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| | Those of us who stay for Torts with Professor Rapaczynski immediately after Prof. Moglen’s class were yesterday treated to apparently diametrically opposed visions of freedom and autonomy. After Moglen’s passionate lecture on the libertarian impulse’s responsibility for the national predicament, we were treated to a reasoned and logical explanation as to why, in order to promote freedom and autonomy, we must not punish someone who shrugs his shoulders while watching a child drown at his feet.
- Are you sure that's what I said yesterday? I don't think I
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* Libertarianism as a shorthand for any number of things, whether it's the link between Fed decisionmakers and AIG (corruption) or a belief among a ruling class that corporations are people &c &c ac |
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- I'm sorry, this doesn't make sense to me. That seems like a completely arbitrary definition of a word that does usually have a fairly precise meaning.
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| | What is going on here? Rapaczynski is not a heartless man, and while Moglen is at odds with the university, he is not at war with it. |
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I of course know very little of your or Prof. R's personal history; and he was making a legal, not a moral point (he made quite clear that there are terrible consequences to accepting the legal as moral). |
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< | My language may have been broad but my thoughts were quite specific -- my concerns are not with "lawyering" (at this point I'm far from sure what lawyering means in our class -- Homer changed the world with words more than any 'lawyer,' and the words that Paul Robeson changed the world with did not come from CLS), I'm concerned with the group of us in this room and what we will be doing in three years. Do we need to ask what we will be replacing the old guard with before we soldier forth with an abstract mandate ('get people out of prison,' 'feed the hungry')? Do we need to have a set of our own positive myths in place before we take action? Is there any way to move forward without myths at all? I sense Arnold would say no -- so if myths and folklore are necessary, shouldn't the content and context of our myths come before our examination of others? |
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- This doesn't explain why you were talking about growing up in Poland in the 50s (Andrzej actually left Poland in 1969, if memory serves).
My language may have been broad but my thoughts were quite specific --
my concerns are not with "lawyering" (at this point I'm far from sure
what lawyering means in our class -- Homer changed the world with
words more than any 'lawyer,' and the words that Paul Robeson changed
the world with did not come from CLS),
- What does the first part have to do with the parenthetical? Is the existence or nonexistence of Homer relevant?
I'm concerned with the group of
us in this room and what we will be doing in three years. Do we need
to ask what we will be replacing the old guard with before we soldier
forth with an abstract mandate ('get people out of prison,' 'feed the
hungry')? Do we need to have a set of our own positive myths in place
before we take action?
- The first question sounds practical, though I don't know what it means. The second question sounds silly: "Having a set of positive myths in place" requires both a positivity scale for myths and a placing process that I can't contemplate with a straight face.
Is there any way to move forward without myths
at all? I sense Arnold would say no --
- If this means, can we have organizations without creeds that define the organization and attitudes and habits that give people a sense of purpose within it, Arnold would indeed say no. But that doesn't license the woozy haziness of the rest of this comment--he's making a specific point and you're wrenching it violently out of context.
so if myths and folklore are
necessary, shouldn't the content and context of our myths come before
our examination of others? |
| | -- AndrewCase - 11 Feb 2009 |
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< | Andrew: If, as you suggested, it's in the nature of states (or could we say, on a more general level, "official" power structures?) to oppress, then maybe we know we're on the right track if our own myths stand in opposition to "official" myths, or at least address some of the ways they fail on their own terms? That would mean remaining the perpetual underdog, which probably gets depressing, but it might also be a way to keep ourselves honest. Maybe myths become dangerous when they move from pointing out sources of injustice to justifying injustices of their own (as with Robespierre, or libertarianism)? |
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> | Andrew: If, as you suggested, it's in the nature of states (or could
we say, on a more general level, "official" power structures?) to
oppress, then maybe we know we're on the right track if our own myths
stand in opposition to "official" myths, or at least address some of
the ways they fail on their own terms?
- This is about some general concept of "myth" again, which is being confused with something Arnold was writing about.
That would mean remaining the
perpetual underdog, which probably gets depressing, but it might also
be a way to keep ourselves honest. Maybe myths become dangerous when
they move from pointing out sources of injustice to justifying
injustices of their own (as with Robespierre, or libertarianism)?
- What? This didn't make any sense the first time, and I tried to explain why above and here we are still talking in this nonspecific way about both Robespierre and libertarianism. Could somebody please explain the idea without using historical data adjectivally, as though we all know the same history and understand the figurative connotation? Some of us know too little history for that to work, and some of us know too much.
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| | -- MichaelHolloway - 12 Feb 2009 |
| | Michael -- I agree on the last point. I'm not sure whether remaining the perpetual underdog would be depressing unless we choose to let it be. The 'official' myths started somewhere, they were invented by someone, and they then developed into official myths somehow -- that may not be an idea of Arnold's, but it seems to be something that can be done with his analysis.
-- AndrewCase - 12 Feb 2009 |
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- Now I am lost. I haven't the faintest idea what you two gentlemen have just been agreeing about. Why don't you go back and refactor this topic so that instead of the dialog we have a clear succinct statement of whatever you think you have achieved consensus about? I don't, on yet another rereading, see where this discussion has gone.
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