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AmandaRichardson-FirstPaper 10 - 01 Jun 2008 - Main.AmandaRichardson
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< | Master of All Masters | >
> | The Constitution as a Symbol | | | -- By AmandaRichardson - 12 Feb 2008 | |
>
> | Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
Voltaire | | | | |
<
< | Goes without saying
There is an axiom in anthropology: "That which comes without saying goes without saying" (Google is unilluminating on who originally uttered this). The false assumptions and the magical thinking of other cultures are clear; it takes work to find our own. | >
> | The Constitution in Suburbia | | | | |
<
< | The mystique of the Constitution
Like any culture, America has many creation myths.
Some of these myths don't follow the anthropological model: we do learn them in school, and the very fact that we can remember learning them makes them relatively easy to unlearn, or at least to rethink. The Constitution, as the most essential symbol of our nation, is largely an unexamined bedrock. We all have vague ideas about what the document actually says; what is important is our collective belief not in the words but in the what we believe the work of the Constitution is.
Santa Claus isn't real?
The Constitution, however, is not a document handed down from on high, or from mythical "Founding Fathers." It is a set of compromises made by fallible men that has held together for over two centuries by nothing more than a collective willingness to believe.
- It's not clear what this sentence means, not because its words are ambiguous, but because "nothing more than a collective willingness to believe" sustains any social institution not dependent on the continuous physical presence of force or the threat of imminent force. And force or the threat of force, it transpires, is not actually stronger than the collective willingness to believe. So discovering that Constitutional faith is a political faith doesn't actually seem to me to contain the deracinating or destabilizing consequence it seems to contain to you.
The Constitution functions as a smokescreen behind which the doings of the government actually take place, and the contradictions between what we, as a nation, say we do (e.g. protect freedom) and what we actually do (e.g. wiretap) are resolved, then, by the magic box of a document no one reads.
- Not all faith is blind faith. Those who read may also believe. And I don't understand the idea of the Constitution as smokescreen, "behind which the doings of ... government ... take place." We have a reasonably public and visible government, to which the Constitution might more reasonably said to stand in the background, only occasionally relevant. The issue presented by the wiretapping which is your example is not primarily whether it is unconstitutional, but whether it is illegal, which is a different and more powerful question.
Law school as demystifier
Lawyers know better. At least, they seem to think they do. They've
read the Constitution. Not only that, they understand it; how it was
molded, what the Framers intended, how it can evolve.
If logic and magic are both structural elements of human thinking, as Frank asserts, then how do we get from the myth of the Constitution (magic) to the myth of understanding the Constitution (magic masquerading as logic)?
- Not clear what "get from ... to" means. Rhetorically, psychologically, technically? I don't grasp whether you mean that "understanding the Constitution" is a metaphor for understanding the social processes of constitutional discourse (in which case I'm not sure why it is magic at all) or something else entirely.
ConLaw
A Columbia professor recently said that February is the most depressing month of 1L year. While the weather undoubtedly plays a part in this, it is no coincidence that February is when we begin to uncover and do away with the myth of the Constitution.
The anomie, the angst, the unwillingness to do the reading: there is a profound sense of loss that goes along with having one’s assumptions about the world challenged.
- This seems to report as universal an idiosyncratic intrapsychic tendency. Having assumptions about the world challenged can also be invigorating and productive.
Law school, in other words, engenders a crisis of faith.
- Depends? My faith didn't enter crisis because of law school. Perhaps this depends on one's previous expectations?
In Marbury v Madison, for example, we learn that the right of judicial review, rather than being a concept handed down from on high, is simply a fiction created by Marshall out of nothing more than gumption and good writing.
- What "on high" could it have been handed down from? Is this not a truism dressed up as a catastrophe? At a minimum, why is that a deflating as opposed to an empowering discovery?
Similarly, Cherokee Nation v State of Georgia reveals, to
paraphrase Andrew Jackson, that the Supreme Court can make its
decisions but without popular, or at least executive, support there is
very little it can do to enforce them.
- And this was a discovery? Could one have studied any history or political theory, of any society, without observing the ultimate dependence of adjudication on the actual behavior of those controlling the public force?
The Supreme Court, it is revealed, has neither a solid mandate to make many of its decisions nor the power to enforce them. The work of ConLaw (and, similarly, other 1L classes) seems to be to break down our implicit assumptions about American government.
- Where did these implicit assumptions come from? If I consult an old high school civics text it will make that point about the Supreme Court.
Hot Cockalorum
The most important work of law school is not in breaking us down but
in remolding us in the image of "the lawyer."
There is, then, a two-fold purpose in rebuilding our faith in the
Constitution and the law. It is difficult (if not impossible) to
function in the world without a belief system, and law students are no
exception to this rule. Becoming versed in the obscure rituals of the
law community thus provides lawyers with an alternative to the rituals
of American society-at-large; it also, more practically, serves to
preserve the profession of the law, and thus the ability to obtain
money from those who have yet to learn the code.
How do we rebuild our myths?
How these myths are rebuilt and reshaped is still a mystery to me. As law students we all acquire a language that sets us apart from those not in our particular culture. We also learn a reverence for actions that we were unaware of before law school; for artful opinions, for well-argued briefs, for, perhaps, one school of interpretation or another; and we relearn a belief in the ability of legal words to shape the doings of the world.
The shock of the tenuousness of the law and of the pervasiveness of legal constructions (lies) gives way to admiration and even adoration.
is
Is it possible to function in a magicless society?
Arnold starts from “the assumption that social creed, law, economics, and so on have no meaning whatever apart from the organization to which they are attached” (23), and expounds this theme quite convincingly.
The law should be about protection. The value of the Constitution, then, is as a symbol; we can’t exist as a society without a collective belief in the idea that we have definable rights which have their source in something external and knowable.
Our traditions, therefore, aren't just blind rituals. They have a purpose. Arnold goes on to say that “the art of government consists in the technique of achieving willing popular acceptance” (45); in other words, social change must come from both changing the law and changing societal beliefs about what the law should be.
Our work as law students lies not just in understanding and then rebuilding our core societal myths but in remembering that that is what they are. Things might be what they do, not what they’re called; that doesn’t mean that what they are called is unimportant. Words, like myths, can obscure, can manipulate, can create hope or dash it; words can become so disconnected from acts that they become more important than the work they are doing.
The search for truth, then, is just a distraction. Perhaps our most important work is recognizing the power that comes with mastering these obfuscations and remembering to use it (responsibly? but here we come to another question altogether).
- I find this conclusion a little puzzling. I don't understand the causal relations among the first four sentences. They don't seem to me to constitute a sequence or the development of an idea. I also don't understand the third and fourth paragraphs in relation to one another. What symbols do is said to be important, and I agree, but that doesn't seem to lead (if it is what the third graf establishes) to either of the sentences contained in the fourth.
- In general, it seems to me, the essay relies heavily on premises that seem to me unestablished, or counter-intuitive. I don't want to deny the reality of the "anomie caused by challenge to assumptions" narrative or the "judicial review not sent down from on high" disillusionment, because for all I know those experiences are your experiences, and are as real as mine. But I find them difficult to believe in as widespread phenomena. And if they aren't general, what becomes of the rest of the analysis?
MASTER OF ALL MASTERS
A Girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things. He said to her, "What will you call me?"
"Master or mister, or whatever you please, sir," says she.
He said, "You must call me 'master of all masters.' And what would you call this?" pointing to his bed.
"Bed or couch, or whatever you please, sir."
"No, that's my 'barnacle'. And what do you call these?" said he, pointing to his pantaloons.
"Breeches or trousers, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call them 'squibs and crackers.' And what would you call her?" pointing to the cat.
"Cat or kit, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call her 'white-faced simminy' And this now," showing the fire, "what would you call this?"
"Fire or flame, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call it 'hot cockalorum'; and what this?" he went on, pointing to the water.
"Water or wet, or whatever you please, sir."
"No, 'pondalorum' is its name. And what do you call all this?" asked he, as he pointed to the house.
"House or cottage, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call it 'high topper mountain.'"
That very night the servant woke her master up in a fright and said, "Master of all masters, get out of your barnacle and put on your squibs
and crackers. For white-faced simminy has got a spark of hot cockalorum on its tail, and unless you get some pondalorum high topper mountain
will be all on hot cockalorum...." | | | \ No newline at end of file | |
>
> | The Constitution is not a set of unbreakable principles. It is an evolving set of compromises, reinterpreted, and occasionally amended, as society (or the Supreme Court, or Congress) demands. And perhaps the majority of Americans understand that. But in my life, growing up in suburban New Jersey, the Constitution was an essential symbol; a creation myth of the highest order.
There is an axiom in anthropology: that which comes without saying goes without saying. The Constitution is a bedrock of American society, but in my life knowledge of its meaning was largely untaught—we knew it as the document which established our government and protected our rights, and that was the end of it. We believed not in the words of the document but in the work we thought it did.
The Constitution, then, did not appear to us to be a changeable, evolving document but a stable set of rules; a talisman representing certain knowable rights that our government guaranteed us. This view of the Constitution lent legitimacy to not just the government but to society in general. Frank discusses magic and logic as essential elements of human thinking: here viewing the Constitution as a magical document, a set of natural and enforceable rules and regulations, allowed us to see our society as stable, secure, and correct— magic masquerading as logic.
What we gain
This sense of security and stability was important to my childhood. Arnold starts from “the assumption that social creed, law, economics, and so on have no meaning whatever apart from the organization to which they are attached” (23), and here the idea of the Constitution as an unchanging creed must be seen in light of the effect it had on our view of American society in general.
Symbols create their own value, and the idea of society as correct, fundamentally stable, and safe all flowed from the idea of the Constitution as a guarantor of society, regardless of what it actually said or did. And from that came a sense of having a known, preordained place in the world. Seeing the Constitution as an absolute set of unbreakable principles, then, gave me faith in America’s government and society.
A certain amount of faith is necessary for the function of society. Without faith in their leaders, people revolt; without faith in elections and the structure of the government, democracy fails. With a belief in the Constitution came a willingness to accept all the structures that flow from society and, perhaps more importantly, the ability to trust in them.
What we lose
Too much faith, however, leads to complacency. Things might be what they do, not what they’re called; that doesn’t mean that what they are called is unimportant. Words, like myths, can obscure, can manipulate, can create hope or dash it; words can become so disconnected from acts that they become more important than the work they are doing. Where we allow ourselves to believe in symbols without examining those beliefs we open ourselves up to manipulation, and we open our government up to corruption.
The Constitution is not a set of unbreakable principles— it is a set of compromises, the meaning of which have evolved over time. If this weren’t true, we would still be stuck with an eighteenth century conception of fundamental rights, with the belief that there is no right to privacy, or even with the idea that the Supreme Court has no right of judicial review.
If Arnold is correct, and “the art of government consists in the technique of achieving willing popular acceptance” (45), then perhaps ignoring this truth about the Constitution leads to an inculcated blindness; that is, faith without reason.
In addition to giving me peace of mind, then, the idea of the Constitution as absolute and unchanging (and correct) lead to a fundamentalist view of our government. That is, if the Constitution was handed down from on high, then the government had a mandate that goes beyond the power and will of the people or the states.
Fundamentalism, at its core, encourages people to stop thinking for themselves, and this kind of Constitutional fundamentalism leads to that complacency. If the Constitution is correct and unchanging, and the government is fulfilling its mandate to uphold it, then it is okay to turn off our brains. After all, this view means that even if something is wrong, there is little or nothing we can do to change it.
This complacency becomes especially tempting when we are given symbols which soothe our sense of civic duty while not actually having any practical effect (the primaries—and maybe even voting in general—spring to mind). These symbols, when interpreted in light of the Constitution as a talisman, allow us to believe we are fulfilling all that the Constitution requires of us; we can then simply have faith that those in charge know what they are doing.
Where we stand
The worth of the Constitution as a symbol— as an unchanging bedrock— must, therefore, be tempered by the awareness that such blind faith is necessarily dangerous.
What we gain from this view, then, is the ability to function mindlessly. Mindlessness about government is not always a bad thing; faith allows us the freedom to have jobs, families, and lives without fear of the imminent breakdown of society. What we lose, though, is the desire to monitor, and to challenge, the government; we lose the principle of government “by the People.” And if we are not careful, what might rise in its place is government “by the Diebold,” “by the Supreme Court,” or “by the Halliburton”— that is, government by the structures that realize the truth about our changeable, manipulatable Constitution and are willing to exploit it. |
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AmandaRichardson-FirstPaper 9 - 28 Mar 2008 - Main.EbenMoglen
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper%25" |
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Santa Claus isn't real? | |
<
< | The Constitution, however, is not a document handed down from on high, or from mythical "Founding Fathers." It is a set of compromises made by fallible men that has held together for over two centuries by nothing more than a collective willingness to believe.
| >
> | The Constitution, however, is not a document handed down from on high, or from mythical "Founding Fathers." It is a set of compromises made by fallible men that has held together for over two centuries by nothing more than a collective willingness to believe.
- It's not clear what this sentence means, not because its words are ambiguous, but because "nothing more than a collective willingness to believe" sustains any social institution not dependent on the continuous physical presence of force or the threat of imminent force. And force or the threat of force, it transpires, is not actually stronger than the collective willingness to believe. So discovering that Constitutional faith is a political faith doesn't actually seem to me to contain the deracinating or destabilizing consequence it seems to contain to you.
| | | The Constitution functions as a smokescreen behind which the doings of the government actually take place, and the contradictions between what we, as a nation, say we do (e.g. protect freedom) and what we actually do (e.g. wiretap) are resolved, then, by the magic box of a document no one reads. | |
>
> |
- Not all faith is blind faith. Those who read may also believe. And I don't understand the idea of the Constitution as smokescreen, "behind which the doings of ... government ... take place." We have a reasonably public and visible government, to which the Constitution might more reasonably said to stand in the background, only occasionally relevant. The issue presented by the wiretapping which is your example is not primarily whether it is unconstitutional, but whether it is illegal, which is a different and more powerful question.
| | | Law school as demystifier | |
<
< | Lawyers know better. At least, they seem to think they do. They've read the Constitution. Not only that, they understand it; how it was molded, what the Framers intended, how it can evolve.
If logic and magic are both structural elements of human thinking, as Frank asserts, then how do we get from the myth of the Constitution (magic) to the myth of understanding the Constitution (magic masquerading as logic)? | >
> | Lawyers know better. At least, they seem to think they do. They've
read the Constitution. Not only that, they understand it; how it was
molded, what the Framers intended, how it can evolve. | | | | |
>
> | If logic and magic are both structural elements of human thinking, as Frank asserts, then how do we get from the myth of the Constitution (magic) to the myth of understanding the Constitution (magic masquerading as logic)? | | | | |
>
> |
- Not clear what "get from ... to" means. Rhetorically, psychologically, technically? I don't grasp whether you mean that "understanding the Constitution" is a metaphor for understanding the social processes of constitutional discourse (in which case I'm not sure why it is magic at all) or something else entirely.
| | |
ConLaw | |
<
< | A Columbia professor recently said that February is the most depressing month of 1L year. While the weather undoubtedly plays a part in this, it is no coincidence that February is when we begin to uncover and do away with the myth of the Constitution.
The anomie, the angst, the unwillingness to do the reading: there is a profound sense of loss that goes along with having one’s assumptions about the world challenged.
Law school, in other words, engenders a crisis of faith.
In Marbury v Madison, for example, we learn that the right of judicial review, rather than being a concept handed down from on high, is simply a fiction created by Marshall out of nothing more than gumption and good writing.
Similarly, Cherokee Nation v State of Georgia reveals, to paraphrase Andrew Jackson, that the Supreme Court can make its decisions but without popular, or at least executive, support there is very little it can do to enforce them.
| >
> | A Columbia professor recently said that February is the most depressing month of 1L year. While the weather undoubtedly plays a part in this, it is no coincidence that February is when we begin to uncover and do away with the myth of the Constitution.
The anomie, the angst, the unwillingness to do the reading: there is a profound sense of loss that goes along with having one’s assumptions about the world challenged.
- This seems to report as universal an idiosyncratic intrapsychic tendency. Having assumptions about the world challenged can also be invigorating and productive.
Law school, in other words, engenders a crisis of faith.
- Depends? My faith didn't enter crisis because of law school. Perhaps this depends on one's previous expectations?
In Marbury v Madison, for example, we learn that the right of judicial review, rather than being a concept handed down from on high, is simply a fiction created by Marshall out of nothing more than gumption and good writing.
- What "on high" could it have been handed down from? Is this not a truism dressed up as a catastrophe? At a minimum, why is that a deflating as opposed to an empowering discovery?
Similarly, Cherokee Nation v State of Georgia reveals, to
paraphrase Andrew Jackson, that the Supreme Court can make its
decisions but without popular, or at least executive, support there is
very little it can do to enforce them.
- And this was a discovery? Could one have studied any history or political theory, of any society, without observing the ultimate dependence of adjudication on the actual behavior of those controlling the public force?
| | | The Supreme Court, it is revealed, has neither a solid mandate to make many of its decisions nor the power to enforce them. The work of ConLaw (and, similarly, other 1L classes) seems to be to break down our implicit assumptions about American government. | |
>
> |
- Where did these implicit assumptions come from? If I consult an old high school civics text it will make that point about the Supreme Court.
| | |
Hot Cockalorum | |
<
< | The most important work of law school is not in breaking us down but in remolding us in the image of "the lawyer."
There is, then, a two-fold purpose in rebuilding our faith in the Constitution and the law. It is difficult (if not impossible) to function in the world without a belief system, and law students are no exception to this rule. Becoming versed in the obscure rituals of the law community thus provides lawyers with an alternative to the rituals of American society-at-large; it also, more practically, serves to preserve the profession of the law, and thus the ability to obtain money from those who have yet to learn the code. | >
> | The most important work of law school is not in breaking us down but
in remolding us in the image of "the lawyer."
There is, then, a two-fold purpose in rebuilding our faith in the
Constitution and the law. It is difficult (if not impossible) to
function in the world without a belief system, and law students are no
exception to this rule. Becoming versed in the obscure rituals of the
law community thus provides lawyers with an alternative to the rituals
of American society-at-large; it also, more practically, serves to
preserve the profession of the law, and thus the ability to obtain
money from those who have yet to learn the code. | | | How do we rebuild our myths?
How these myths are rebuilt and reshaped is still a mystery to me. As law students we all acquire a language that sets us apart from those not in our particular culture. We also learn a reverence for actions that we were unaware of before law school; for artful opinions, for well-argued briefs, for, perhaps, one school of interpretation or another; and we relearn a belief in the ability of legal words to shape the doings of the world.
The shock of the tenuousness of the law and of the pervasiveness of legal constructions (lies) gives way to admiration and even adoration. | |
<
< | | >
> | is | | | Is it possible to function in a magicless society?
Arnold starts from “the assumption that social creed, law, economics, and so on have no meaning whatever apart from the organization to which they are attached” (23), and expounds this theme quite convincingly.
The law should be about protection. The value of the Constitution, then, is as a symbol; we can’t exist as a society without a collective belief in the idea that we have definable rights which have their source in something external and knowable.
| | | Our work as law students lies not just in understanding and then rebuilding our core societal myths but in remembering that that is what they are. Things might be what they do, not what they’re called; that doesn’t mean that what they are called is unimportant. Words, like myths, can obscure, can manipulate, can create hope or dash it; words can become so disconnected from acts that they become more important than the work they are doing.
The search for truth, then, is just a distraction. Perhaps our most important work is recognizing the power that comes with mastering these obfuscations and remembering to use it (responsibly? but here we come to another question altogether). | |
<
< | | >
> |
- I find this conclusion a little puzzling. I don't understand the causal relations among the first four sentences. They don't seem to me to constitute a sequence or the development of an idea. I also don't understand the third and fourth paragraphs in relation to one another. What symbols do is said to be important, and I agree, but that doesn't seem to lead (if it is what the third graf establishes) to either of the sentences contained in the fourth.
- In general, it seems to me, the essay relies heavily on premises that seem to me unestablished, or counter-intuitive. I don't want to deny the reality of the "anomie caused by challenge to assumptions" narrative or the "judicial review not sent down from on high" disillusionment, because for all I know those experiences are your experiences, and are as real as mine. But I find them difficult to believe in as widespread phenomena. And if they aren't general, what becomes of the rest of the analysis?
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<
< | You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" on the next line:
# * Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = TWikiAdminGroup, AmandaRichardson
Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of that line. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated list | | | | |
<
< | | MASTER OF ALL MASTERS
| >
> | MASTER OF ALL MASTERS
| | | A Girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things. He said to her, "What will you call me?"
"Master or mister, or whatever you please, sir," says she.
He said, "You must call me 'master of all masters.' And what would you call this?" pointing to his bed.
|
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AmandaRichardson-FirstPaper 8 - 18 Mar 2008 - Main.IanSullivan
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper%25" |
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| | | That very night the servant woke her master up in a fright and said, "Master of all masters, get out of your barnacle and put on your squibs
and crackers. For white-faced simminy has got a spark of hot cockalorum on its tail, and unless you get some pondalorum high topper mountain
will be all on hot cockalorum...." | |
<
< | | | | \ No newline at end of file |
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AmandaRichardson-FirstPaper 7 - 05 Mar 2008 - Main.IanSullivan
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper%25" |
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| | | That very night the servant woke her master up in a fright and said, "Master of all masters, get out of your barnacle and put on your squibs
and crackers. For white-faced simminy has got a spark of hot cockalorum on its tail, and unless you get some pondalorum high topper mountain
will be all on hot cockalorum...."
\ No newline at end of file | |
>
> | | | | \ No newline at end of file |
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AmandaRichardson-FirstPaper 5 - 14 Feb 2008 - Main.AmandaRichardson
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper%25" |
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<
< | It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted. | >
> | | | | Master of All Masters | | |
Goes without saying | |
>
> | There is an axiom in anthropology: "That which comes without saying goes without saying" (Google is unilluminating on who originally uttered this). The false assumptions and the magical thinking of other cultures are clear; it takes work to find our own. | | | The mystique of the Constitution | |
>
> | Like any culture, America has many creation myths.
Some of these myths don't follow the anthropological model: we do learn them in school, and the very fact that we can remember learning them makes them relatively easy to unlearn, or at least to rethink. The Constitution, as the most essential symbol of our nation, is largely an unexamined bedrock. We all have vague ideas about what the document actually says; what is important is our collective belief not in the words but in the what we believe the work of the Constitution is. | | |
Santa Claus isn't real? | |
>
> | The Constitution, however, is not a document handed down from on high, or from mythical "Founding Fathers." It is a set of compromises made by fallible men that has held together for over two centuries by nothing more than a collective willingness to believe.
The Constitution functions as a smokescreen behind which the doings of the government actually take place, and the contradictions between what we, as a nation, say we do (e.g. protect freedom) and what we actually do (e.g. wiretap) are resolved, then, by the magic box of a document no one reads. | | | Law school as demystifier | |
>
> | Lawyers know better. At least, they seem to think they do. They've read the Constitution. Not only that, they understand it; how it was molded, what the Framers intended, how it can evolve.
If logic and magic are both structural elements of human thinking, as Frank asserts, then how do we get from the myth of the Constitution (magic) to the myth of understanding the Constitution (magic masquerading as logic)? | | | | |
<
< | ConLaw? | | | | |
<
< | CrimLaw? | >
> | ConLaw
A Columbia professor recently said that February is the most depressing month of 1L year. While the weather undoubtedly plays a part in this, it is no coincidence that February is when we begin to uncover and do away with the myth of the Constitution.
The anomie, the angst, the unwillingness to do the reading: there is a profound sense of loss that goes along with having one’s assumptions about the world challenged.
Law school, in other words, engenders a crisis of faith.
In Marbury v Madison, for example, we learn that the right of judicial review, rather than being a concept handed down from on high, is simply a fiction created by Marshall out of nothing more than gumption and good writing.
Similarly, Cherokee Nation v State of Georgia reveals, to paraphrase Andrew Jackson, that the Supreme Court can make its decisions but without popular, or at least executive, support there is very little it can do to enforce them.
The Supreme Court, it is revealed, has neither a solid mandate to make many of its decisions nor the power to enforce them. The work of ConLaw (and, similarly, other 1L classes) seems to be to break down our implicit assumptions about American government. | | | | |
<
< | Hot Cocolorum | >
> | Hot Cockalorum
The most important work of law school is not in breaking us down but in remolding us in the image of "the lawyer."
There is, then, a two-fold purpose in rebuilding our faith in the Constitution and the law. It is difficult (if not impossible) to function in the world without a belief system, and law students are no exception to this rule. Becoming versed in the obscure rituals of the law community thus provides lawyers with an alternative to the rituals of American society-at-large; it also, more practically, serves to preserve the profession of the law, and thus the ability to obtain money from those who have yet to learn the code. | | | How do we rebuild our myths? | |
>
> | How these myths are rebuilt and reshaped is still a mystery to me. As law students we all acquire a language that sets us apart from those not in our particular culture. We also learn a reverence for actions that we were unaware of before law school; for artful opinions, for well-argued briefs, for, perhaps, one school of interpretation or another; and we relearn a belief in the ability of legal words to shape the doings of the world.
The shock of the tenuousness of the law and of the pervasiveness of legal constructions (lies) gives way to admiration and even adoration.
Is it possible to function in a magicless society?
Arnold starts from “the assumption that social creed, law, economics, and so on have no meaning whatever apart from the organization to which they are attached” (23), and expounds this theme quite convincingly.
The law should be about protection. The value of the Constitution, then, is as a symbol; we can’t exist as a society without a collective belief in the idea that we have definable rights which have their source in something external and knowable.
Our traditions, therefore, aren't just blind rituals. They have a purpose. Arnold goes on to say that “the art of government consists in the technique of achieving willing popular acceptance” (45); in other words, social change must come from both changing the law and changing societal beliefs about what the law should be.
Our work as law students lies not just in understanding and then rebuilding our core societal myths but in remembering that that is what they are. Things might be what they do, not what they’re called; that doesn’t mean that what they are called is unimportant. Words, like myths, can obscure, can manipulate, can create hope or dash it; words can become so disconnected from acts that they become more important than the work they are doing.
The search for truth, then, is just a distraction. Perhaps our most important work is recognizing the power that comes with mastering these obfuscations and remembering to use it (responsibly? but here we come to another question altogether). | | | | |
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| | | A Girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things. He said to her, "What will you call me?"
"Master or mister, or whatever you please, sir," says she.
He said, "You must call me 'master of all masters.' And what would you call this?" pointing to his bed.
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AmandaRichardson-FirstPaper 4 - 14 Feb 2008 - Main.AmandaRichardson
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AmandaRichardson-FirstPaper 3 - 14 Feb 2008 - Main.AmandaRichardson
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
Paper Title
-- By AmandaRichardson - 12 Feb 2008
Section I
Subsection A
Subsub 1
Subsection B
Subsub 1
Subsub 2
Section II
Subsection A
Subsection B
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
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http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/7/0/3/17034/17034.htm
A Girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things. He said to her, "What will you call me?"
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AmandaRichardson-FirstPaper 2 - 14 Feb 2008 - Main.AmandaRichardson
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
Paper Title
-- By AmandaRichardson - 13 Feb 2008
Section I
Subsection A
Subsub 1
Subsection B
Subsub 1
Subsub 2
Section II
Subsection A
Subsection B
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" on the next line:
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>
> | MASTER OF ALL MASTERS
http://infomotions.com/etexts/gutenberg/dirs/1/7/0/3/17034/17034.htm
A Girl once went to the fair to hire herself for servant. At last a funny-looking old gentleman engaged her and took her home to his house. When she got there, he told her that he had something to teach her, for that in his house he had his own names for things. He said to her, "What will you call me?"
"Master or mister, or whatever you please, sir," says she.
He said, "You must call me 'master of all masters.' And what would you call this?" pointing to his bed.
"Bed or couch, or whatever you please, sir."
"No, that's my 'barnacle'. And what do you call these?" said he, pointing to his pantaloons.
"Breeches or trousers, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call them 'squibs and crackers.' And what would you call her?" pointing to the cat.
"Cat or kit, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call her 'white-faced simminy' And this now," showing the fire, "what would you call this?"
"Fire or flame, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call it 'hot cockalorum'; and what this?" he went on, pointing to the water.
"Water or wet, or whatever you please, sir."
"No, 'pondalorum' is its name. And what do you call all this?" asked he, as he pointed to the house.
"House or cottage, or whatever you please, sir."
"You must call it 'high topper mountain.'"
That very night the servant woke her master up in a fright and said, "Master of all masters, get out of your barnacle and put on your squibs
and crackers. For white-faced simminy has got a spark of hot cockalorum on its tail, and unless you get some pondalorum high topper mountain
will be all on hot cockalorum...." |
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AmandaRichardson-FirstPaper 1 - 13 Feb 2008 - Main.AmandaRichardson
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| META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper%25" |
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
Paper Title
-- By AmandaRichardson - 13 Feb 2008
Section I
Subsection A
Subsub 1
Subsection B
Subsub 1
Subsub 2
Section II
Subsection A
Subsection B
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" on the next line:
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