In Loving Memory

Lisette, thanks for telling that story. Lisette and Abiola, I don't really know much about how unions work, but it's disheartening to hear that even unionized employees in (what I would expect would be) a relatively progressive workplace are having their benefits cut and are weighed down by the uncertainty of their employment. Based both on what Tharaud had to say in the reading and the media discussion of Scott Walker's anti-union campaign in WI, I thought that unionization would be a more effective way to empower workers than it is in this context.

I agree that even if, as law students, we don't acknowledge feeling the fear of uncertainty regarding your future employment prospects in our own lives, it has an impact on the choices we make. I noticed the same same kind of fear and desperation at the law firm receptions I attended. I also think it manifests itself in some of the discussions we have in class with Eben, in the sense that it makes us reluctant to believe we can strike out on a path beyond the narrow path that starts with OCI. This is a bit more of a guess, but I think it might also be apparent in people's anxiety about the relative prestige about the firm jobs they will be able to get. In this line of reasoning, the more prestigious the first job, the more stable the firm, and the less likely you will be laid off. If you are laid off or choose to leave, a more prestigious firm will give you more numerous and more prestigious exit options, and the cycle will begin again. Rather than seeking a job that is the best fit or the most fulfilling, everyone has to think one or two steps ahead to make sure that they are not disadvantaging themselves for the next job they'll (inevitably) need to get. It seems like this kind of fear is a pretty powerful method of social control.

Lisette, I want to return to your point that to feel this fear people have to experience it for themselves. I think by suggesting this, you are letting people off the hook a little bit. Even if someone believes that they are personally free from this kind of fear, it's not asking too much of that individual to empathize with other people who are not. Bill Clinton spoke at my college graduation, and the main point of his speech was that he is always shocked at how fixated human beings are on our differences, when we share the vast majority of our DNA and want mostly the same things for ourselves and our families. If we approach it from that perspective, empathizing with other people should not be too hard, but we don't do it, and we don't expect other people to be able to do it either.

I wonder if this failure of empathy is mostly a failure of imagination and if it can be linked to the decline of reading interest and ability that we have discussed in class. I think one of the best and most important things about reading is that it can help people to get inside the consciousness of other people, understand them, and possibly even sympathize with them. A good novel (and good nonfiction) can immerse a reader in the consciousness of another, in my opinion, more effectively than movies or TV shows can, because in many books the perception of someone else's consciousness is the main event. When we stop reading books, or read them less carefully, we lose this kind of insight. We stop being interested in trying to understand what is going on in other people's brains, and get too wrapped up in our own.