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| | | Truth, Beauty, and the Law
Martha Tharaud believes that "the truth will be revealed." Though she is speaking about the fundamental nature of the employment relationship, her words have a Keatsian ring; in talking about truth , she is talking about beauty. Her own deep appreciation of beauty is evident: downtown Manhattan speaks to her in artists' names, and her conversation is peppered with Dreiser and Dante. | |
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< | Tharaud's final speech before meeting Cerriere reveals that an interest in art is crucial. Tharaud contends, "To know anything about beauty, you have to take the trouble to learn." Most lawyers don't, and "there are a lot of people hurt by it, really hurt." This provokes a sense of futility in her: "I'm not sure, either, what you can do about it, other than protect yourself, protect what you believe in, those whom you love." | >
> | Tharaud's final speech before meeting Cerriere reveals that keeping oneself open to the beauty of the world is crucial. She argues that "to know anything about beauty, you have to take the trouble to learn." Some lawyers pose as "cosmopolitans" and connoisseurs, Tharaud contends, but "they don't know very much about very much at all." This ignorance comes at a price: "there are a lot of people hurt by it, really hurt." This provokes a sense of futility in her: "I'm not sure, either, what you can do about it, other than protect yourself, protect what you believe in, those whom you love." | | | | |
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< | Tharaud's claim is startling: beauty matters to the law. Not only does the appreciation "of subtlety, of beauty" make you a more capable lawyer, but a lawyer lacking that capacity is dangerous. To respond to beauty you must be open to the world and care about more than putting "money in your pockets." But this also leaves you vulnerable. You have to "protect yourself." | >
> | Tharaud's claim is startling: beauty matters to the law. Not only does the appreciation "of subtlety, of beauty" make you a more capable lawyer, but a lawyer lacking that capacity is dangerous. What happens when that lawyer realizes the depth of what has been lost, of what he has missed in the course of lining his pockets? "[I]t's too late, it's already over, so they try to bring you down to their misery."
To respond to beauty you must be open to the world, but this also leaves you vulnerable. You have to "protect yourself" from those that haven't, or won't, or can't. | | | | |
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< | I’m not sure I entirely agree with this very last statement. I understood Tharaud to mean that the people who cannot appreciate anything more than money are those who are vulnerable; you protect yourself by building the capacity, not that you need protection because of the capacity. Also, I’m not sure that Tharaud believes that an interest in art is crucial… although it appears to be one path to building a capacity for appreciating beauty, I’m not convinced she’d believe it is the only one. | | | At the Fishhouses | | | Cerriere's Answer | |
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< | Tharaud sits just across the table from Cerriere, yet they may as well be separated by an abyss. Tharaud sees truth and beauty in the employment relationship; Cerriere sees employment as a transaction that demands efficiency. Their differing views of employment mirror their differing views of the world. Tharaud sees beauty; Cerriere sees an arbitrary and violent world that is changing too rapidly to grasp Cerriere might understand the futility that drives Tharaud to protect herself and the ones that she loves, but he finds himself on the other side of the table from her because he can't see much worth saving. | >
> | Tharaud sits just across the table from Cerriere, yet they may as well be separated by an abyss. Tharaud sees truth and beauty in the employment relationship; Cerriere sees employment as a transaction that demands efficiency. Their differing views of employment mirror their differing views of the world. Tharaud sees beauty; Cerriere sees an arbitrary and violent world that is changing too rapidly to grasp. Cerriere might understand the futility that drives Tharaud to protect herself and the ones that she loves, but he finds himself on the other side of the table from her because he can't see much worth saving. | | | | |
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< | Cerriere detests Tharaud's self righteousness, and finds it ridiculous to advocate for the working class when people are being tortured and executed arbitrarily everywhere else in the world. Ideas, he seems to say, are frippery at best and lethal at worst; hence his reliance on data and efficiency. There's a humanity to Cerriere, but it has lost its way. | >
> | Cerriere detests Tharaud's self righteousness, and finds it ridiculous to advocate for the working class when people are being tortured and executed arbitrarily elsewhere in the world. Ideas, he seems to say, are frippery at best and lethal at worst; hence his reliance on data and efficiency. There's a humanity to Cerriere, but it has lost its way. | | | Tharaud and Cerriere seem irreconcilable, but I feel both their points of view. The law can be about choosing sides and drawing lines in the sand, but it doesn't have to be. This class has taught me the value of holding two contradictory things together in your mind at once: this is how you come to think creatively as a lawyer, and to ask the questions that lead you to something that wasn't there before. | |
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< | This essay asks more questions than it answers. Why is the shared artistic project of Bishop, Joseph, and Tharaud of importance to the law? Can feeling deeply about art really make me a better lawyer, as I hope it can? For Tharaud, caring about art is linked to an openness to the world that resembles empathy. Why then her failure of empathy for Cerriere? How can I build a career without Tharaud's blind spots, which is to say, can I avoid Cerriere's fate without forgetting that like all lawyers, I suppose, he was a child once?
Caroline, this paper is very beautifully written. I couldn’t hope to improve upon the style with my clunky prose, and really appreciated the novel connections you drew between various literary figures. I’ve outlined a few questions or thoughts I had, but many of them just boil down to your interpretation vs. mine, so feel free to use or discard them at will.
I much prefer this interpretation of Tharaud you come to in the end, where caring about art is linked, rather than crucial, to an openness to the world. Especially because I think that the appreciation of art is just one piece, no more or less crucial than all the others. I was pleasantly surprised by the way your tied empathy in at the very end (especially considering your other paper and posts). I wonder if it has to stop at simply resembling empathy, though. Maybe Tharaud’s appreciation of art is not, in itself, what protects her; rather it’s just a reflection of her capacity to understand and share the feelings of those around her.
And I’m not so sure that she has a blind spot to the bits of shared experience between herself and Cerriere. After all, she takes the narrator to meet him, and seemed to anticipate the abuse that she would receive because of it even before he arrived. Why go through all that? She could have met the narrator and been gone within forty-five minutes. Instead, she is there when Cerriere is. Although Theraud has her imperfections, I don’t think a complete lack of empathy for Cerriere is one of them. | >
> | This essay asks more questions than it answers. Why is the shared artistic project of Bishop, Joseph, and Tharaud of importance to the law? Can feeling deeply about art really make me a better lawyer, as I hope it can? For Tharaud, caring about art is one expression of her open, empathic relationship to the world. Why then her apparent failure of empathy for Cerriere? Does their adversarial relationship preclude mutual understanding? How can I build a career without Tharaud's blind spots, which is to say, can I avoid Cerriere's fate without forgetting that like all lawyers, I suppose, he was a child once? | | |
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Notes:
(1) Sorry it took me so long to revise this piece. I found this paper extremely difficult to revise because of its personal nature.
(2) The paper was excellent and thought-provoking, but at times I felt it lacked clarity. I focused my revisions on reorganizing and editing to improve clarity.
(3) I left large portions, especially in the middle section, unaltered. Every time I attempted to change these parts, I felt that the original meaning was destroyed.
Thank you Conrad! Your edits made for a more streamlined essay. Thanks for pushing things towards clarity. | | | \ No newline at end of file |
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