The Weight of Right

There is a long-standing debate in many fields – particularly law – as to whether it is more important that a guilty man go free than that a hundred innocent men be imprisoned. Essentially, the crux of this debate is how to weigh wrong. This debate cuts to the center of individual, societal and systemic cores. What has gone somewhat less discussed is how to weigh right. The depths of this debate are poignantly demonstrated in Freedom Cry, the epilogue session of the video game Assassin’sCreed: Black Flag discussed in a recent Jurisculture posting.

Freedom Cry is set in the 1700s, 20 years after the main game story. The main game story follows the exploits of Edward Kenway, the pirate captain. Throughout the main game story, Kenway’s driving force is the pursuit of monetary gain, although he does captain his ship with a fair code. This fairness includes taking on Adéwalé (Adé), an escaped slave, as his quartermaster. While Kenway is briefly imprisoned, Adé joins the Brotherhood of the Assassins, a society adhering to a strict moral code and righting the wrongs of the world as a form of protection.

The main game story ends with Kenway returning home and Adé captaining his own ship in service of the Assassins. Freedom Cry opens with Adé performing a mission for the Assassins that results in his gaining access to written intelligence that he intends to carry to a contact in Port-au-Prince in modern day Haiti.

As with many cities in the Caribbean at the time, Port-au-Prince is heavily involved in the slave trade and slavery-reliant activities. Once in Port-au-Prince, Adé makes contact with Bastienne Josephe, the African proprietor of a prominent brothel in the city that is frequented by the political and social elite. At first glance, she seems complicit in the culture of slavery and its spoils and content to cater to her clientele. Under the surface, however, she has far greater depths and is in fact supporting anti-slavery factions by providing them with information gathered from her clients. As Adé begins to work with her to gather information and assist the anti-slavery factions, he gains greater respect for Bastienne and her use of long-range planning as a method of bringing an end to the ruling regime in a methodical way.

Despite his admiration for her dedication, Adé argues with Bastienne when they receive information regarding incoming slave ships. Bastienne notes that Ade has done a great deal to damage plantations’ slave usage and also prominent members of the elite. She points out that this has already caused a backlash of power and fear among the elite, including tougher enforcement of the unequal “Code Noir” that governed non-white persons in the area. She fears that targeting the slave ships will make conditions for the current slaves worse and damage the anti-slavery faction’s plan. On the other hand, Adé is adamant that he can free the would-be slaves and that freeing them is the paramount right thing to do.

Ultimately, Adé attempts to free the would-be slaves but is only partly successful. He and Bastienne make peace after these events and acknowledge the importance of care for human life in their quests against slavery, although they still carry on using different paths.

Freedom Cry is a unique method for allowing a large group of people to appreciate some of the horrors of slavery and the ways in which it was enforced. Beyond this, the game poses a variation on the debate over the weight of wrong – how do we weigh right? There is no question that both Adé and Bastienne were acting in accordance with what they believed to be right. Rather, it is a question of which right has more value. To Adé, the most valuable right is the right that can be more immediately achieved with tangible results that help people. To Bastienne, the most valuable right is the right that has the most impact for the largest number of people even if this will require more time and effort.

There is no clear answer to the question of how to weigh right. Indeed, at a legal and societal level this question may be even more intricate than that of how to weigh wrong since it is difficult to articulate methods of arguing against right in any form. However, as law and society must face issues such as modern day slavery and human trafficking this question seems highly relevant.

Pirate Pluralism

Old-fashioned pirates and video games might make for a good sales pitch but are less often thought of as connected to legal pluralism. And yet, the popular video game Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag provides an example of the ways in which plural communities can be constructed and the boundaries needed for their functioning.

The story used in the game follows the evolution of Welshman Edward Kenway from a lowly pirate roaming around the Caribbean to an illustrious pirate captain. Kenway begins life as a poor yet law-abiding member of society in Wales, who believes that he is constrained by the existing legal and social system. His wife is content to live the way that her family did but Kenway wants more and leaves to become a privateer, promising that this will only be for a few years. A few years turn into many and the more socially acceptable privateer status gives way to piracy as Kenway seeks to maximize profit above all else.

At the opening of the story, Kenway steals a ship and changes his identity from a freelance pirate to a pirate captain in charge of a ship and her crew and seeking out goods and fortune. On this ship, the Jackdaw, Kenway’s word is law – as was standard for ship captains. In the process of outfitting the Jackdaw with a crew, Kenway meets Adewale, an escaped slave from a Caribbean plantation, and makes him the quartermaster, thus establishing a rule that capability, not race, is the benchmark for service on the Jackdaw. This is reinforced later in the story when Adewale goes on a separate path and Kenway brings on a woman as the new quartermaster. Kenway also establishes rules for the ship’s pirating activities and emphasizes that innocent civilians will not be targeted for attack or killed.

Kenway’s motives may have been monetary however the story explains that others within the loose community of pirates throughout the Caribbean and into the Gulf of Mexico had other motives. Key among these motives was freedom from their home laws and legal systems, which are viewed as repressive, unfair and prejudiced. With this in mind, many of the pirates come together and agree to turn the city of Nassau into a city run under pirate control. Kenway is sceptical of this idea, arguing that the idealistic goals will not work as a governing system, nevertheless the city falls under their control and the British authorities retain only nominal jurisdiction.

 The city operates under loose sets of laws and mores that are imposed through society rather than through an official constabulary force. This is done with good intentions and in order to counter the rigid legal regimes that many of the characters sought to leave behind when they initially took to the sea. Despite these intentions, as the story progresses and Kenway makes frequent returns to Nassau, it becomes apparent that the city descends into physical and societal decay under such a lax system. This is particularly evident when a disease outbreak threatens to become an epidemic and the necessary supplies to save the inhabitants are not  readily available.

Ultimately, the story ends with a British force arriving to retake Nassau. The newly appointed authorities publicly make an offer of amnesty for any pirates who are willing to accept it and agree to give up pirating in the future. The offer is made on behalf of the British Crown, however it is soon clear that the new authorities do not intend to live up to the letter of this law and instead target any pirates – including those who are willing to comply – for death or imprisonment.

In the Black Flag storyline, there is of course action and adventure – it is a game after all. More than that though, the plot provides a complex backstory to Kenway as the main character and to the pirate system in which he operated. The plot provides the framework for a pluralistic system in Nassau that runs the gamut from revolutionary to decayed to repressed.  

At the beginning, the idea of freeing Nassau from what is viewed as an overbearing legal and societal system is revolutionary and motivated not only by profit but also by a desire to create an idealistic system free from the strictures of unjust laws. Those who undertake the responsibility of overseeing Nassau do so in a somewhat cavalier way, demonstrating good intentions and free spirits but little understanding of how to implement laws other than those on ships. It is possible that this is where the cracks in the system begin to emerge – the system is so plural that it lacks significant boundaries and methods of enforcement.

As the system progresses these cracks manifest themselves in a visible lack of public order. This is illustrated by increasingly dilapidated buildings and the inability of city residents to provide for themselves during a disease outbreak that appears to have occurred in no small part as a result of the lack of order endemic in the community. Indeed, this outbreak is only controlled when pirates undertake a dangerous mission that puts their own lives at risk and encourages unlawful conduct.

The system is finally suppressed and residents of Nassau are subject to repression that reinforces the problems from which the pirates initially fled their home countries. Efforts by the British governor to reassert imperial control are ruthless and methodical and include chicanery as well as outright murder. Indeed, the governor requires his men to disobey direct orders of amnesty from the Crown and instead engage in attacks that result in murder and imprisonment. These measures and the efforts at population repression which follow place the residents of Nassau, those who seek to put into port in the city, and the remnants of the pirate population in a worse position than they were in before.

In direct contrast to this, Kenway’s ship presents a system of controlled pluralism that functions well and allows those onboard to profit. Kenway is open to sailors of all races and genders as part of his crew provided they meet the needs of the ship and work with the other crewmembers. He establishes the rules of conduct on the ship and in terms of those who are targets of his ship’s activities. These rules apply equally and it is apparent that the prejudices and limitations that he sought to flee at home do not apply on the Jackdaw. While he sees continuing downturns in Nassau and frets at the seeming futility of the undertakings there, Kenway is the leader of an increasingly prosperous ship and functioning plural society that stands in direct contrast. 

In these ways, the game tells the story of differing forms of pluralistic societies and demonstrates the relationships between pluralism and boundaries in terms of societal success and functioning.