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I’m an epistemology professor. My work involves studying how we decide what’s true. For play I have lots of pastimes, but one I must admit, is watching crime drama. I wouldn’t declare it as an official hobby on Facebook but if I look at where my free time goes I have to admit I’ve seen all of the Sopranos, Deadwood, most of the Wire, plus every higher-than-B-grade crime, con, heist, mafia, western, gangland movie ever made. Apparently I like this stuff. And why?
My brother the English professor tells me one good reason. The first crime fiction came out at about the same time as the microscope was invented. Both of the underworlds--the natural microscopic one, and the seedy unlawful one are of similar fascination to law-abiding citizens living a clean, surface existence. We hear about crime but rarely see it. We know about germs but rarely see them either. We’re simply fascinated by what lurks beneath the surface.
That makes sense, but really, we never do anything for just one reason. So I’d like to add another reason any of us might love crime drama, though it’s the kind of thing only an epistemologists might notice.
We identify with lawbreakers because we’re law-breakers too. We watch them get away with it for a while, sometimes long enough to build huge successful empires. We hope we can get away with defying the law for a long time too, but we live under its shadow and worry that it will take us down. We cheer watching the gangsters get away with it. We’re appalled by their duplicity. We cheer when they get caught. We’re sobered to see that crime doesn’t pay.
To be clear, I’m a law-abiding citizen. Or rather, I’d like to think I am. I’m not talking here about living outside the legal code the way gangsters do. Really, there are two kinds of laws—the laws of society and of nature. Gangsters defy and outwit the legal system. All of us do the same with the laws of nature.
