Sometimes I think that the world around me has pretty much given up on the idea of civilization. Maybe we go thru the motions so as to avoid getting sued, but in our hearts, we’re all just animals right now; hunting and hurting (and sometimes even killing) as needed to meet our immediate needs. That’s sure what it seems like on my worse days. (And I’m not sure if I’m any better).

My place of employment deals with criminals, people who steal and rape and kill as needed to meet their immediate needs. Unfortunately, when you deal a lot with criminals, you pick up something of their nature. I can see that happening in the investigators and the assistant prosecutors, the “front line” people. I can understand when a police investigator goes into the tough guy routine, but it upsets me when I see the lawyers picking up those nasty habits. Lawyers, in theory, are supposed to devote their lives to the ideals of law, which are key components of civilization. You’d think they would go out of their way to be civilized – you know, the bow-tie kind of lawyer, the old-fashioned guy or lady who believed in the ultimate redemptive quality of practicing law and practicing it well. But no, many of our assistant prosecutors go around swearing and cursing and taking on threatening postures, just like their police investigator friends. It’s especially nauseating to me when the women do it – partly because of my old fashioned notion of women being the kinder and gentler side of the human race, but also because when women put on the tough-guy facade, they tend to overdo it (at least in my office).

I had to help a couple of assistant prosecutors with a press release after a big drug bust the other day. One of them was Terri, who is a head honcho over the “tough crime” units (homicide, narcotics, etc.). Terri is actually a rather nice and decent woman at heart. But when she starts dealing with a case, she starts using the F-word over and over. While talking with some cops as we were trying to get the facts straight for the press release, I heard her talking about a “cluster f—“. I didn’t even want to know what that was about.

Well, it took a bit of back and forth until we got the facts straight about how much cocaine and heroin were seized. Everyone seemed to have a different number, and the numbers didn’t always refer to the same measurements; sometimes we were told that there were so many grams of something, sometimes it was in “decks”, sometimes in “bricks”. And then there was confusion about what was taken in the immediate seizure, and how much came during the “rip” (removed from the person of those who were taken into custody).

Right at the point when the confusion was reaching its peak, Terri stopped her cursing and said, to everyone and no one in particular, “oh yea, figuring out how many decks are in a brick, this is why I went to law school nights”. Actually, that comment made me feel better. I found her frustration to be a hopeful thing. Deep down inside, Terri still held within her the ideal of civilization. THAT is why she went to law school nights. She still had some soul left.

We got the press release out OK. And I went home thinking about the refrain verse from Train’s Calling All Angels: “I won’t give up if you don’t give up”.