The Issues
What does "No Smoke Without Fire" mean?
Extracts from a discussion on the infamous phrase...
“We need to keep in mind that the idea of 'no smoke without fire' is a near basic human response to news of the kind which surrounds an allegation. No body can therefore be criticised for having that thought.
It requires a person who is prepared to go to the next level and question that initial thought, for the allegation to reveal any shaky foundation. Most people do not get that far! Even then it is very comfortable to place ones questioning thoughts into the hands of those who are supposed to be superior in handling such matters, especially if one is a witness who could potentially help the accused and may consequently suffer determent for doing so. Doing what we are told is often such an easy option. Should an innocent person go to prison then it is often comforting to tell ourselves that we did what we were told. History has many examples of 'it is so easy to induce ordinary people to do horrendous acts'.
So ingrained is the thought of 'no smoke without fire' that administrators of obviously false allegations, tend to get most upset by an intelligent challenge. There are many cases where even the accused, especially in historic cases, spend days, weeks even, going over their earlier life searching for an example of a situation which might have led to misinterpretation. This may lead them to believe that their own nightmare is somehow justified. These accused often find it difficult to confidently say 'this is a load of rot!'”
Horatio, Portsmouth
“…what you have said on “no smoke without fire” – this is a natural response…but only to a certain extent, and it is a far more constructed prejudice than just thinking someone looks a bit odd or behaves in a “suspicious” manner. It is fraught with danger because it is an assumption of guilt, or the proclivity for guilt, built on suspicion (not surprising: our default instinct is to protect our young).
However, where I believe that “NSWF” differs greatly from a natural response is in the intellectual step taken in order to REACH it. We have been trained, conditioned in society to look suspiciously on that man with a camera near a child’s playground. Why? Are we to believe that someone with an attraction to children would be so brazen as to stand in full view in public and take photographs of children for sexual gratification? Yes, we are. Because we are taught to be controlled by fear first. The man might have his camera because he is “a photographer” (shock!), or a bird watcher, a surveyor, an historian, a tree surgeon, a park inspector, or any other vast number of totally justifiable, and FAR MORE LIKELY reasons why he is doing what he is doing than the sinister assumption…which alleges to be based on a considered thought about protection of children. School nativity plays aren’t filmed in many schools any more because a person with a camera in a school is assumed to be “potentially a pervert”, and we ASSUME that “paranoia protects children”. (Actually, it doesn’t, but that’s a whole other argument).
The problem with the “NSWF” is that people BELIEVE they are making an intellectual and considered judgement already. We believe, as we are told, that it is our DUTY to be on the “lookout” for perverts and paedophiles. We make this judgement with hindsight and base it on the presumption of guilt. If one day this photographer in the park is accused of child abuse people will believe they are making the intellectual observation when they skilfully “remember” him “hanging about kids’ parks taking pictures”. Almost like they have been trained by the likes of “investigative journalists and programmes of how “To Catch a Paedophile”. Oh yes, we are all now expected to be expert paedophile-catchers because we have seen “them” on TV, on CSI, heard about them on the news, and read about them in the papers. We know what to look for. I am surprised no-one has gone onto Dragons Den with a “Paedophile Radar” called the “Paedar” yet. The “NSWF” is a constructed, supposed intelligence on the situation, and most people have no understanding of the ignorance and prejudice that it not only comes from, but it further fuels.”
“…we end up blaming someone for their innocent actions being justification enough to suspect them of an abhorrent crime, merely because WE feel justified in using what WE believe is an intellectual judgement. If I was to treat someone differently by race, and claim it was their fault for being black; or for being disabled, because it was their fault for being in a wheel chair, it would so absurd for me to blame my prejudice on them that I would be considered a joke (and quite right)! But not when it comes to “no smoke without fire”, though…that prejudice is PERMITTED by a shared UNDERSTANDING that it is CONSIDERED, it is INTELLECTUAL and it is, in all sense, in the PUBLIC INTEREST.
But it isn’t. It is fuelled ignorance masquerading as desire to protect, and a duty to pass retrospective judgement and prejudice, but protected from responsibility of getting it wrong by always being able to blame any misperceptions on wrong doing or poor judgement made by the accused in the first place. So, guilt can be constructed even from our innocent actions if the truth is treated as a selective commodity there for the picking or leaving, all at the whim and righteous indignation of the self-qualified experts in our society.”
Colin Ward, Birmingham