God Bless Law School

Reposted from a particularly brilliant and cantankerous friend in New York. God bless him for being so misguided as to re-enroll for a doctorate in law after practicing for years:

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Thought you guys might enjoy the following cyber-debate I have been
engaged in regarding Patricia William's "Alchemy of Race and Rights," a
book by a black female Columbia law professor which I bashed when asked my
opinion about its informal, first-person style. The below bit of e-mail
was distributed to everyone in our class, so this was a public spat. I
have edited it so it is easier for the uninitiated to follow, as it
involves a number of assertions, replies and retorts inserted into earlier
e-mails.


This should make those of you not in graduate school very happy with your
life-choices. To those of you already in, the heady whiff of grad student
earnestness should be as familiar to your nostrils as the scent of
patchouli.

---------- Forwarded message ----------


On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, RM wrote:

1. On "Mean-Spiritedness"

>JJE: > Just on a personal level, I not only found the book unreadable in
its self-indulgence, but bordering on the malign for attempting to make
its
> > unreadable and self-indulgent qualities into political (read: radical)
> > stances).
>
> REPLY TO JJE: Hmmm. When I heard you say that yesterday before class,
I thought it was an attempt at levity. It seems sort of mean-spirited in
print.
>
JJE'S RETORT: First off, it wasn't an attempt at levity, it was the
genuine article. More to the point, "mean spiritedness"is a criticism
void of meaning. Since when is reverence for the idea under discussion a
hallmark of intellectual discussion? In fact, irreverence is often a
strategy employed by radical thinkers and advocates, etc. Surely the
prospect of an iconoclast iconoclasted shouldn't raise any eyebrows, or is
sauce only for the goose? Clearly opening myself up on a personal level
didn't spare *me* from a negative critique. Also, note that I attacked
the style, not Prof. Williams, a distinction I am guessing you muddled
from much of the tone of your response.


2. On "Unreadability"

REPLY TO JJE: Unreadable? Others that I know who have read Williams said
that her writing style made her EASIER to read (compared with most legal
> scholarship). Nothing like first-person narrative to get the reader to
> identify with the author and get swept up "in the story." If I had any
> concern about that, it's that the casual reader (not moi, of course...) is
> likely to overlook any faults in argument because of this identification
> (assuming there are faults).
>
JJE: I guess some of us just don't identify with but are indeed
repelled by the sight of someone demonstrating their
boundless versatility by giving pithy summations of their project over
coffee with their sister while peppering the same with cutesy asides
about armadillos. But, this falls into the "de gustibus non
disputendum" category": you liked it, I didn't. Should be the
end of the story, but it never is when icons and ideology are
involved....Have I spelled "fawat" right?


3.> On "Self-Indulgence"

REPLY TO JJE: Self-indulgent? I would argue just the opposite: that it
takes some guts
> to open up and put yourself within the text....it then makes YOU
> susceptible to being the object of critique rather than just your TEXT.

JJE'S RETORT: Well then, bully for Prof. Williams. But courage in
opening oneself up is, in and of itself, a limited virtue -- now that she
has so elected, I as the reader am perfectly within my bounds to react
with distaste to her. It's like someone reading their awful diary entries
at a poetry reading -- they run the risk of people actually exercising
their judgment. If you want to write in a personal style and not be
judged inwhatever way the reader feels is appropriate, don't publish it. I
decline to get all excited merely because someone has "opened up, "when
what I glimpse inside is annoying. Also, she is not a classmate of mine
-- she is a law professor at Columbia who knows or should know the risks
of publishing. I think different rules of politesse apply.


4. On "Objectivity in Scholarship"


ASSERTION: I think that the so called "objective" third-person distancing
dry blah blah boring writing that permeates most scholarship is what is
> self-indulgent.....it's self-indulgent to deny your personal stake in
> whatever you're writing about...it's self-indulgent to hide behind a cloak
> of "objectivity," trying to conceal and deny your presence within the
> text. Responsibility, anyone?
>

JJE's REPLY: Here' a clever little trick to handle precisely that sort of
so-called objectivity: whenever anyone "hides behind a cloak of
objectivity'"simply append a mental "[INSERT NAME HERE] THINKS..." before
their work. That way, you remember it's only their opinion, etc., but the
reader isn't disturbed by armadillos. It's a pretty useful mnemonic if
you feel you are in danger of being bamboozled by their claims of
objectivity. Also, I had thought publishing work with your name on it (as
so many authors seem prone to do) consituted a pretty accessible mode of
determining responsibility, silly me, the traditionalist.


5. On Reading Something Before You Criticize It
JJE: The line drawn is of that trendily contentious, T-shirt sloganeering
> > "they just don't get it" quality. I did get it -- I just found it
> > annoying and uninteresting.
>
REPLY TO JJE: How much did you read? I seem recall you saying before
class that you had read a whole two pages. Perhaps I mis-heard.....
>
JJE'S RETORT: Touche! An attempt at public shaming! A low blow, arguably,
but fortunately I am someone who locates the very essence of his pride in
forcibly critiquing on the basis of little (preferably no) information
(you should hear me sound off on "The Joy Luck Club," of which I haven't
read a single pronoun). Actually, I think I read a chapter, but so what? I
said it was unreadable, so why would I read it -- that would be wierd,
actually. It's sort of like a Starsky and Hutch episode: I am not
compelled to watch the whole thing to know (i) that it's of no interest to
me, (ii) why it is of no interest to me, and (iii) to be able to
articulate the foregoing (i) and (ii). I'm pretty swift like that, the
advantages of a legal education, don't you know...


6. On Academic Fads>


JJE: > The so-called imprimatur of the Harvard University Press I think
merely
> > testifies to the success of this particular scholarly fad.
>
>REPLY TO JJE: I suppose only time will tell if it's a "fad" or something
more.
>
JJE's RETORT: Whether or not critical race theory is a fad, and whether
or not engaging in egregious presentations of self in your scholarly work
is a fad are distinct questions. I never made a single comment about her
ideas, I only commented stylistically and the seeming politicization of
that style. Let me qualify my earlier statement: I *pray* it is a fad.


7. On the Views of Our Collegaues

JJE: This remains, obviously, one man's point of view. I have not polled
any fellow barristers on this score. More than likely they haven't read
it.
>
REPLY TO JJE: And this is someone else's point of view. And I haven't
polled any of my > radical, New Left, post-modern, feminist, queer,
deconstructionist, > critical race theory subscribing,
anti-phallologocentric colleagues.

JJE'S RETORT: My ordinarily sensitive nose is picking up some complicated
sort of moral one-upmanship here, but since I still have a little
head-cold, I'll just chalk it up to the Sinutab. I will note that all
my ideological subscriptions lapsed because I moved and didn't send in a
forwarding address.


8. More Gratuitous Attempts at One-Upmanship

ASSERTION: But, I bet that most of them have read provocative work such
as Williams', AS WELL AS the work of white straight males.
>

JJE'S REPLY: Once again, one man's provocative is another man' snooze
fest. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that the mere fact that
Patricia Williams is a black female law professor does NOT render her
every publicly-uttered thought and fancy a bit of political theater which
holds tight every member of the audience in its world-view-shattering
power: "I'd like a bagel," says Pat Williams, and the Phallocracy
detumesces...
Secondly, this was never about critical race theory -- it was
about the style in which one professor chose to explicate her views on
critical race theory. I trust you won't now reply with some "medium is
message/form is content" sort of argument, as you yourself pointed to the
(alleged) dangers of getting so caught up (yeesh!) in her style as to miss
the faults in her argument.

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So far, he has not responded to this, a tactic which he no doubt
considers the high road and which I think makes him a pussy.
However, if anyone is interested, I will gladly pass along any further
missives...If you are not interested, don't hesitate to tell me to stop
sending you crap (as if any of you would hesitate without that bit of
permission)..