| | I’ve been having a hard time in this class, and would like others’ input. While this class is by far my favorite, it is also the most frustrating. I’m not sure how to look at what I consider to be stereotyping, judgmental views, and bifurcated ways of thinking: Good law versus bad law, pink skin versus non-pink skin, complacency and greed versus (what I assume is meant) altruism and righteousness. I’m probably not the most articulate person to be making the points I’m about to make, but please understand I mean no offense – I’m only trying to understand and be understood, and, through this classroom experience, to learn some non-academic things along the way.
Do I like money? You’re damned right I do. Why? Because, in this society, it opens up options and is the main instrument that one is forced to use in order to produce resources that one needs and prefers (in other words, those things that make life a heck of a lot easier). I don’t care about status, social position, or wealth per se (despite what may be unintentionally implied by the sentence about being a secretary as opposed to a lawyer in the profile at http://www.law.columbia.edu/media_inquiries/news_events/2007/December07/2010profiles.) The reason I applied to Columbia instead of law schools in my state is because I assumed (and I think rightly so) that on balance, there is too good a chance I will be unemployed after law school if I’m not able to tell prospective employers that I went to what this society considers a “top” law school. If I had chosen to go to a law school in my state (in my case, Indiana University), I would be paying $15,784 in tuition this year; at Columbia, I am paying $42,024. Yes, I’m paying up-front almost three times per year in tuition what I could be paying. But I, employers, and the law schools know that my chance of recouping that financial outlay is by far greater if I have the Latin equivalent of “Columbia” at the top of my diploma instead of “Indiana.” Frustrating, but real. | | | Any thoughts?
-- BarbPitman | |
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None of us responded to Barb’s post online before Eben did in class. I’m irrepressible, but I worry that some of us will now feel uncomfortable responding—even here, on the TWiki, and not just to Barb but to others in the future. That saddens me, because the TWiki is the best forum to hear each other, and the safest forum to learn from each other.
Last week, I would have told those classmates what I posted under ClassNotes17Jan08:
The professor believes in open information, and … this class is, after all, about challenging authority. I grant that Eben presents a difficult classroom environment for that. But I theorize that he asserts his opinions so strongly in class to force us to absorb them ("listen"), so that we can only critique them later -- i.e., after thinking -- i.e., intelligently. He reserved the TWiki as our forum for that critique.
I am concerned that we will be discouraged from sharing ideas on the TWiki by a feeling of “prior constraint”. This is a rough metaphor. Eben is a teacher, not an official wielding the public force. If anything, his rhetorical style prepares us for the disputes we should expect if we hope to become passionate intellectuals convincing other passionate intellectuals of our values.
But Eben can mobilize laughter, which is a kind of public force, and many of us are embarrassed to be laughed at. And many of us look to teachers as authority figures, and feel a moral duty to respect our teachers. And many of us will confuse his descriptive statements for prescriptive ones, since that is what humans do. And many of us need to learn to think like lawyers before we can learn to argue like lawyers; those who are not prepared to argue like lawyers will surrender out of respect, and will not be learning to think like lawyers.
I am not saying that Eben should not comment on the TWiki! But we may enjoy more of the values of free speech by sacrificing some free speech. Public speakers have private values, and not all speech and speakers can be treated equally, even in the forum. Some ideas are best understood by a limited audience. Some ideas need to gestate publicly before they can be challenged publicly.
What do you guys think—was the TWiki designed for free speech? If so, was it well designed, both internally and accounting for exogenous forces? You don’t have to go out on a limb to answer these questions: Say nothing until class next week, and we will find out the answer experimentally.
-- AndrewGradman - 24 Jan 2008 | | |
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