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PerspectivesinLaw 25 - 03 Feb 2008 - Main.EbenMoglen
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| | I’ve been having a hard time in this class, and would like others’ input. While this class is by far my favorite, it is also the most frustrating. I’m not sure how to look at what I consider to be stereotyping, judgmental views, and bifurcated ways of thinking: Good law versus bad law, pink skin versus non-pink skin, complacency and greed versus (what I assume is meant) altruism and righteousness. I’m probably not the most articulate person to be making the points I’m about to make, but please understand I mean no offense – I’m only trying to understand and be understood, and, through this classroom experience, to learn some non-academic things along the way.
Do I like money? You’re damned right I do. Why? Because, in this society, it opens up options and is the main instrument that one is forced to use in order to produce resources that one needs and prefers (in other words, those things that make life a heck of a lot easier). I don’t care about status, social position, or wealth per se (despite what may be unintentionally implied by the sentence about being a secretary as opposed to a lawyer in the profile at http://www.law.columbia.edu/media_inquiries/news_events/2007/December07/2010profiles.) The reason I applied to Columbia instead of law schools in my state is because I assumed (and I think rightly so) that on balance, there is too good a chance I will be unemployed after law school if I’m not able to tell prospective employers that I went to what this society considers a “top” law school. If I had chosen to go to a law school in my state (in my case, Indiana University), I would be paying $15,784 in tuition this year; at Columbia, I am paying $42,024. Yes, I’m paying up-front almost three times per year in tuition what I could be paying. But I, employers, and the law schools know that my chance of recouping that financial outlay is by far greater if I have the Latin equivalent of “Columbia” at the top of my diploma instead of “Indiana.” Frustrating, but real. | | | Conversations go places the first speaker never intended, and that makes them hard to summarize fairly. Fingers were pointed at me for starting conversations in a tone that took us away from Eben's goals. I intended the Directory to bring us back to those goals. If I started the conversation by pointing a finger at you, I apologize -- I didn't intend that either!
Conversations go places the first speaker never intended. Fingers were pointed at me for starting conversations in a tone that took us away from Eben's goals. I intended the Directory to bring us back to those goals. If I started the conversation by pointing a finger at you, I apologize -- I didn't intend that either!
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< | CONFLICT original 19:
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< | -- AndrewGradman - 03 Feb 2008
CONFLICT version 22: | | | The larger question is whether "first speakers" are responsible for unintended new directions. "Actively listen" has been Eben's theme, and not doing so causes communication to fail. But one could also argue that the original message is "whatever got heard." I don't have an opinion on which is right.
-- AndrewGradman - 03 Feb 2008 | | | -- BarbPitman - 03 Feb 2008 | |
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