel
Disgrace (1999) by Nobel recipient J. M. Coetzee,
the protagonist, David Lurie, a distinguished university
professor, has a ridiculously open sexual affair with one
of his students. He begs to get caught, and does, losing
everything in the bargain -- his position, his friends,
his reputation -- and by novel’s end finds himself
working as a lowly caretaker in a dog pound. Yet despite
his dramatic fall, he discovers satisfaction in performing
menial work. By Dostoyevsky’s accounting, David Lurie
not only wanted to get caught (he’s been having affairs
with students throughout his entire academic career), but
wanted to get punished and wanted to publically fall in
disgrace. The events that precipitate this downfall constitute
his confession.
Which brings
us to O.J.’s recent criminal undertaking and the mind-boggling
details of a bungled crime for which there is no apparent
explanation, unless it be provided by the unacknowledged
artery of confession that runs through the race.
If we’re
to believe O.J’s testimony, he wanted to retrieve
memorabilia which he claimed belonged to him. So why didn’t
he simply prevail on the authorities to retrieve it, which
wouldn’t have entailed any risk? Instead, he hastily
assembles a rag-tag platoon of unproven, petty criminals,
thereby exponentially multiplying the opportunities for
incompetence and betrayal, and quarterbacks a crime that
could have been executed solo -- and without guns. Furthermore,
we’re asked to believe that in this age of highly
sophisticated affordable communication technology, he wouldn’t
have considered the possibility of the heist being recorded.
All of this from a man, who, for all intents and purposes,
committed the perfect murder(s) of Nicole Brown and Ronald
Goldman. In fact, so perfect everybody on the planet knew
he did it and he still got away with it.
I’m persuaded that O. J., now older and wiser, had arrived
at a point in his life where he was no longer capable of living
the lie that he had perpetuated for 13 years, and like David
Lurie, embarked on a project that would assure his arrest
and conviction so he could finally and fabulously fall into
disgrace. When a brilliant murderer re-invents himself as
a bungling thief, it’s because he wants to be known
to the world in the truth of his being, and so much so, no
price tag (cost of freedom) can equal the peace of mind and
serenity that falling into international disgrace vouchsafes.
At this preliminary
stage of O. J.’s rehabilitation, the impulse to confess
himself to the world is in all likelihood subconscious,
to which Freud would say, 'so what,' and suggest that the
path upon which O. J. has set himself will become more explicit
on December 5th, the day of his sentencing. O. J. skeptics
should bear in mind that there is no plausible alternative
explanation to the botched robbery other than the wish (need)
to be caught and punished -- and rewarded for extending
a hand to his authentic self. As such, O. J.’s confession
is a story in progress.
Another related
story in progress -- and a disconcerting one at that --
concerns the world’s journalists who, en masse,
failed to recognize O. J’s confession, and by extension,
the onset of his rehabilitation. Vanity
Fair writer, Dominick Dunne, in a lachrymose moment,
writes: “There’s a loneliness, a sadness about
O.J. that I never saw before. I think he understands how
wrecked his life is.” In point of fact, nothing could
be farther from the truth. O. J., who has been an avatar
of inauthenticity until now, is finally on the cusp of getting
his life back. It may have taken 13 lost years to finally
find himself on the path to self-hood, but thanks to a crime
that was guaranteed to fail, he has, if only subconsciously,
confessed to the world that he is criminally responsible
for the cold blooded murders of Brown and Goldman, and is
fully and fulfillingly deserving of the punishment that
awaits him.
If all of the
above is approximately true, how are we, the world’s
jury, to judge a man who is no longer the same person who
butchered in cold blood? Who among us will come to designate
as a work in progress our own deliberations and response
to the thorny issues O. J’s life raises?
The challenge
isn’t “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit,”
but rather if you had fit into the same shoes what would
you have done? Having pulled off a brilliantly executed
double murder, how many of us would have the courage to
trade in our priceless freedoms for the consolations of
confession? I suspect very few, and for this reason alone,
adducing lines written by a British poet of some distinction,
I offer this to you O. J. – and to everyone following
your long day’s journey to self-hood – for your
beautifully botched crime which is your magnificent confession,
“Tho'
I've belted you an' flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You’re a better man than I am Gunga Din.”
COMMENTS
user-submission@feedback.com
Now finished viewing the 5 part documentary on OJ Simpson.
Disagree with comment that OJ was stupid. He was anything
but stupid, but highly calculating, and consistently succeeding
in every endeavor. Smart people do stupid things. Interesting
perspective in your article but a very tough sell. But if
you're right, OJ will never publically confess because he
would regard it unfair to saddle his children with that
knowledge, and this backs up your argument of subconscious
confession via botched crime.
from aaro@rogers.com
Robert Lewis makes interesting connections between O.J.’s
fall from grace (a modern-day morality tale that has taken
on mythic proportions) and the crashing and burning of a number
of literary characters who seemed to have it made. He also
makes a convincing case for the purgative power of confession,
both in literature and real life.
However, I think he's being too simplistic
when he says "If during Happy Hour the world’s
great truths get spoken, the world’s great lies are
told in funeral parlours and cemeteries". People are
complex and sometimes contradictory, and it might be better
to say that to get atrue idea of a person we must both listen
to the loose tongues of Happy Hour as well as to pious, reflective
eulogies. I also don't think that we can claim either moral
or immoral behaviour as exclusively "authentic".
It could be that O.J.’s recent botched
kidnapping and robbery was motivated by a subconscious desire
to be caught -- a "cry for help", to use one of
the major clichés of this decade. Or it could be the
product of confused thinking and the desire for revenge, both
of which O.J. seems to have demonstrated in the past.
from steven.lewis@shaw.ca
I think you give OJ far too much credit - it strikes me that
the evidence overwhelmingly supports the notion that he is
a narcissistic, immature man whose boundless hubris led him
to yet another mindless act. The way he has conducted his
life since the travesty of the trial suggests no repentance
- he could have tried to rehabilitate himself as a citizen
without confessing. So contrarianism may be interesting but
your whole case rests on the inanity of the second
crime. Criminals are often stupid, and OJ is stupid (he never
said an interesting thing on Monday Night Football).
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