Michael MacDonald's All Souls: drugs, crime, and personal responsibility

¶ … Souls is a book about drug addiction and its relation to crime. It is a memoir by Michael MacDonald and it shows how both crime and drugs have brought death to his family, as they grew up in Southie, "in the all-Irish housing projects where everyone claimed to be Irish" (2). It was, according to MacDonald, the best neighborhood in the world. That, of course, was a kind of dream -- for the reality of Southie soon became known to him as it took the lives of his brothers. This paper will explore the reality that MacDonald describes in his memoir All Souls and show how it relates to the realities depicted in two essays: William J. Bennett's "Should Drugs be Legalized?" And Linda Hasselstrom's "Why One Peaceful Woman Carries a Pistol." The relation shows this: that there is no answer to the problem of drugs, guns, crime and self-preservation, unless it comes from within. From Bennett's essay, one may ask, "If drug use is legalized, would the brothers have survived?" Or, "If drug use is legalized, how would the Southie neighborhood be different -- safer or less safe?" From Hasselstrom's essay, one may ask, "Would the possession of weapons have helped the situation any in All Souls?" These questions do not have easy answers. The sad reality is just as MacDonald describes it: a haze of uncertainties in which we fail to know the best course. Indeed, it almost seems as though we cannot even tell who is really living and who is really dead, as MacDonald himself suggests (2).

The two essays by Bennett and Hasselstrom raise some interesting points in connection with the memoir. The memoir itself is full of gritty truths about drug addiction and its relation to crime. But in modern day politics we here politicians saying that the war on drugs is lost and that drugs should be legalized. We are forced to ask ourselves if doing so would help prevent the kind of loss that MacDonald describes in All Souls. I believe that it might.

Legalizing Drugs: All Souls and Bennett's Essay

Bennett makes the claim that legalizing drugs would have an adverse effect on communities and on lives. He states that "every civilized society has found it necessary to exert some form of control over mind-altering substances" (Bennett). After reading MacDonald's memoir, one cannot argue that drug use should not be controlled. The only question is this: who should control it?

Today, we look to government to control every aspect of our lives. The problem with this is that we do not accept any accountability or responsibility. Government and police are our protectors. We listen to them rather than to our conscience. We spend more time gauging what they have to say and what they might do rather than listening to the voice in our own heads. Bennett may be correct in asserting that from time immemorial civilizations have recognized the need to curb drug usage -- but they have not always used the same techniques.

What MacDonald appears to long for in All Souls is a time when Southie truly was a good neighborhood. He longs for an idyllic time: an Edenic place, where the community was made up of virtuous people. It is virtue that MacDonald seems to miss (even if he does not know it). Indeed, the lack of virtue (which is nothing more than habit that is good) seems to be one of the prime reasons his brothers fall to crime and drugs in All Souls. His family does not have the example of virtue instilled in it. MacDonald himself states: "Who needs a man in the home, I always thought, when you have the welfare office?" (33). At a young age, Michael realizes the intrusion of government in the family life: rather than realizing manly virtue from the man of the house, they learn only to hide the true state of their souls and household from the welfare man: "Ma would get an unexpected call early in the morning saying that the social worker was on her way. She'd wake us all up in a panic about the state of the house. The problem wasn't that the house was a mess, but rather that it looked like we owned too many modern conveniences for our own good" (MacDonald 33). This is the consequence of the welfare man replacing the conscience. Rather than face reality with a conscience, one is compelled to hide reality from the welfare man.

We cannot say, of course, whether legalizing drug use would have allowed MacDonald's brothers to live. It certainly seems like they would have stood a better chance at being honest about what they were doing. And honesty never seems like a bad position to take. By criminalizing drugs as Bennett says to do, one may be keeping addiction rates down -- but just because another law is on the books does not mean that men and women have the spirit to follow it. That spirit must take precedence over the law -- and it comes from conscience and the application of virtue. Perhaps by legalizing drugs, the MacDonald brothers could have faced life like honest men without having to feel like criminals and act like criminals. Perhaps they could have faced their drug problems instead of worrying about facing the Law.

We can also speculate as to how de-criminalizing drugs would affect the community. MacDonald sees firsthand how drugs affect his friends, when he loses a bunch of pills on the dance floor and all his friends go crazy trying to get them: "In the end I couldn't believe how important a bunch of tiny red pills could be, making all my friends act differently and cheating me out of the few they'd found on the dance floor, and making my own brother want to kick my ass" (MacDonald 131). The point that MacDonald recognizes is that greed is what is at the heart of the problem -- not drugs or violence. Greed makes his friends want what they cannot otherwise afford. And greed for profits makes his own brother want to beat him. If drugs were legalized, then perhaps they would be more affordable. Perhaps people of age could then decide for themselves if they wanted to use them. They would be free to make their own choices. Of course, they would have to be taught to make good choices -- but that is a different problem. But it is the most important problem -- and it is the most important problem at the heart of All Souls: in life, one should make good choices -- but we all must learn how to make good choices and what the good is -- otherwise, life is hazy and obscure and chaotic.

Unfortunately, Bennett spends more time in his essay citing sources that say how bad legalization of drugs would be. What he spends no time doing is citing sources that say how bad it is to keep people from informing their own consciences and allowing themselves to make their own decisions -- rather than have some government official make it for them. If the MacDonalds had lived in a world that allowed them to be accountable for themselves and to themselves rather than to the welfare man or the police or the government -- then it might have been a different story.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the two essays by Bennett and Hasselstrom help us view All Souls in a good light -- that is to say, they help us bring perspective to the memoir. By asking questions about the way things are and why things happen, we are able to dig deeper into the reality of events. We see that just because drugs can cause problems and addictions does not necessarily mean that they should be illegal. Instead, we should all be responsible and hold ourselves accountable. We should be taught virtue -- then we might need fewer laws. Unfortunately, MacDonald reveals a world where virtue is not taught and where laws are many and discourage true introspection. All Souls shows a reality that is in desperate need of clarity -- the kind of clarity that can only come from looking within rather than outward at the coming approach of the welfare man.

Reflection Paper

In writing this paper I used several different strategies as both a reader and writer. First, in reading All Souls, I tried simply to understand what was being told in the narrative. I did not try to pry out from its pages some underlying message or try to read between the lines. I simply let MacDonald speak for himself and say the things he wanted to say. Then I digested his words and reflected on them. When I reflected on them I found that I had gained some insight into the human condition. In this reflection paper I will discuss that insight and how I used it to help write my paper. I will discuss the four artifacts that helped me prepare my essay: my outline, my notes, my outside sources, and earlier papers.

My notes helped me initially put together my thoughts. They allowed me to see what I had understood so far and what questions I still had to ask. They compelled me to pursue my investigation into the subject. It is because of my notes that I was led to both Bennett's and Hasselstrom's essays. Their essays directly related to the questions I had, which I had formed based on the reading and the world around me (where drug legalization are gun-control laws are often discussed). These notes also helped me prepare my thoughts as I set about organizing my rough draft.

My outline also helped me compose my draft. Through the outline I saw the paper take shape. I could see how one thought transitioned to the next. If no transition seemed possible, I tried to rearrange the pattern of the paper so as to help it flow more smoothly. Creating an outline is not something I have normally done in the past. But now I can see the purposefulness of it. By creating an outline, you are applying a structure to your essay. You must craft your words within a specific frame. While that means that some subjects outside the framework cannot be touched upon, those areas within the framework will receive all the more attention. In other words, the outline helps give the paper focus.

To assist in the creation of the outline, of course, were my outside sources. The readings I researched to help support my essay about All Souls, gave me a kind of guidance when I set about actually realizing what I had to say. Instead of relying solely on my own words, I now had other ideas from which to pick. This was definitely a strength in writing my essay. Being able to appeal to other ideas from outside sources helped provide a footing or a perspective from which I could present my own views. However, because I was confined to a certain perspective, one of the weaknesses of this process was that it did not allow for a free-flowing discourse of ideas. Yes, it was focused -- but it was not as broad, perhaps, as it could have been.

And that brings me to reflect on my earlier papers -- my fourth and final artifact. My earlier papers, I think, have more of that free-flowing quality. They have a stream-of-consciousness feel to them. I enjoyed writing these papers because I could let my thoughts pour out. I could follow them wherever they wandered. However, these sort of papers rarely helped focus attention on a single aspect of a problem or a single topic or subject. In this essay, I saw that I had to focus my attention. Therefore, it was important to keep my thoughts from wandering too far. The outline helped keep the harnessed. My notes and outside sources helped steer my thoughts. And my earlier papers helped remind me how this paper should be different.

In conclusion, in writing this paper I tried first and foremost to focus my thoughts and give my fullest attention to the story that MacDonald tells in All Souls. From there I introduced my own voice -- and balanced it against the opinions of others. And then I formulated a thesis and provided body paragraphs to support that thesis. In the end, I feel this composition has been an atypical work because it has forced me to concentrate and consider the memoir from a single perspective.