By Holly James.
I: INTRODUCTION
Background
Following the shitshow that was this year’s holiday season, I [Primary Moral Actor] have made the decision to drive my rented Renault Clio down to mother’s to tell her precisely what I think about my stepfather’s homophobic comments and general behaviour over the Christmas period before he gets in from work at three p.m.
Secondary Moral Actors
John, a homophobe: at work
Lesley: making tea (also, later: in the back bedroom)
Preamble
While Lesley is fumbling with a pack of Hobnobs in a daze and boiling the kettle for the third time to make the cup of tea she offered me twenty minutes ago, I spot a very chic pair of trousers [Ethical Catalyst] drying on the radiator in the downstairs bathroom.
“Are those yours?” I say.
“Don’t touch those!” she says. “They’re John’s. I’ve just washed them for a funeral he’s going to on Monday.”
“Alright, Lesley, I’m not going to touch them. Christ, I was only asking.”
But in the time it takes her to boil the kettle again and disappear upstairs to rummage in the cupboard in the back bedroom for reasons unknown to me, I’m already in the downstairs bathroom trying on the trousers.
II: ENQUIRY
Central Question
It is now that I find myself facing the following moral quandary: If my stepfather is a homophobe, is it wrong to steal his best funeral trousers?
III: MORAL REASONING
Pure Aesthetics
The trousers, from erstwhile popular fashion outlet and department store Debenhams are a men’s 30″ waist and 28″ leg with a slight crease along the front, made in Bangladesh from 80% cotton and 20% polyester. Crucially, unlike every single other pair of trousers I have tried to winch my squat little legs into in my life thus far, they fit me perfectly. My sister texts back within seconds to confirm this. But it is important to take bias into account: she is most likely encouraging me because we sit side-by-side in the kleptomaniac gays—families—homophobes Venn diagram.
Utilitarianism
Who needs these trousers more? John has a funeral to go to on Monday, whereas I do not. But John has a full-time job at the Argos Distribution Centre with a decent pension whereas I am unemployed. John can therefore afford other trousers. I could theoretically afford a new pair of trousers if I waited for next month’s Universal Credit, but not nice high-quality ones like these, especially given that Debenhams is now defunct. Then again, I haven’t tried looking for them on the internet where I might be able to find the same pair second-hand, pre-worn by somebody who is not a homophobe. But of course part of the attraction to these trousers is precisely the thrill of stealing them, like how Winona Ryder could have easily afforded the Marc Jacobs dress, it wasn’t about cost.
Situationism
Given that these trousers have been set aside for a funeral, will the fact that John awakens to find the trousers gone make this trying day even more unbearable than it would have been ordinarily, thus rendering the act of theft more deplorable?
Relativism
Then again, would the grief and confusion felt at the loss of a pair of trousers be anywhere near as unbearable as the havoc homophobes go around tirelessly wreaking on society for no apparent reason?
Kantian Deontology
If I were to Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law then decidedly there would be no justifying the theft of these trousers because if everyone went around snaffling trousers off of radiators then the whole world would descend into complete chaos. However, if we were living in a world ruled by Marxist redistribution in which goods were allocated to each according to his needs then nobody would find themselves in such dire straits as to be coveting a homophobe’s obsequial garb in the first place.
Virtue Ethics
Most likely a person for whom virtue is a consideration has far better things to do with their time than to spend twenty minutes in their mother’s downstairs toilet debating on whether or not to commit an act of theft. In theory it would only really be virtuous to steal the trousers if I were to give them to someone else who sincerely needed them. Then again, if I were going to go down the Robin Hood avenue, it would probably make more sense to find a way of stealing money from John rather than a pair of trousers because it’s not like a charity (an LGBTQIA+ hotline, for example) would have much use for them.
Consequentialism
I may not have a funeral to go to, but I do have a professional networking event to attend on Monday where I have to try and convince publishing houses to edit a semi-autobiographical novel I am writing about women fucking each other. Say I were to secure myself a contract, wearing the stolen trousers, would that not be a momentous win for the gays? Likewise if John turned up looking scruffy at the funeral, and all those present passed comment on how scruffy he looked, and went home thinking to themselves He should really take better care of his appearance, then perhaps the funeral attendees would associate homophobes with scruffiness, and if they were on the fence about homophobia, the association might just subconsciously sway them. Meanwhile, the illustrious dignitaries of the publishing industry would associate lesbians with being very chic and smart indeed.
Consequentialism bis
Perhaps the missing trousers would only fuel John’s anger; it is important to consider the risk of him taking this anger out on the gay community in some way: for example, by being even more incensed than usual when reading a Daily Mail article about J.K. Rowling on the night after the funeral. Perhaps it would cause him to finally be driven to some kind of reckless and perverse action, such as riding his new motorbike to a Reform rally in Coventry this weekend.
Materialist(ic) Feminism
If we consider property and wealth to be socially constructed and unjustly concentrated among the oppressor classes (see: Marxist redistribution), then perhaps the theft of these trousers could be considered a symbol of feminist resistance. And let’s say the trousers were to end up on the floor of a hypothetical future girlfriend’s bedroom, could this be considered subversive? But also, would it not feel exceedingly wrong if (for argument’s sake) some poor unsuspecting woman were to find herself grinding on my leg at a nightclub while I was wearing them, or (just imagine) to try taking them off me using her teeth? Not that anyone has so much as suggested taking off my clothes off with their teeth before, but it is not something I would rule out, in fact it’s definitely something I would consider trying, and if it happened it would happen in the heat of the moment, maybe after three or four glasses of wine, and I wouldn’t have time to stop the proceedings and say Wait one second, I just want to make sure you are okay doing this with this specific pair of homophobic trousers, because that would absolutely ruin the mood, and if I were to keep quiet about it then we would find ourselves with a murky case of implied consent on our hands and I don’t feel very comfortable with that.
Karmic Retribution
If we start thinking it’s okay to steal from homophobes, is that not a bit eye for an eye? A bit Code of Hammurabi? Is that not precisely the kind of malicious thing homophobes would do, steal an item from someone just because the person doesn’t agree with their way of thinking? Perhaps it would be kinder, more radical, to consider the possibility that homophobia might in part be a byproduct of other forms of oppression that lie largely out of individual control. And even if some people say: Well, I too have been oppressed, but I have managed to keep myself in check and not turn out a homophobe so why can’t people like John?, those people did not grow up in the same specific town in Sunderland as John, in the same specific year, in the same specific political context and climate, with the same specific parents and friends who were most likely also homophobic and besides, who knows? Maybe John had an early formative experience such as getting kicked in the shin by a homosexual in primary school. And even if we imagine that under those exact circumstances, we would not turn out to be quite so spiteful, well, really, we just can’t ever be sure.
Rationalism
At the end of the day, it is only a pair of trousers, and I suppose what it boils down to is that everyone comes out a loser in this situation, which is hardly surprising as this tends to be the case wherever homophobia is present, whether it involves trousers or otherwise.
Quantum Mechanics
Whether or not I end up stealing the trousers will ultimately depend on whether or not I am observed, i.e. caught in the act.
IV: SITUATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
i) Mitigating Factor: Mood
Tired of this now, followed byii) Mitigating Factor: Panic
Lesley coming thundering down the stairs: What are you doing in there? John’ll be here any minute you know, which means a snap decision has to be made.
IV: SYNTHESIS
Conclusion (Nihilism)
The decision, made solely on the basis of Mitigating Factors (i) and (ii) is to do as my sister says and just take the fucking trousers.
V: POSTSCRIPTUM
You (Extraneous Party, not implicated) ask me, much later: Where did you get those nice trousers from? They really suit me, you say, unlike any other pair of trousers you have seen me try to winch my squat little legs into. I decide it is better not to reveal my kleptomaniac past to you, not yet, it is still early days. And you don’t know anything about Lesley and John. Why would you? I don’t see them anymore. But I smile when you say it because it’s true: I look good in the trousers, even after all these years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Holly James is a translator, writer and editor from the UK, currently based in Paris, France. Her writing has been featured in Lumpen: The Class Work Project and the Santa Fe Writers Project, while her translations have been excerpted and reviewed in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Harpers, The New York Times, and elsewhere.
