Hello from Wireworld
By The Cockroach, aka Alaric Hunt
I know why the caged man fights
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True or False: Criminals belong in cages.1
Criminals are dangerous—they rob, steal,
kill, and burn—then dance on the ashes. Society
is safer (for peaceful people) if criminals are inside
cages. Then criminals can do whatever they want
to each other in the cages, and never bother any
of the peaceful people.
Criminals in cages will fight over anything—
even a scrap of food (or more likely drugs). And
criminals are resourceful. At least one will come
out well-fed (or high) and alive (and the other
dead).
That solves half of the problem, right?
This did seem to solve half of the problem for
a long time. America turned a blind eye to the
bloody prisons for many years.2 The prisons
served a purpose. But a commonplace
observation nagged at decisionmakers: men that
came out of the cages were vile.
Ordinary, peaceful people ask why criminals
in cages can’t work out their problems; why can’t
they make themselves better in that time they
spend “away” from society? Why do they have
to grab and fight and kill over every little thing?
An old friend of mine, Jim Compton,
phrased this question differently:
”Why do dogs fight?”
He was asking for a particular answer:
“Because they can’t talk.”
Compton, like those ordinary peaceful
people, thought that because men can talk, they
will. Or should.
Volume I, Number 2
Diplomatic solutions like these sound good
when no one is punching you in your face.
Diplomacy belongs to people who aren’t fighting
for scraps.3 Scraps are all a man finds in the cages.
In these cages we fight for the scraps we find.
Ordinary peaceful people with ordinary
moral standards will never understand cages.
Cages force men to want what they don’t have—
through the simple repetition of having nothing
at all—until they will fight for whatever comes to
hand.4
Men fight when there’s too little to share,
because it’s a fact that someone will be left with
nothing at all. A man might surrender his last
mouthful to his child or his wife, but his last
breath will go first if he’s alone.
Men learned a long time ago that they could
train dogs to fight by keeping them in cages.
Anything kept in a cage eventually belongs in the
cage.
Cages squeeze until the soul is gone.
If cages kill the parts of men that eyes can’t
see, what do they leave behind?5
 1
If criminals belong in cages, why do we put dogs in cages? (Trick question.)
2
Mortality statistics are unavailable for American prisons prior to the year 2000. But 1970 was the real line of demarcation. American
prisons received substantial reform beginning in the 1970s—but this led to a prison population explosion.
(Too many survivors.)
3
It is, in fact, a fine thing to tell someone they mustn’t steal when you have quite enough for yourself, your family, and any thought of
your future needs. Morality costs more when your pockets are empty. Having nothing is an agony even for the best of men; what is it to a
man that’s far from the best? Even Job prayed for death when he was reduced to nothing (6:8-9).
4
A man who has nothing wants for everything.
A man who has everything still wants something.
What men share in common is wanting.
5
I have my suspicions. HG Wells called them morlocks. When men are kept in conditions considered unfit for the normal members of
their society, what are they to become? Presumably, normal members of the society created by the conditions.