The Wire.2 or Localism and The Wire

Stearns and I have just started season 2 of The Wire (thanks to Wystan's uber-clever birthday present!).

Localism is a significant theme throughout the first season of The Wire: Wallace returns to the low rise because he doesn't fit in the country--in fact, he knows almost nothing of life outside of the low rises. Even the sounds of crickets confuses him.

D'Angelo wants out of the business of drug dealing and promises to aid the police if they put him in a witness protection program to start a new life. His mother shows up in jail and convinces him to change his mind--she convinces him that family is the most important thing, that drugs are what their family has depended on for generations.

At one point, two of the drug dealers are driving from Baltimore to Philly and they begin to lose the Baltimore radio station. One of them had never left Baltimore and so had no idea that radio stations changed from city to city. He heard Garrison Keillor on the radio and said, "Is this what Philly radio is like?"

Writing about The Wire focuses on its similarity to Greek drama--people are fated, except that the gods as forces of fate are replaced by institutions. The tragedy of The Wire is that people recognize the problems of the institutions that they cannot escape, whether it be the drug gangs or the police force.

D'Angelo's mother's argument for why he should be loyal to his family and their drug trade strongly resembles the arguments of many localists in and around political theory--this is the way you've been raised, this connects you to past generations, this is the practical skill you've learned from people who've come before you. D'Angelo's at least passing discomfort with the drug trade and the evils associated with it, however, point to the existence of an ability to know and reason outside of his upbringing. He is able to critique the institution itself (although, in the end he gives in to his mother's arguments, and Wallace, who also wanted out of his involvement with the drug trade, is shot).

While The Wire offers little hope for escaping the institutions in which people find themselves, it does maintain that you are not entirely restricted by the circumstances in which you're raised. It offers an important critique of localism--affirming something simply because it is your own is not sufficient; loyalty or patriotism in themselves are not good. Rather, we must reflect on the things to which we are loyal, in order to determine that they are good in themselves.