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MyThoughtsOnThisClassSoFar 5 - 02 Mar 2010 - Main.GloverWright
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| | I have been trying to identify and understand a kind of anxiety I have felt while reading materials for this class thus far.
The “problem” of the course has been identified, albeit with some hesitation (aka the “pawning of the license”). The Holmes and Cohen pieces were assigned to provide us with the tools to attack the problem (aka the function of the functionalist approach). Accordingly, the next step will probably be for us to learn how to use tools like functionalism to not pawn our licenses. | | | To respond to Christopher, I agree with your point about questioning the validity of proposed macro-economic theories and other policies (right?), but I think I would add a power/ greed component. Even if some theory/ set of theories was highly likely to “work,” the only people with the power to implement the theories at the end of the day would rather keep the child in the broom closet than get the hell out of Omelas.
-- KalliopeKefallinos - 18 Feb 2010 | |
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> | I would say the ethic is the code of conduct by means of which we make apparent our knowledge that somewhere out there is a child in a broom closet, but that we are no longer participating in detaining that child. Practically speaking this might mean that we pay a little bit more for our clothes, or that we divest from certain corporations, or that we stop packaging shady derivatives or manipulating the forex market -- or in the case of the latter two examples that we stop legally representing those who engage in such activities. Maybe it means shifting from a militant to an aid-based approach in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As for the conscience, I guess if you want to get technical -- and here I wasn't, I was sloppy -- would be whatever kind of moral sense awakens in us the realization that our happiness, if it's going to be real happiness, can neither be predicated nor ultimately sustained upon the misery of a child -- or in reality a substantial portion of the world's population.
As for my "better world" rhetoric, mostly my point was that we can't redeem the present through any sort of appeal to the future; this is all we've got, and so we have to start by identifying the problems of the present and facing them head on. On an individual level, we don't need macro-level theories; all we need to do is identify a problem that we would like to tackle, and formulate a strategy for doing so. This goes back to what Eben says about the meaning of having a license -- we each choose our own battles, if we so wish. And if we find that one thing, or those few things, that we want to accomplish, we'll certainly know at some point if we're getting anywhere. So maybe the whole point -- and here's one more trope for the road -- is that we need to think grandly on a small scale.
As for feeling hopeless, I think -- I hope -- the point of having a license to practice law is that at least on some level you never really need to feel that way. You've always got that little bit of power.
-- GloverWright - 2 March 2010 |
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