Forms of informal social control can inflict physical harm as well. Many societies use and have used violence as a tool to “keep others in line.” Duels in Europe and America in past centuries exemplify this kind of enforcement of unofficial laws—and could often result in death. The Cheyenne of the American Plains were known to kill each other’s horses as a means of punishing violators of the social code; in parts of East Africa in past decades, houses were frequently burned


Constance Shulman in rehearsal for her role as Darla London,


the policewoman in Bobbie Clearly Photo: Jenny Anderson


for similar reasons; and Netsilik Eskimos have been known to encourage their children to pillage another’s food supply in order to exact revenge. Most communities, in an effort to encourage a more peaceful populace, employ and quietly encourage forms of informal social control that would be considered crimes in other situations and other societies.


Why, sociologists and philosophers ask, does informal social control so often take the form of punishment, rather than warmth or rehabilitation? Why go out of your way to burn down another’s house, or cut ties with a violator who has not specifically harmed you? There is much written on why people punish, but one particularly interesting idea in the context of Bobbie Clearly is the expressive theory of punishment, put forward by philosopher Joel Feinberg.


Feinberg identified "punishment" as a way in which any individual members of society might openly distance themselves from a crime or perpetrator and position themselves as outwardly disapproving of a violation of social codes. In other words, punishing another serves as a way to communicate to the rest of a group that one is separate from the crime or the criminal. To this end, Feinberg contends that punishment might therefore serve to:


1) disavow a transgression in authoritative and proclamatory terms


2) symbolically communicate one’s noninvolvement in a crime


3) “vindicate” a rule that has been violated 4) place responsibility on one perpetrator to deflect blame from any others.


In this framework, the actions of the characters in Bobbie Clearly, and even in real-life communities, become clearer. It might be that, when asking oneself how to interact with or respond to a perpetrator, a community’s answers and actions might tend to revolve less around the violator and more around one’s own position to the crime. “How can I hurt this person for the pain they caused?” might be less common than, “Which side do I want everyone to know I’m on?”


Social control, then, is more complicated than good versus evil, criminals versus heroes, and selfishness versus altruism. As the title of Bobbie Clearly itself facetiously suggests, the dynamics of power and punishment in the wake of a crime are actually not clearly drawn at all.•


BOBBIE CLEARLY UPSTAGE GUIDE 15


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