A Boating Betabilitarian

-- By NonaFarahnik - 18 Feb 2010

"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."

One Does Not Speak of a Successful Trial Lawyer as a Great Scholar of the Law.

For Arnold, social institutions are a necessary corollary to our 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 rationalizations where we are (even remotely) complicit.

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.

Tzedek Tzedek, Tirdof

The Sea

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.

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.

My Feet on the Street (or Marble). Where Do I Start?

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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

Building My Boat(s)

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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