Stepping Outside of the Swindle

• Is this the question? One would think that question had a comparatively simple answer: help those who suffer.

• What has Leff got to do with it? If his conclusion, so far as it concerns you, is that one cannot easily tell the difference between acceptably fair and abusively unfair exchanges--I don't think that's really what interests him, but never mind--then your proposition, that inequality results from exchange, doesn't require Leff. Whether it is correct that inequality results from exchange is a different matter, and perhaps the one to which you should have addressed the paragraph. I disagree, at any rate, that it's what has been said in class, if you mean by me.

• That's all been true for a generation. There's only exposure going on if you mean that for the first time in your life you are paying attention to what has always been there.

• This seems to me a cartoon. Perhaps you are claiming that the conversation has been this flat-footed and cartoonish, or perhaps you are deliberately simplifying rather than misunderstanding. If the first, I think you are wrong: the conversation has avoided this oversimplistic idea that if you do jobs that bring meaning to your lives the lion will lie down with the lamb and justice will be done. If the second, what is the benefit of creating a strawman to argue against. If the third, I think you need to reinterrogate the sources to differentiate between the idea that most lawyers do not do work that as meaning to them, and the idea that the work of doing social justice is meaningful. The first is a sociological observation with personally psychologically relevant consequences, while the second is a proposition of personal conviction with which any given individual might or might not agree.

• The first, fairly put, is: why should I want meaningful work? The second is a purely straw question that cannot have a useful as opposed to merely rhetorical answer.

• "Extremely"? Did you need to boost the thing with an adjective in order to convince yourself you were making an argument? You are trying to use short-term evidence to counter an argument about long-run consequences. You know that's not logically compelling, so you attempt to make it work by adding an intensifier. Is this actually intended as an effective counter to the long-term data? Does it speak to the issue of meaning?

They are making a lot of money; the work is interesting; they have more free time than they did in law school. Moreover, I don’t think that BigLaw will force me to do work I don’t want to do.

• You do not even purport to offer a factual basis for this absurd statement.

It has been argued in class that we should do what we want to do, produce something of value, and money will then come to us. But if what we desire is not to do certain things but instead to do any of a class of things while making a certain amount of money, then it only makes sense to pursue money directly.

• This isn't logic.

• This is an illogical refutation of a nonsensical argument. This division between "the public interest lawyer" and "the corporate lawyer" wasn't made by any intelligent observer: it's bullshit you picked up in the street, like sexual information conveyed to one another by nine-year-olds. The issue of meaning is here obscured, as in the preceding graf, by the assumption that meaning is fungible with money, which is at best unexamined and most likely just obviously wrong.

• This graf conveys no relevant meaning for the reason given above.

• This is not a valuable point outside the debating society, because it responds to a straw proposition. There is a weak proposition inferrable from the real point, which asserts that there would be a general social improvement from everybody's having meaningful work. This is a weak proposition because, though not quite tautological, it is so universally accepted that there's not much point debating it under almost all circumstances.

Say we develop the confidence to step outside of the swindle and create something, on our own, of value. Our own process of creation will likely require us to become, in a way, conmen. We will build a framework; we will create value; we will con/sell. Inevitably, we will become a new ruling class.

• This is purely verbal. It has nothing to do with the life span or personal choices of any individual. As an argument against meaningful work, it gains no purchase whatever.

And from this position, it is hoped that we will be able to institute equality and justice. However, this seems terribly unlikely. Just as has always happened throughout history, those who reach the ruling class will likely attempt to hold onto their wealth and power. The new swindles, no matter how “justice”-oriented at the start, will simply become iterations of the cons that are currently being exposed. The world will be no better off. There will be no increase in equality or “justice”. We will have spun our wheels, hustled, sweated, strived, conned – and for what? For power? For wealth? For a vague notion of justice? If equality were really something that people want, if it were really something that can be had, then I think we would already have it. Thus, and with regret, I must conclude that I’m not sure we can make a meaningful difference.

• So you conflate the relevant proposition, should I have meaning in my work, with an absurdity, like "should I become a failed messiah?" and proceed to a supposedly resounding but actually silly conclusion.