Beyond Complicity: Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems

by Francine Banner

An ambitious study of our obsession with complicity that shows how we can all become "good accomplices."
 
Beyond Complicity is a fascinating cultural diagnosis that identifies our obsession with complicity as a symptom of a deeply divided society. The questions surrounding what it means to be legally complicit are the same ones we may ask ourselves as we evaluate our own and others' responsibility for inherited and ongoing harms, such as racism, sexism, and climate What does it mean that someone "knew" they were contributing to wrongdoing? How much involvement must a person have in order to be complicit? At what point are we obligated to intervene?
 
Francine Banner ties together pop culture, politics, law, and social movements to provide a framework for thinking about what we know that our society is defined by crisis, risk, and the quest to root out hazards at all costs. Engaging with legal cases, historical examples, and contemporary case studies, Beyond Complicity unfolds the complex role that complicity plays in US law and society today, offering suggestions for how to shift focus away from blame and toward positive, lasting systemic change.

269 pages, Hardcover

Published January 16, 2024

Reviews

[Israel Gulley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Banner argues we are at a liminal juncture, a position most clearly seen on her chapter on white women; where she showed they are both victims and perpetrators at the same time. While we as individuals may be cognizant and seemingly moral, we may be lacking in another area and therefore always possibly if not likely complicit of some harm. Banner goes on to argue that blame and punishment is therefore not an effective way of combating big issues such as climate change, sexism, racism etc. I do think Banner could have borrowed the concept of criminogenic from Ben Austin’s book “Correction” which is the idea that our current ways of punishing criminals by itself creates more criminal behavior. Banner did correctly point out that by increasing our systems of punishment we will more likely hurt minority communities instead of the systems and those with significant power.

The weakest part of the book for me was imagining what a world where we moved “beyond complicity” would look like. However this doesn’t effect the overall power of the book.

All in all I think this book is an important dissection of what complicity is, the benefits and harms of it, and how it has been used in a country struggling to contend with a history of wrongdoing.

[Julie Bock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Critical description and assessment of complicity. A little overly reliant on legal definitions as well as the end (which was ‘hey look how much has changed in 60 yrs’) was forced. Also didn’t provide clear ways forward to address systems of oppression that engendered complicity.