The Filth

Boy good thing that we read TTE, otherwise the message may have been missed.

This was a hard read for me, not because the material was bad or anything but because the environment was so dark and depressing. The pictures or dirt misery and all around Filth (good title) just dragged me down as I read it. The constant watching and monitoring, judgment and perverse sex, a little much when the pictures are right there, and you can’t self sensor with your imagination.

Im not sure what the book was saying in the end or what message it meant to get across but some things I took from the book are:

Some rules are meant to be broken, and in fact created to be broken. In the real world law enforcement has judgment calls. The rules give us this sense of barrier or incubation from our own most destructive tendencies. But the law enforcement sometimes breaks those rules set up to protect all. The mission and laws in place don’t always coinside. Like protect the peace, but if a cop runs in on some young boy getting raped by his (just killed) mothers’ boyfriend, who would be critical if the cop shot the guy in self defense? Even though that man has some rights and rules are in place to protect them we may feel justice has been done and the future public safety has been accounted for. I think one of the things this book is illustrating is if we place our reliance in technology to protect and regulate ourselves and do not do some of the work ourselves, we only perpetuate and increase the frequency of this tendency to occur. Not to say it is always bad but that we should be aware of it. Succumbing to the comfort of technology may not always do us well.

I like to interpret the hand metaphorically, lets say like Adam Smith might. When the hand does its best to clean up I think there is a hidden message there, it does its best but the slack needs to be taken over by us. I think that this might be another point for the “don’t be too reliant on technology” crowd.

I don’t know if there is some religious overtone with the cat worship, (worship like love)…. That’s just kind of weird cat love he’s got going on. I want to think it means something but maybe not maybe its just a distraction, from some other messag the author is trying to send, i didnt receve that memo.

Overall I liked the book it was nice to not have to do the imagining of the scenes. (sounds like I was overly reliant on the technology of the picture, bah!! They got me)