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< | Public and Private Audiences: An Essay for Myself | >
> | Knowing Your Audience by Writing for Yourself | | | | |
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< | -- By SidneyChiang - 19 Feb 2016 | >
> | -- By SidneyChiang - 18 Apr 2016 | | | | |
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< | What is an essay? | >
> | Who is an Audience? | | | | |
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< | It seems particularly pertinent to consider the question of what an essay is. The question is in some sense especially relevant based on the themes in this class and in the broader law school curriculum and social context of the audiences of legal discussions. The notion of an "essay" comes from Michel de Montaigne -- the French "Essais" comes from the verb "essayer," to try. That is, an essay is more than anything a try, an attempt, perhaps even an experiment. | >
> | Our discussions about the nature of a public speech or a law review article directed at law students seemed to parallel questions about audiences that I experienced in creative writing classes in high school. Whenever I would share a piece with the class, I always preferred to hear it from others first. I imagined that was the best way to transition from the understanding I had when writing, to hearing what others might take away. But I also felt that this process may have been more effective in principle than in practice, since I rarely heard anything that indicated something different than what it meant to me. | | | | |
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> | The notion of "knowing your audience" seems to be repeated to students as one of the hallmarks of effective writing -- both creative and analytical -- despite the fact that it is, of course, overly simplistic to suggest that, for any writing category or any given piece, that there exists some representative person who constitutes a singular audience. | | | | |
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< | "Perhaps even" was not written by anyone who had ever read any
Montaigne. So the "cribbed from the dictionary" feeling of the
passage is inadvertently increased. | >
> | But I found this difficulty of writing for multiple audiences present in other forms of writing as well. A personal essay may be a redundancy: an "essai," an "attempt" seems to suggest a personal undertaking and a personal understanding that indicates the essay was written for the writer himself. However, the public nature of a published essay -- sharing the ideas with the world -- may make it beyond merely a personal issue. | | | | |
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< | The loss is most definitely yours, rather than the reader's. Donald
Frame's modern English translation is a masterpiece that will be,
along with Florio's much less successful but more contemporary first
literary translation, the way English-readers come to Montaigne.
Even if this had been the spur that took you through one brief
example, taken at random, it would have been worth the whole effort
taken together. | >
> | The question, it seems, is how justifiable it is to suggest that we write for an individual reader, a class of readers, a broader audience, or ourselves? I would suggest the better understanding is that the author writes primarily for one's self. | | | | |
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> | Social Incentives to Write for Yourself | | | | |
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> | One needs only to look to the current Presidential election to find the potential backlash that may come from (the appearance of) pandering to one's audience. The equivalent in a creative writing context -- even beyond some basic notion of politicians and speech-writing -- would be criticisms directed at artists who are seen as "selling-out": by seeming to turn to a different or broader audience rather than representing one's self, the artist seems inauthentic. In both these contexts, a group punishment mechanism incentivizes individuals to focus on some notion of themselves as the primary audience. | | | | |
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> | As Law Students | | | | |
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< | Audiences | >
> | To us as law students, then, recognizing that there may be this strong societal force towards writing as a personal act helps to explain, to ease our conscience, or perhaps to justify a judge making decisions and writing based on his social preferences. From one perspective, at best the judge is writing both to justify his decisions to himself and to explain to future law students, lawyers, and judges the social conditions behind the decision. | | | | |
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< | Though interesting in itself, the background of the essay as a literary device is reminiscent of our discussions of audiences. Conceivably, one could suggest that a traditional essay is really for the writer himself. An "attempt" seems to be in some sense a personal undertaking and a personal understanding. However, maybe more to the point, the public nature of a published essay -- sharing the ideas with the world -- may make it beyond merely a personal issue. This seems to echo the difference between a personal theory and the public nature of a speech or a law review article directed at law students. | >
> | This, however, may merely push the question from "To whom are judges writing?" to "Who are judges predicting will utilize the specific interpretive fictions developed either through society or within the culture of the law?" That is, insofar as there are common conventions that make their opinions understandable and useful, are they to be understood on a societal level or merely a group level, and how is the judge to know? (See Moglen & Pierce, 1208-09.) | | | | |
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< | This language is
apparently well-carpentered at the sentence level, but it doesn't go
anywhere. What's the point of the paragraph, and how is that point
related to the larger theme of the essay, which is ... ?
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> | It seems unlikely that a judge would expect the decisions to be understood by the broader public directly, especially given the broad reliance on experts to interpret and predict (cf. "sophisticated hardworking journalists . . . covering a very important and demanding beat"). Most people likely would not even be bothered to read judicial opinions to an extent that a reasonable judge would take into consideration when drafting an opinion. What's more, the problem is exacerbated when taking into account the nature of understanding and interpreting opinions and nuances within them. I would therefore argue that judges essentially only write for themselves, with the understanding that people who can think like them, given a common background and customs within the law, could understand what they have written. This could be one interpretation of what it means when a judge writes to justify his societal preferences under the guise of logic and of objectivity. | | | | |
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> | As Poets | | | | |
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< | Judicial opinions and the public | >
> | This system of coating substance with a form that may be more easily interpreted in a given context seems to parallel a method of writing poetry suggested by Richard Hugo in The Triggering Town: for young poets, he suggests, "the fact that 'suicide' sounds like 'cascade' is infinitely more important than what is being said." (Although he acknowledges that "it isn't of course," he suggests that "if you think about it that way for the next twenty-five years you could be in pretty good shape.") Without suggesting that I was a good poet, I think the poems that I wrote that seemed most interesting to the class were poems where I grounded the words in certain sounds. (Following Hugo, who, at one point, notes of his word choice, "actually, I'm doing all this because I like 'l' sounds, 'silo' 'filled' 'girls' 'tall' 'metal' 'hollow.'") Poetry seems to be a prime subject for couching ideas that may be important to you in a vehicle that can be understood by your peers. | | | | |
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< | Justice Scalia's death last weekend provided one context to reevaluate precisely this question of what the audience of a judicial opinion is. In one panel discussing Justice Scalia's legacy, the discussion was whether the Justice wrote his opinions for his colleagues on the Court, for the public, or for himself. Although the consensus was that there may have been some element of writing for his colleagues, particularly through sharpening the majority opinion by writing strong dissents, the main question seemed to be on these two elements of the public versus the personal audiences.
Mmm, what? I have no idea what this says happened or what was said
there. The audience of Supreme Court opinions is the readers of the
US Reports, and the entire citizenry of the Republic. What is not
obvious about that?
Opinions for the broader public
It seems hard to believe from a practical, realist perspective that opinions have been crafted for the broadest interpretation of the general public. The minor uproar earlier this year that (misleadingly) suggested that nearly 10% of college graduates believe Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court seems to be indicative of the fact that most people, even if well-educated, would not be bothered to even read judicial opinions to an extent that a reasonable judge would likely take into consideration when drafting an opinion. What's more, the problem is exacerbated when taking into account the nature of understanding and interpreting opinions and nuances within them.
None of which precludes the idea that they are public documents, to be read by all who care to do so, bringing with them whatever their prior educations and interests cause them so to bring. Why would we think of the content of state papers as being any less addressed to the public for being specialized enough to do their jobs?
I distinctly remember when the decision on the Affordable Care Act came out (N.F.I.B. v. Sebelius), I was reading through the opinion while analysts for major news sources were rushing to get the breaking news out. It was a little disheartening to see that, despite my reading of the opinion that the mandate was upheld as a tax, multiple major news sources were apparently unwilling to review the details of the opinion and instead tripping over themselves to declare the act unconstitutional. Though they later corrected themselves, it would seem hard to believe that courts would, or could, consider the broad public as audiences for their opinions, if even professionals dealing with such a major case were unable or unwilling to read the opinions.
It's neither. It's that they have a few minutes to file their
stories, and under those circumstances, despite the efforts of
the Court PIO, they are often caught at a severe disadvantage.
It surprises me that you would conclude on the basis of
nothing more than your emotional responses to your Twitter
feed that the professionals who cover the Supreme Court are
unable or unwilling to do anything that sophisticated
hardworking journalists lucky to be covering a very important
and demanding beat would need to do.
This argument seems to parallel our discussion about how legislative intent may not be proper as a method of statutory interpretation if it would not make sense to read any given intent in the legislature (as in the anecdote about a staffer making a note on the legislation that ended up getting passed as part of the law).
I don't think
that was the point of the discussion, at least from my point
of view. I thought the point was that legislative intent is a
transcendental nonsense, a necessary explanatory fiction. Of course it is a method of statutory interpretation. You might find some use, if you want to think about this point, in an article I wrote once, back when I wrote stuff for law reviews: Moglen & Pierce, Sunstein's New Canons: Choosing the Fictions of Statutory Construction, 57 U.Chi.L.Rev. 1203
Opinions for law students
Thus perhaps instead there is a narrower reading of the public that represents an audience that Supreme Court justices may be considering in their opinions. Perhaps, for example, judges write opinions to be read by law students, in the same way that we should understand the speeches, law review articles, and other documents we read in this class as being addressed to us.
Of course they write for you, as readers of the US Reports and citizens. What is the point of the point, as it were?
On the one hand, this presents somewhat troubling implications, in that it suggests not only that the law is prophecies of what a court will do but also the illusion of a cause and effect logic that seems to trouble Holmes. That is, the opinions both set forth indicators of what a future court would do as well as provide the self-fulfilling logic by which that court or an even further future court made up of the law students who are reading the opinions can justify themselves. On the other hand, perhaps it also provides a neat little justification for the study of the law. If law is prophecy and a social event, then the opinion gives the opportunity for the judge to attempt to establish the social conditions behind the decision, if he wishes to take advantage of the opportunity.
Writing for the self
I think perhaps the better understanding of judicial opinions, and probably writing more generally -- at least as we understand the essay -- is that one writes for one's self. At the very least, this helps to ease our conscience when a judge writes to justify his societal preferences not only in the guise of logic but also in the guise of objectivity. More to the point, I think that it better captures the audience of writing more generally -- not only judicial opinions but memoirs or poetry collections.
When a poet writes poetry, it seems that we have societal expectations that they write for the public, yes, but more importantly it seems that we have the expectation that they write for themself. This seems to underlie the notion of "selling-out" or of politicians pandering to their audience.
How did we get from poets to politicians? The step will certainly not be evident to all readers.
Of course, each individual shapes and is shaped by society. Social psychology notes that even seemingly deeply personal decisions like suicide are greatly inherently interpersonal. But writing does not seem to be directed to the reasonably prudent student. I think the nature of an essay is to get my words on the page, rather than to get my words on the page.
Yes, but they need to mean something. The essay should have a theme. We do not know what it is, here, or how it has been developed. Reading at least a little Montaigne would be a good idea, no doubt. Also, we are in law school, so perhaps more meaning in context can be conveyed in the next draft.
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> | Conclusion | | | | |
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> | Knowing your audience, then, should maybe be understood as predicting who can understand the conventions that make up methods of interpretation. Thus writing can be both a clearly public activity while allowing the author to focus on his subjective and personal meaning, without compromising. Of course, each individual shapes and is shaped by society. Social psychology notes that even seemingly deeply personal decisions like suicide are greatly inherently interpersonal. But writing does not seem to be directed to the reasonably prudent student, even if it is done with the awareness of what that student might understand. The nature of an essay is to get my words on the page, rather than to get my words on the page. |
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