G.O.R. - Gang-Oriented Rationalism
The Mexican Mafia In The New “I Am A Killer” Season 6
Graham Harman along with other thinkers believe in something called “Object-Oriented Ontology.” These thinkers believe it is important to think of objects in-and-of-themselves, and that thinking from the lens of subjectivity has historically been used for a great deal of violence. While I don’t think understanding the history of objects-in-themselves solves the problem of violence, the OOO thinkers are correct to see the violent potential of rationalism.
Throughout the episodes, the prisoners speaking to the camera are entirely collected, not pleading or making excuses for their actions, and in fact, end up admitting to breaking both prison rules as well as committing other killings, which they admit to matter-of-factly. The reputation of the Mexican Mafia in Los Angeles and other areas of The United States where they operate is one of brutal efficiency. They are known not just to have links to the cartel, but to have links within their own networks that operate seamlessly. Within the Netflix documentary, the woman laughs when it is said that they are not supposed to have contact (her and the man she testified against), but that “maybe” he got the letter she wrote him 8-months ago.
The first two episodes of “I Am A Killer” on Netflix are a display of G.O.R. Gang-Oriented Rationalism. The calm nature of the entire interview process which extends to the ten-year-old daughter of the killer shows that gang-activity and killings scan occur in the same body as someone who is not in the heaves of inner turmoil.
In many documentaries about killers, the story of the early trauma of the killer is front and center, but here G.O.R. is on full-display. What does it say about reason? It shows that there are two moments of ethics, one is one’s own relation to one’s self, and the inner life and inner peace that one makes for one’s self.
This inner peace of a calm disposition by those who follow G.O.R. is by no means whatsoever a guarantee of ethical behavior within society as a whole. It is in fact, in the case of The Mexican Mafia, the first necessity to engage in systemic group violence.
OOO does not have the generality as the theory of forms; many phenomenon are not objects, like power, force, gravity and gases etc. Kind of ironic, that the growth of the Mexican Mafia is in part aided by the sell of military grade weapons from the U.S..