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Carsten Storm, Dresden Technical University,
Germany
A close reading of
Qing dynasty crime fiction, namely the Longtu gongan and the Shi gongan,
reveals a “common” or lay understanding of the phenomenon of crime, which is,
in some aspects, distinct from normative or ideological official views to be
found in historical sources like law manuals. The general crime pattern,
describing who commits what when where why and in which way, provides us with
lay concepts of dangerous persons and social groups, of risky places, times,
types of behaviour etc.
Within these
categories two ambivalent concepts of criminals are expressed. One places the
culprit completely outside of society, identifying him as a loner in terms of
social contacts. This type describes a professional gangster, driven by the
lowest motives and being pathologically bad. The other type is constructed
within society, describing the culprit as being personally related to the later
victim. He does not make crime his living, but becomes a criminal by chance.
Both types are
elucidating the functioning of confucian ethics and desires. While the crime
stories present an almost exclusively legalist reaction to the outsider,
defining him as the categorical „other“, the insider is judged on more Mencian
approaches allowing the criminals' education and reformation. Aspects of mercy
and forgiveness, sometimes even hidden sympathy in the later concept can be
understood as a pre-modern type of tolerance towards criminals under certain
circumstances. These circumstances are mainly related to the legal severity of
the offence, but as well to a social rating of its seriousness and
significance, which labels some crimes as a mere peccadillo. What is a heinous
crime, if done by a majority proves to be tolerable for certain persons
depending on their social background and the underlying behavioural ideals. In
the end, tolerance does not apply to any specific crime but paradoxically to
certain criminals.