The Criminal as Epistemic Hero

"Have the courage to use your own understanding without the guidance of another!" This is the profound and liberating advice of German philosopher Immanuel Kant. My society tells me the rich own everything and I own nothing. But when I use my own understanding without the guidance of those in power, I see the world belongs to all, not to a select few. So I break into the houses of the rich and steal their valuables.

The rich man lacks the courage to use his own understanding without the guidance of the socioeconomic system that tells him he is rich. The poor man lacks the courage to use his own understanding without the guidance of the socioeconomic system that tells him he is poor. It is the thief who is the true epistemic hero, who has the courage to use his own understanding, rather than cowering in meek epistemic submission before the appointed authorities.

For the past four decades, the distribution of wealth has become more and more unequal with each passing year. The declarations of those in power as to who owns what therefore become less and less plausible to those who use our own understanding without the guidance of another. Over these same four decades the population in our prisons has grown five times larger. Is this a coincidence?

The respectable bourgeois who never dares to question anything he is told is an epistemic villain. The criminal locked away in prison who dares to use his own understanding without the guidance of another is an epistemic hero. As in so many other cases, the exalted, when seen rightly, will be despised, and the despised, when seen rightly, will be exalted.