• For what it's worth, I thought this little anecdote might help us think about epiphanies:

  I finally met Mirzad on Thursday, after seeing him every day for months. As I came back to my apartment, the next-door building's Super was out on the street taking out the garbage, as usual. We exchanged our usual nods and hellos, but this time I stopped and asked his name on a whim--Mirzad. He proceeded to tell me about how he had been a lawyer in Bosnia before being forced to take refuge in Germany, and now the United States, during the Bosnian civil war in the 90's. He was separated from his family for years, and will never go back to his country. We went on to have an intelligent, frank conversation about the relative merits of the US, and then said goodbye. I went in to my apartment to attend to my $150,000 education, while he continued to take out my trash.

-- MichaelDreibelbis - 08 Feb 2009

I think Melissa's point is a very reasonable counter to my post discussing being uneasy about working for a firm. To say that prosperity and comfort are morally reprehensible would be a difficult, and for me, hypocritical, statement to make. I also recognize that you can use the resources that career provides to attempt to make change. It does, however, seem difficult to reconcile a need to address injustices with a lifestyle which devotes 90% of waking hours to making money.

The nature-nurture distinction that Anja brings up is also, I believe, very relevant. Its worth noting that there is something of a correlation between the life experiences and the career goals of students here. Individuals who grew up in a certain environment want to replicate that level of prosperity for themselves. A natural tendency, and something that I can recognize in my own thought processes, but is it something we should resist or accept?

-- WalkerNewell - 07 Feb 2009

First, I believe one should take as much benefit as possible from the privileges given, specifically your education. If we think about how many people are not given the privilege of any formal education, let alone graduate school, it will make us realize that we should get the most out of each day in class and out of our careers.

Second, I believe one should try to better the inequalities that are present in our society. I don’t think that means that everyone should necessarily work at a non-profit organization, but I do think that means one should make sure that work has a socially beneficial effect. There are lots of ways that our careers can be socially beneficial and if we work with Professor Moglen and each other, we can start to discuss how to achieve this.

Lastly, I wanted to address a lot of what has been said regarding the difficulty in thinking about this arbitrariness of position. It seems to me that it goes back to fear. It is very uncomfortable to think about how millions of people in developing nations without clean drinking water are no different than us. These fears tend to shut down our brains to avoid thinking about the situation. But when we don’t think about it, we can’t do anything about it. So if we can learn to accept the arbitrariness of birth and the fear that maybe we don’t “deserve” the privileges we have been given, then we can start to use these privileges to benefit society.

-- LaurenRosenberg - 06 Feb 2009

As I alluded to in my post ExplainingWhatISaidInClassToday, I certainly do feel the kind of obligation Walker inquires about here. I hesitate, however, to use the word “obligation” because – much like “duty” – it connotes some level of altruism. I do not believe in altruism: My sense of obligation stems from the discomfort I know that I would feel if my work had no greater purpose than financial gain. In this way, the sense of “obligation” is grounded more in selfishness than in selflessness.

The way I think about our privilege is similar to the court’s reasoning in Evans v. Merriweather, a water-rights case we read in Property this week (wait, bear with me!). In essence, the court said that a riparian landowner may withdraw enough water from a stream on his land to satisfy his “natural” needs (drinking, farming), but not his “artificial needs” (consuming the entire flow of the stream for his mill). In short, Evans's right was one of “reasonable use.” Similarly, I may use my happenstance privilege to live a reasonably comfortable life, but to use it entirely for my own benefit in complete disregard of the rest of the world would be satisfying an artificial need. It would amount to greed.

In my mind, this is such a basic conception of justice that I have difficulties understanding how it is not clear to everybody in the room. I thought that most people come to law school because they want to explore and exploit a theretofore inexplicable sense of “right/wrong, fair/unfair, justice/injustice” lodged in their guts. Assuming, arguendo, that I am foolishly naïve on this matter (it would certainly not be the first time), and some people study law for reasons other than to serve their gut sense of justice, it would be interesting to explore the factors that lead some people to feel a sense of obligation and others not. A nature-nurture type exploration: To what extent does exposure to inequality matter? Parental or community values? Religion or lack thereof? The inexplicable phenomenon that constitutes our souls?

Personally, I remember the very first moment I felt it: It was in 1991, after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, when I first went to visit my father in Poland. I looked around at what I then thought was poverty and instantly realized the randomness of my own privilege, having grown up in Sweden, a two-hour flight away. Since then, I have felt an obligation to give at least as much as I take from "the world." But does this mean that absent that early exposure I would not react the way I do today in the face of injustice?

-- AnjaHavedal? - 06 Feb 2009