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| | -- By NonaFarahnik - 18 Feb 2010 |
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< | "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
The Sea
Eben understands that an institutional frameworks is important, and he does this in his job, and for us in the classroom. The music. The format. The wiki. The stories. The collaboration. The time and effort. It creates an aura. I buy into it. "this class is my attempt to contribute practically towards making a curriculum that teaches other people how to make positive things happen in society by learning to inspire and harness the human restless hunger for the immensity of possibility." This class gives form to thoughts that have always been floating in my head and new ideas too. It helps that the curriculum is strangely almost perfectly up my alley (or does it feel this way to everyone?) During Legal Methods I had this sneaking suspicion that when I was a kid I was a legal realist. This class confirms it.
My Boat
I am yearning! His work inspires me to build for the sea. But to build many boats. Tack in all different directions. A simple Sunfish to start and to idly drift in the water. A multihull trimaran so I can cut through the water at ridiculous speeds. A motorboat for when the wind is laying low. A yacht for when I just want to kick back and enjoy the fruits of my labor. And, I want to be so good at building boats that other people trust my judgment and so that I inspire them to build their own. |
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> | "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." |
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> | One Does Not Speak of a Successful Trial Lawyer as a Great Scholar of the Law.
“The actual habits and attitudes which operate under the banner of the creed to make the institution effective have a slightly obscene appearance. Nice people do not want to discuss them, except for the purpose of getting rid of them.” |
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< | Creeds, Rituals, Myths. Arnold and Minarets. |
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> | For Arnold, social institutions are a necessary corollary to our human sociality, and we are mostly motivated by these systemic orders in unconscious ways. Though we are all empirically related, our social organizations and institutions often work to suppress our kinship to separate ourselves from “the Other.” The functioning of those orders on our unconsciousness makes it difficult for us to call the thing what it is, except in contexts where the operation of the institution is blatant and meaningless (Santa) or used in such a way as to make us uncomfortable about its effectiveness. This is dually reflected through the purposive content, but underlying ignorance of the New York Times’ “Where Fear Turns Graphic.” That we (choose to) ignore the subtle and less identifiable ways in which we are constantly bombarded with particular attitudes, creeds, and habits leads to problematic results: we see moral culpability in actions from which we can clearly separate ourselves, but create shields and rationalization where we are (even remotely) complicit. |
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< | Though we are all related, we do a pretty good job of using psychological/societal/physical aspects of our world to separate this from the other. For Arnold, we would call this the creed, myth, ritual, etc. People are mostly motivated to action by these systemic orders in unconscious ways. The thing is that it is hard for us to call the thing what it is, except in contexts where it is so blatant or in used in such a way as to make us uncomfortable about its effectiveness. That is reflected in the NY Times article. |
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> | If we acknowledge that politics unconsciously moves us by creating some notion of a general will whose furtherance demands the suppression of the particular, then it seems we must focus our efforts on creating institutional frameworks that tend towards the good and the just. How can I know what is good and what is just? I will seek to be Holmes’ betabilitarian: I cannot measure my choices against a normative standard, but against my predictions on how the universe and people behave. The only choice I have is to place my bets and play. |
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< | The reality that we do the NY Times article every day though in more subtle and less identifiable ways leads to problematic and contradictory results: we see moral culpability in individual actions but shield our complicity and judgment even for state-condoned actions. The absurdity which we call collateral damage. |
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< | If we acknowledge that politics subconsciously moves us by creating some notion of the general will and asking us to suppress our particular wills in order for the general wills furtherance, than it seems to me that the task we are left with is creating institutional frameworks that fight for good and justice. How do we know what is good and what is just? I am a betabilitarian. I look at the world around me, I see things, I feel things, I am willing to bet on certain propositions and take the brunt if I am wrong I cannot measure our choices against a normative standard, the universe and people act a certain way, I have to predict those actions as best as possible, see how i fit into them in the pursuit of justice... The only choice i have is to place my bets and play. What degree of risk am I/are we willing to assume? That degree of risk defines the boundaries of my/our winnings (and losses). |
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< | (Beit) Tzedek Tzedek, Tirdof
We need to have our feet on the street. To remember that the marble is cold. We are putting our best and brightest into surgery and dermatology when we should all be going into preventative care. Professor Wu used a variant of this metaphor during crim last week. We have court-appointed defense lawyers who sleep during a capital murder trial, and pro-bono bigfirm high end partners taking the cases at the appellate level when we need them at the trial.
The solution? Use whatever part of us our humanity to create institutional norms creeds rituals that tend toward our bets on good. |
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> | The Sea |
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< | There is no time to wait! Where do I start? A. with my legal education. I am going to wring out every $ I put in and then some. I go to lunches and lectures and office hours all the time. As far as I am concerned, this year has already been worth more than 50k to me (People pay 7k to go to TED for a few days. This has been TED all year for me). There is a spectrum of how much you can get out of this education and the value of our tuition varies accordingly. Community- it doesn’t exist if it isn’t created. We have a great foundation for a community. I have had great professors, I am learning and will make an effort to learn more about my peers. I will commit to being in charge of a class list of permanent email addresses and to organizing a biannual reunion for all of us-- Put a link to a list here--
B. With my legal institution. I have a lot of ideas, big and small, about how to make CLS a better place overall. I believe that if my peers are doing better, I will do better. I believe that institutions can be shaped to bring out the best parts of our humanity, if we try and we get buy-in
C. By representing people. I have advised friends my whole life. Took advantage of my job doing client intake at a firm called Beit Tzedek. We turned people away by the droves. There are always clients. I represented a family through the Homeless project. Continue to do that so that I can learn how to deal with people, what helps them get the most out of me. How can I give them the most? |
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> | On one hand, Law in Contemporary Society is a class like any other— it has a slot on our schedules, we get credit, and there will be a grade on our transcripts. On the other hand, this class is a holistic exercise in the pursuit of freedom that fosters our relationships with one other, and our expectations for ourselves. Part of how Eben achieves this is by designing this class to appeal to our human sociality and by harnessing the forces that led us to choose law school. |
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> | The rituals of the classroom--the music, the lively debate, Eben’s knowledge and war stories, the crowded office hours where students spill out into the hallway-- reinforce Eben's goals. The wiki gives us room for free thought, and a place for more structured work. We can work on its construction and reroute the pipelines if we so please, or with little effort as to the how, we can just participate in this entirely collaborative exercise. Eben uses the larger framework and mythology of Columbia Law School to give us a logical structure as to why we must seek more and the ways we might do so. Eben and his class inspire me to yearn for the vast and endless sea. |
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> | My Feet on the Street (or Marble). Where Do I Start? |
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> | Professor Wu used a variant of this metaphor during a capital murder lesson last week: we put our best and brightest into surgery and dermatology when we should all be going into preventative care. We have court-appointed defense lawyers who sleep during a capital murder trial, and a pro-bono firm partner taking the case at the appellate level when it is too late for the client. I want to go into preventative care. |
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> | * My Legal Education. This is perhaps the easiest task before me-- I go to faculty and industry lunches and lectures, belong to student groups, attend student government events and visit professors during office hours. I do my readings and try to supplement them with real world activity. I am going to wring out every dollar I put into this place, and then some. |
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> | * My Legal Institution. I want to contribute to shaping our institutional organization so that it brings out the best in us as students, as colleagues, and as future advocates. I have some immediate, near future, and long-term ideas to this end. For this class, I commit to the continuation of our dialog past this semester, and graduation. |
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> | * My License. I did client intake at a legal services firm called Beit Tzedek. I know there are always clients to be had, because we turned people away by the droves. Earlier this year, I represented a client family through the Legal Clinic for the Homeless. After a few weeks of work, my client disappeared. This was a lesson on its own, and I want to continue to use my time before I have my license to learn how to be a most effective advocate and representative for others. |
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> | Building My Boat(s) |
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> | This class cultivates my desire to build my own fleet so that I can tack in all different directions. I want to build a simple Sunfish that can sail--even if there is little room aboard and it cannot go very fast or far. I want to build a multihull trimaran that can cut through the water at ridiculous speeds. I want to build a motorboat for when the wind dies down but I still have somewhere to go. I want to build a yacht where I can enjoy the fruits of my labor and where family and friends can join me. And I want to be so good at building boats that I engender trust from my clients, and inspire others to build on their own. |
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