The Convict Code and Nietzsche

It's four a.m. and I just finished watching the eleventh lecture of "No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life" by professor Robert Solomon. I like to watch these DVD lectures and read the accompanying materials I have to go with them early in the morning when it is mostly quiet (the noise on death row during the day is perpetual and extremely distracting, so I count myself lucky that I can sleep through it easily - but studying, or even thinking seriously with all that noise - mostly prisoners yelling at each other through the doors - is next to impossible). The title of this lecture was Nietzsche, the "Immoralist", and it reminded me a lot of something we "old school" convicts used to say about the so-called "convict code" of honor.

It seems the Nazis loved Nietzsche and adopted his philosophy - though mostly re-interpreted to match their own ideology - as their own. And with the way Nietzsche defines his "master" and "slave" moralities it isn't any wonder. According to Nietzsche, the Hebrew slaves in Egypt developed a kind of anti-morality specifically opposed to the morality of their "masters" out of jealousy and spite. So positive things like power and wealth became negative, even "evil", according to this "slave morality" that he describes in his book, BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL.

But, the more interesting thing about what Nietzsche describes is the "master morality". The "masters" were the aristocrats and rulers who, as a result of their leisurely existence, could focus much of their energy on becoming a more "perfected" person. This was the morality. It was a balance of virtue, power, education, beauty, etc. that they strove for. All this according to a set of principles, not "good" and "evil", which Nietzsche attributes to the "slaves morality" as a way for the slaves to judge and condemn their master's pursuit of perfection out of jealousy and resentment.

What Nietzsche describes is exactly what the "old school" convicts refer to as the "real" convict code. We'd say it's not a bunch of rules, like "don't be a rat", or "don't let anyone punk you out". A "real" convict was not a "rat" on principle, not because it was "against the convict code". In other words, he was a "convict" and convicts don't rat, period. There is no "reason" a convict is not a rat, no "code" or "rule" that requires he not be a rat. To a convict, a rat is a rat is a rat (a phrase that was often repeated). The basic idea of the difference between a convict and a rat is about principles, not the fact that the "rat" broke a rule, or told on someone. In fact, a person could (and commonly was) considered a rat, even if they factually never told on anyone, but WOULD tell on someone if put in a position to do so.

The amazing thing, for me, is to learn now that this "old school" convict code is exactly what Nietzsche describes as "master morality". He even points out that while the master morality has been overshadowed by the slave morality in our world (which the Nazis obviously took to mean the "Jew morality" that "infests" the modern world) it has managed to survive in a sublimated form. I'm certain he would have recognized the "convict code", as I understood it, to be one of those forms of master morality.

But, I've since come to realize myself that the "convict code" that I once prided myself so highly for understanding and respecting in myself (which, like Nietzsche's master morality, is the only place it can be genuinely respected) is as much a false morality as any other (such as the slave morality of "good" and "evil"). I no longer insist that I am a "convict", not merely because I "can't" (as a convicted child rapist/murderer, for example) but for the same reason no German would dare call themselves a Nazi, not even in private (though for sure some still might, but none who have realized the ignorance of the "master race" ideology). I no longer see myself as a superior in any way to other people (a requisit of the master morality and implication of the convict code ), not even those who still so ignorantly insist that they are superior to me, i.e. the "slave moralists". (Remember here that I only call them "ignorant" as a matter of plain fact, not judgementally, and see myself as plainly ignorant as well in many ways; so I condemn "them" not, lest I be condemned!)

(J.D. July 22, 2014)