Law in Contemporary Society

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NonaFarahnikFirstPaper 5 - 21 Feb 2010 - Main.EbenMoglen
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My thinking phase: I am writing this quickly before my LPW and so I can't flesh things out but if you have any comments please make them!
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<		I really like the Exupery quote, though for an entirely different reason than why you posted it. To borrow a little Kant, I think it captures the need to treat people as people, rather than as means to a certain end. The irony for me is that I generally operate under the former presumption. I dislike giving up control, and similarly, I don't delegate responsibility as well as I should. When I do delegate, it's for a specific task--I might explain what I want and what the goals are, but I'm basically asking for a mechanical task that serves a larger vision that only I have. I have people gather wood while I give orders. It's hard for me to imagine getting things done by inspiring those I lead to adopt my goals and setting them loose, rather than using them like chess pieces.

The quote could be a jumping off point for an essay on how to achieve things without using people. Just a thought :).

-- RonMazor - 19 Feb 2010

I think another interesting aspect of the Exupery quote is the implicit point that to persuade others to support an idea one needs a positive vision, not only a critique. Exupery's exemplary orator is not criticizing a landlocked life - he is offering an inspiring vision of an alternative. I think you can see this in Martin Luther King Jr.'s decision to structure his famous speech around a dream of racial unity, as a positive goal to strive for. This also relates to the "know what you want" part of Thurgood Marshall's advice about effecting change. One has to know more than what one doesn't want. Putting the two in dialogue, Exupery's advice about inspiring people with a positive vision may be part of the answer to Marshall's requirement that you know "exactly how to get it."

This is something I have given some thought to because the cause I work on most is environmentalism, and there is often a public perception that the environmental movement is mainly against things, not for things.

-- DevinMcDougall - 21 Feb 2010


Revision 5r5 - 21 Feb 2010 - 17:04:59 - EbenMoglen
Revision 4r4 - 21 Feb 2010 - 14:19:30 - DevinMcDougall
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