Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy

Brains Before Bullets

George A. Dunn, Jason T. Eberl, George A. Dunn, Jason T. Eberl, William Irwin

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781118641576
• eBook ISBN: 9781118641668
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

"Brains before bullets" – ancient and modern wisdom for "mechanics and motorcycle enthusiasts"

Essential reading for fans of the show, this book takes readers deeper into the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, the Teller-Morrow family, and the ethics that surround their lives and activities.

• Provides fascinating moral insights into Sons of Anarchy, its key characters, plot lines and ideas
• Investigates compelling philosophical issues centering on loyalty, duty, the ethics of war, authority, religion and whether the ends justify the means
• Teaches complex philosophical ideas in a way that's accessible to the general interest reader in order to inspire them to further reading of the great philosophers
• Authors use their deep knowledge of the show to illuminate themes that are not always apparent even to die-hard fans

Part I

“AN EQUAL MIX OF MIGHT AND RIGHT”

ETHICS AT 92 MPH

CHAPTER 1

Virtue and Vice in the SAMCROpolis

Aristotle Views Sons of Anarchy

Jason T. Eberl

At the end of Season 5 of Sons of Anarchy, just before she’s arrested as an accessory to murder, Tara informs Jax that she and their boys are leaving Charming. She doesn’t want her and Jax to “end up like the two people we hate the most”—Clay and Gemma Morrow—and their boys to be “destined to re-live all of our mistakes” (“J’ai Obtenu Cette”). Jax faces an ultimatum: either leave SAMCRO behind or lose his family. Less than two years earlier, after getting out of a three-month stint in Stockton prison, Jax had told Tara that he was done with SAMCRO and had made a deal with Clay to give him a way out. So Tara’s ultimatum should be a no-brainer for Jax, yet he seems torn.

In the past several months, Jax has assumed the presidency of the MC and taken on more responsibility for the future direction of the club. But is his allegiance to the club and his sense of responsibility to its members—his brothers—the only thing holding him back from going to Oregon with his family? Could it be that he simply can’t bring himself to leave SAMCRO? After all, it’s the only life he’s ever known: “Since I was five, Tara, all I ever wanted was a Harley and a cut” (“Potlatch”). He has also confessed that, without SAMCRO, he’s just “an okay mechanic with a GED. The only thing I do well is outlaw” (“Out”). And when Bobby Munson discovers that Jax is planning to leave the MC, he exhorts, “Your solution to a problem will always be a club solution. It’s the way you’re wired” (“Kiss”).

Has life in SAMCRO held Jax back from being all that he could’ve been or has it allowed him to develop his potential in a way no other lifestyle could? Jax has certainly grown as a leader—outmaneuvering not only the ruthless ATF Agent June Stahl but also the diabolical Damon Pope, while at the same time appeasing the Galindo Cartel. Even Clay comes to admit that Jax is a better leader of the MC than he ever was (“Darthy”). Indeed, leadership and cunning are examples of Jax’svirtues. The term “virtue” is derived from the Latin word for “power” (virtus), which is also linked to the word for “man” (vir) and “manliness”—so “virtue” shares a root with “virile.” Perhaps Jax could only have cultivated such virtues within the violent, anarchic world of SAMCRO, but he also missed out on cultivating other character traits—such as gentleness and moderation—that don’t fit well in the world of unbridled violence and lust that is the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE) famously argues that human beings aren’t born with inclinations toward either virtue or vice; rather, each person’s moral character traits are cultivated through a combination of social influence and individual rational choice. The social environment—polis (“city”) in Aristotle’s original Greek—in which one is born and raised, or currently lives, is centrally important to one’s initial and ongoing moral character development. It’s clear that having been raised in the polis of SAMCRO had a tremendous influence on the young Jax and Opie Winston, fostering their development of certain key virtues that Aristotle would commend: courage, loyalty, deep friendship, and willingness to make sacrifices for the common good. But this band of outlaws is also home to many vices: Clay’s greed, Tig Trager’s uncontrolled lust, and Gemma’s manipulative power games. Jax is clearly not immune to these malign influences, especially once he moves up to the head of the table as president. As he tells Bobby, “The gavel corrupts. You can’t sit in this chair without being a savage” (“Darthy”). Far from being pure, the SAMCROpolis tends to nurture both virtues and vices in its “citizens.”

“Balance Between Might and Right”

Sons of Anarchy relies on our fascination with “anti-heroes,”¹ morally ambiguous protagonists for whom we often cheer even if we can’t justify all of their actions. Nobody wants to see SAMCRO go down under the RICO Act, even though the federal government’s job is precisely to protect us from illegal activities such as gun-running, drug-muling, and criminal violence. Jax is forever trying to get the club out of such activities, but he can’t avoid using violence, deception, and collaboration with other criminals to achieve his laudable goal—and that’s just in one episode (“J’ai Obtenu Cette”)! Clearly, Jax and his fellow Men of Mayhem aren’t your typical “white hat” good guys. But neither are they just a gang of violent law-breakers, for otherwise we’d have no sympathy for them. Part of the show’s appeal stems from recognizing the members of SAMCRO as kindred spirits who exemplify—albeit to dramatic extremes—the mixture of virtue and vice found in every human being’s moral character. No one is perfectly good or perfectly bad: Clay loves Gemma deeply and is genuinely, compassionately heartbroken when he learns of her rape, but this same man is also capable of bouncing her face off of the floor (“Hands”).

When Clay attacks Gemma, it’s a shockingly brutal scene of spousal abuse, but it’s not all that surprising given what we know about Clay’s moral character. He’s inclined toward violence, greed, self-protectiveness, and using people as means to get what he wants—just ask Elliot Oswald—or removing those who confront him as obstacles—such as the Nomads Clay initially hired to do his bidding. Gemma is the latest in a long line of people Clay has abused in various ways for his own self-centered purposes. So his treatment of her, despite his genuine love for her in other contexts, is consistent with the type of man Clay is. When Juice Ortiz asks Clay what he did to make Tara declare him “already dead” to her, he responds forlornly, “Same thing I always do”; and later, when Wayne Unser speculates that sentimentality caused Clay to spare his life, Clay responds, “Ain’t my nature” (“Toad’s Wild Ride”).

Virtues and vices are Aristotle’s terms for such inclinations toward acts that are either good or bad, respectively. For example, Gemma knows exactly what Opie is doing when he attacks Sherriff Roosevelt and is hauled off to prison with Jax, Tig, and Chibs Telford—he’s “staying close” to Jax as he has since the two were little boys riding Huffys before trading up to Harleys. Opie’s virtue of selfless devotion to Jax is just as integral to the type of man he is as Clay’s greed is to his moral character. Of course, Opie isn’t morally perfect. His character is also comprised of some questionable traits. His loyalty to the club, for example, overrides his fidelity to his first wife, Donna, eventually resulting in her death; and his jealousy over Lyla’s chosen profession, while understandable, nevertheless leads to an unhealthy marital dynamic.

What distinguishes a virtue from a vice is that the former involves acting and feeling in the right amount—that is, performing the right action, or feeling the right emotion, at the right time and for the right reason. Vice, on the other hand, involves either an excess or a deficiency of action or feeling:

Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, whereas virtue finds and chooses what is intermediate.²

Take the virtue of loyalty, for example.³ Bobby and Tig are both loyal to Clay, but they don’t just blindly follow him. Both have challenged Clay when they judge him to be going down an unwise or unjustifiable path. Bobby constantly badgers Clay about the drug-muling deal with the Galindo Cartel in Season 4; yet, he goes behind Jax’s back to broker a deal to save Clay’s life in Season 5. Contrast this with Chuckie Marstein’s obsequiousness—pathetically “accepting” whatever the club members bid him to do, which is often simply to get lost—or with Stahl’s easy betrayal of her partner and lover, killing her to serve Stahl’s own ambitions. Courage is another virtue exemplified by our collective protagonists, acting with boldness at the right time and for the right reason. Being bold, even risking one’s life, is virtuous if it’s for the right reason; but Juice acts rashly when he charges into a minefield. By the same token, being cautious can be virtuous too, but not if your caution involves putting innocent children at risk, as when cowardly Ethan Zobelle hides from SAMCRO in a convenience store full of children.

“What Kind of Nasty Shit Did Your Momma Do to You?”

Virtues and vices are not things a person is born with, nor can they be merely bestowed upon you by another person.⁴ Rather, they are cultivated through habituation, practicing the behaviors modeled by others whom one looks up to as moral exemplars:

Virtues … we acquire, just as we acquire crafts, by having first activated them. For we learn a craft by producing the same product that we must produce when we have learned it; we become builders, for instance, by building, and we become harpists by playing the harp. Similarly, then, we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.⁵

Lowell Harland Jr. probably apprenticed as a mechanic at Teller-Morrow under the guidance of experienced mechanics such as his father and Clay. Likewise, one develops moral virtues by apprenticing under those who already possess such virtues, practicing the moral trade until it becomes second nature. The only problem is that vice may be cultivated in the same way as virtue—Lowell Jr. could just as easily have learned from his dad how to sabotage a motorcycle and get its rider killed.

And once a particular virtue or vice has become ingrained as part of one’s character, it’s as difficult to break as any habit—again, consider the drug-addicted Lowell Jr. Aristotle notes that “the reason why habit is also difficult to change is that it is like nature … ‘Habit, I say, is longtime training … and in the end training is nature for human beings.’”⁶ Tara observes how mired in habit Jax is when she admonishes him, “You keep saying you want to change things, but you keep repeating old behavior. You can’t have it both ways” (“Potlatch”).

Aristotle stresses the importance of the right environment for becoming virtuous, especially when it comes to children. Our tendency to become habituated is the reason why

we must perform the right activities, since differences in these imply corresponding differences in the states [of moral character]. It is not unimportant, then, to acquire one sort of habit or another, right from our youth. On the contrary, it is very important, indeed all-important.⁷

This view is well captured by the precept, “Children learn what they live.”

We see this most clearly played out in the politically unstable and violent world of Belfast, as depicted in Season 3. Consider the contrasting aims of the two IRA leaders, Jimmy O’Phelan and Fr. Kellan Ashby. Jimmy O has been working behind the scenes, recruiting day and night, to set up his own revolutionary campaign separate from the control of the “Irish Kings” who govern the Real IRA. Jimmy O’s army of choice? Teenage boys he can easily entice with dreams of “glorious revolution” and “fighting the good fight” for the cause of a free Northern Ireland.

Though he is a leader in the Real IRA’s violent struggle and long-standing arms-dealing relationship with SAMCRO, Fr. Ashby objects to Jimmy O’s plans and recruitment methods. He complains about how Jimmy has been “recruiting off the streets. Broken kids, some as young as ten, eleven. Promising there’ll be a united Ireland, all the cash and prizes that go with it. This isn’t a child’s war … Jimmy’s lost sight of who we are, why we struggle. He’s not a soldier anymore, just a gangster” (“Home”).⁸

Importantly, Fr. Ashby was also a close friend and confidant of John Teller. He’s thus well aware of J.T.’s “resolute desire” to sever the MC’s ties to the IRA and to raise his boys, Thomas and Jax, in a more serene “biker commune.” We all know how that story ended. But Fr. Ashby sees a second chance at redemption when Abel, kidnapped by Cameron Hayes, is brought to Belfast and put in the care of Maureen Ashby: “I couldn’t do anything to help save the son, but I can do something to save the grandson … from the life of his father” (“Firinne”). Fr. Ashby sees Jax as a willing participant in the same cycle of violence from which J.T. had failed to free him. Is being in Jax’s care truly what would be best for Abel? Won’t he, just like his father, want nothing but a Harley and a cut by age five? Wouldn’t Abel be likely to succeed his father at the head of the table in “church” and perpetuate the violence (and porn and prostitution, too) into the next generation?

Fr. Ashby is determined not to allow Jax’s vices to negatively impact Abel’s moral development. He succeeds in convincing Jax that a better life awaits Abel “with a father who didn’t torture and murder a man yesterday,” as we witness in the powerfully moving scene when Jax follows Abel and his adoptive parents around not long after seeing his mother pull a gun on some nuns—NUNS!—and threaten to kill a baby if they didn’t give up Abel’s location (“Bainne”). As we know, Gemma’s eligibility for “Mother/Grandmother of the Year” award slips away even further in Season 5. She and Clay certainly didn’t model the best behavior for Jax. Would he and Tara—who’s already helped Gemma kill and dispose of an innocent woman—do any better?

“A Unique Little Town”

SAMCRO is embedded within the small town of Charming, California. As Clay affirms, “If it happens in Charming, it’s SAMCRO’s problem” (“Smite”). Jax and Opie...

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Blackwell Philosophy and PopCulture Series
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Introduction: “Gotta Look This Life in the Eye”
• Acknowledgments: Thanks to the Reaper Crew
• Part I: “AN EQUAL MIX OF MIGHT AND RIGHT”: ETHICS AT 92 MPH
• Part II: “OFF THE SOCIAL GRID”: THE POLITICS OF MAYHEM
• Part III: “THE CONCEPT WAS PURE, SIMPLE, TRUE”: BIKER IDENTITY AND MEANING
• Part IV: “THE PASSION IN HIS HEART AND THE REASON IN HIS MIND”: SEX, LOVE, AND GENDER
• Part V: “EACH SAVAGE EVENT WAS A CATALYST FOR THE NEXT”: THE HISTORIC AND THE HOMERIC
• Contributors: Philosophers of Mayhem
• List of Episodes: The Life (and Death?) of Sam Crow
• Index