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Trying Not to Die a Little
-- By MichaelDreibelbis - 03 Mar 2009
Epiphany
I sat slack-jawed, contemplating the unthinkable:
“Multiple personalities? No free will? That's Bonkers!”
Enter Bruce Springsteen
And suddenly, it all didn't seem so bad.
Reflection
The theory made just as much sense this time as it had in the past. That was never the problem; it had always seemed at least as logical as the alternatives. But the theory had always depressed me, so I had just tried not to think about it. But my own contingency no longer felt like such a burden with Bruce on the speakers. Free will or not, I could still go racing in the street, and I liked the song so much that racing in the street seemed like enough.
The theory, then, did two things: first, it made sense of my experience. Secondly, by way of Bruce Springsteen, it made me feel like a life without free will could still be worth living. Assuming that this experience is typical, we might hypothesize that whatever rational conclusions we may arrive at remain inchoate unless we can embrace them with our whole selves, and we can't do that unless those conclusions inspire us.
Application
If our search for truth is really as existential as it is logical, where does that leave our own venerable institution? Whether we realize it or not, law school will shape us into the lawyers we will become, both in terms of our substantive conception of justice and our career choices. So we had better figure out what we are becoming, before it's too late to do anything about it.
Legal Education
1L year initiates us into the legal fraternity, and all that that implies. This is not to criticize it, but rather to point out that it establishes membership in a community sharing certain social practices. These social practices form the canvas on which the initiate creates meaning. New values come to the fore as they prove themselves better suited to the new social circumstances.
Our textbooks and professors don't just transmit rules, they breathe life into the judges who create them. Holmes, Cardozo, and Learned Hand are portrayed as legal heroes. We scrutinize their every word, and if we answer all of our professor's questions right when we are called on, the story seems to go, maybe one day we can grow up to be as smart as they are.
The drama is necessary because the rules would not be persuasive on their own. As we have all realized by now, choosing between legal rules that advance unverifiable, seemingly incommensurable values often feels like a toss-up—much like we never really know for sure whether we have free will or not. To whom is a duty really owed in Palsgraf? Yet, for stability's stake, the American legal system has to convincingly, unanimously resolve these difficult questions of law by inspiring confidence in the result. This is why they give us the great judges to read. Holmes, Cardozo, and now Posner: it is no accident that the most read judges in law school are also the most literary. And the name “Learned Hand” speaks for itself; it actually sounds just. We follow their lead not because they destroy the counterarguments; they don't. But they sound so good that we just don't care about the counterargument.
Law Firms
It is no secret that law firms woo us with prestige. As we have all seen, IsBeingACorporateLawyerImmoral is a tough question to answer. Law Firms don't bother trying. They know that the problem goes away over lunch. Rather than logic, they treat us like a big deal. They make us feel like we matter.
Law and Contemporary Society
Eben uses the same sorts of tricks as everyone else to win us over. Aside from the music, the Wiki reinforces his philosophical, psychological, and political positions. As response turnaround time decreases and we begin to edit one another's work, the individual identity of the writer ceases to be important. And as our belief in our own individuality becomes practically irrelevant, the idea of living without it becomes increasingly bearable. The Wiki actually animates the logical principles he wants us to confront.
Complication
We don't choose what inspires us, and being won over in this way feels a little like manipulation. But there doesn't seem to be any real alternative, at least insofar as we can't help but be inspired, and we can't help but share what inspires us with others. The trick must be to figure out who's moving you, in what direction, and why.
Nonetheless, it still feels like there is a difference between inspiration and manipulation, at least intuitively. Without reaching any firm conclusions I offer a few suggestions of how to draw the line.
Coercion
We all signed up for class. Eben tells us not to watch TV and get wasted, and we do it anyway.
Complications may arise outside of classroom setting, however. Taking part in class only commits us to a few relatively uncontroversial values, such as the value of discussion and the legitimacy of grades. We don't have to agree on any of the rest. Outside of school, however, it will probably be necessary to act communally even in the absence of complete agreement. Coercion, then, may only take us so far in distinguishing good inspiration from bad.
Manipulation
Eben plays music to try and get us to feel a certain way that will make us more receptive to a proposition, but unlike cigarette companies, he has our best interests in mind. However, class is still paternalistic in that it's his conception of our best interests that determines what takes place, not our own.
Finality
If what we do defines us, right down to our morality, then it turns out life is not about minding p's and q's. Rather, we need to actively surround ourselves with sources of inspiration. |
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