A Starting Point for a Social Activist Lawyer

-- By JamilaMcCoy - 27 Feb 2009

A Moving Experience in Bangalore

As my friends and I shuffled through the crowds on MG Road, I was approached first by three children, shoeless, with disheveled hair, smudged faces and tattered clothing. I was drinking bubble tea as I browsed through the shops on a Saturday. Two months into my time in Bangalore, I had grown somewhat accustomed to street children. Even though I knew it would not really help anything, I gave them a few rupees and kept walking. The children followed me down the block, this time there were more pitiful looking children, about ten or so of various ages, they surrounded me, all asking me for money. One girl was shirtless, he had large scars on her chest, and on her hairless head. The children were tugging at my clothes, and then a few of them, including the scarred girl bent down and touched my feet. As all of this was happening, I stood there in shock, bubble tea in one hand, and my purse hanging in the crook of my arm. Then, one of the boys took the bubble tea from my hand and started drinking it and when the other children noticed that he had it, they began to fight him for the chance to drink some. At that I felt so sad and powerless that broke down into tears in front of my friends and the now apparently confused kids. I went into a shop and bought bags full of packaged snacks and brought them back out for the children. When they saw me coming they took them and began to fight amongst themselves over who got what. I felt like garbage and I didn’t understand how my friends and coworkers, members of the burgeoning Indian middle class could tolerate such visible, pervasive poverty.

That experience let me know that I wanted to do more than just feel sorry. Tossing a few rupees or snacks at the kids won’t solve India’s problems. I knew that if I wanted to be able to do anything for children in India or impoverished people anywhere in the world, it would be necessary to understand how their society functioned and why it permitted children to fall through the cracks.

It is even more important for a lawyer to be aware of societal forces, since they determine the distribution of power. Arnold offers useful insight for accomplishing that goal. Viewing the world, and yourself as a social anthropologist can be facilitative of empathy toward others, not just (less useful) sympathy. A lawyer working for social change must feel empathy if she is to be an effective intergroup communicator, since the lawyer’s job is becoming more globalized.

Arnold’s Approach to Organizational Behavior Allows Us to See the Forest and not just the Trees

Arnold’s insight that our organizations come into existence because we are social animals, and not because we are rational thinkers making individual choices is a powerful one. It allows us to detach ourselves from the symbols, words, and attitudes that bind us to our organizations and step into a mindset that allows us to examine the larger systemic question of how power is distributed and used.

If we are all just social animals living life like we’re painting by numbers, maybe that means I shouldn’t really be too mad at the next man who’s just doing as he’s been taught. Perhaps it is more productive to redirect my anger and action at the entities that sustain oppressive social institutions structure. This point of view minimizes the notion of blame on the individual level, and hopefully to a better allocation of effort on the part of a social reformer.

• I think it may be accepted that anger at individuals will rarely be the best allocation of energy in dealing with social ills, but I'm not sure whether anger at organizations is any more effective. Perhaps it would be more useful to distinguish among types of "anger"?

Of course, that notion has its limits. Arnold states that the “At the bottom (or at the top, depending upon which end of the telescope you are looking through) is the individual, who in his own life, responds to the symbols and ideals of his government, the business organization which feeds him, and the social organizations which give him dignity.” (24) The individual can strive to redefine what dignity and meaning in life are to her, and conversely, there are individuals in power in government and businesses that should be held accountable for their role in feeding society harmful symbols and ideas.

• It's not clear whether "held accountable" is something to do with "anger," and if so whether individuals "in" power are more worthy of anger than individuals doing what they've been taught. Doing as you've been taught is the primary way to get "in" power, after all. These are among the reasons I'm inclined to see if some rethinking could remove the "anger" part of the analysis and replace it with a clearer account of how the emotions produced by our relationships are transposed into our work.

Section What if the empathy that you feel is not reciprocated?

It doesn’t matter, at least not for me on a personal level, whether or not empathy is reciprocated. What matters to me is how I define myself, and the best way to do define myself is through my actions. Many times people who do social justice work are confronted with apathy or hostility, the important thing to do in those situations is not to be overcome by fatigue and to keep doing the things that give your life meaning. History shapes peoples’ perceptions of current acts, whether or not you are responsible for that history. That is another reason for the change agent not to stop her work, simply because kind acts are not returned. The hope is that by changing the course, new relationships can be formed and better outcomes will be possible.

Though empathy is not something that can be touched or eaten, it is a starting point. It can be the thing that motivates an individual unit of a social organization to redefine what fulfils her. If acts that are aimed toward a goal of justice follow from feelings of empathy, then it is worthwhile for a lawyer to build a mindset that prioritizes it.

• I think this is a useful depiction of a productive personality state in relation to work. But missionary effort is tiring, and we don't have to think in terms of "vocation" that makes an exclusive choice in life. It would be interesting to ask in relation to the stirring rhetoric of this exercise whether there are relevant compromises to be made in order to attain balance with other "prioritized" concerns.