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KensingNgFirstPaper 3 - 15 Apr 2012 - Main.EbenMoglen
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META TOPICPARENT | name="FirstPaper" |
| | Is there something more profound to be drawn from this idea? Is it even going in the right direction?
Am I missing important bits from the template?
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> > | It's difficult to
understand this draft, because it uses "objective" and "subjective"
in ways that don't seem to bear any relation to their usual meaning.
"Objective" seems to mean "eternal and impervious to all change," so
that any legal proposition is "not objective" if it is modifiable by
judges. Thus the entirety of the common law consists of
"not-objective" principles (which I think is used here as a synonym
for both "rules" and "standards" as they are ordinarily
professionally used, despite the differences). Why high-level
constitutional law would be a good place to look for eternal
unchanging rules, I have no idea, but the very complex and
not-very-clear example of Plessy and Brown appears to teach us
that constitutional law in the US, like all of common law, is
"not-objective."
"Subjective," however, seems to mean "arbitrary." Why the world
should be divided into "principles" that are eternally unchangeable
without regard to social epoch or situation, on the one hand, or
arbitrary "whimsy" on the other isn't explained. Most jurisprudence
presumes that it is required to explain only phenomena falling in
between these extremes, which is assumed to be all practicably
occurring phenomena.
The root of that argument appears to lie in a psychology that denies
human conduct is informed by both primary unconscious and secondary
rational processes. Radical lateralization has taken place, without
so much as a whisper of corpus callosum in the house. Everything is
either a left-brain algorithm or a whim of the right-brain. If
judges are not performing an algebra that never changes they are
rioting in an orgy of rulelessness.
It seems to me we want to back up to the first step. What is the
idea at the center of the draft? Can we state it without requiring a
primitive or reductive psychology on which to rest it? Can we use
terms in their ordinary senses to express the idea, or do we need to
conscript for some reason language with precise other meanings to
serve our purpose? Can we develop the idea at the center of the
draft without having to commit ourselves to a strong separation
between "politics" and "law" in all cases, or is this a theory that
requires us to believe that law is or should be a formal system
independent of other social processes that accumulate and distribute
power?
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