The New York Times’ Economix Blog reports that law school application numbers are finally falling, as well as the number of LSAT test takers. The post speculates that the cause of the decreases may be the economic upturn (what economic upturn?), which is allowing people to get jobs instead of having to hide from unemployment in grad school. It also speculates whether prospective law students have figured out that becoming a lawyer may not make one the cash cow one wishes to be. The New York Times itself has previously reported on this.
This is probably very welcome news to law students and recent law grads. Many law grads from my school and other schools have had great difficulty finding jobs in the economic downturn, and have been both frustrated and baffled by the seemingly unrelenting desire of folks to become lawyers, who only make the market even more congested. It has been particularly grating to law students like myself who came to law school with a passion for public interest work, only to see those jobs scarfed up by “deferred associates.” Deferred associates are Biglaw firm hirees who the firm cannot afford to take on full-time right away, so it pays them a very hefty sum to work at a host non-profit/public interest organization until they can take them, all at no cost whatsoever to the host org. No matter how much passion or experience you have, it’s almost impossible to compete with free labor!
It was also shocking to me to learn how many people ended up in law school because they couldn’t think of anything better to do. It’s sad to think that people who don’t care that much about law or helping people may have made it into law school thanks to a good LSAT score while people with real passion, but less standardized-test-talent were left behind. Maybe the ability to satisfy the zealous advocacy requirement of Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.3 should become a consideration in admissions decisions? Just a suggestion.
So, I watched the first episode of Fairly Legal, the new show on the USA Network about Kate Reed (played by Sarah Shahi), a young, attractive lawyer-turned-mediator who works at her late father’s fancy shmancy law firm. I previously lambasted the show for sexually objectifying the character of Kate in its previews and advertisements (“So, what does justice look like? About 5′ 5”, brunette, great smile . . . .”).
However, having watched the pilot episode, I feel compelled to admit that I may have been too hasty in encouraging people to contact USA and ask them to cancel the show. What I saw on the pilot episode was completely different than what was advertised. Kate Reed’s, or rather, Sarah Shahi’s appearance wasn’t emphasized, especially in relation to her work. The character didn’t run her mediation sessions with her finger flirtatiously resting in her mouth like it does on all of the pictures USA decided to use to advertise the show. Rather, the character of Kate seems to be someone who is deeply concerned with her clients’ welfare. The pilot showed her struggling with conflicts between notions of justice and the reality of the law. It also showed her solving problems for clients in mediation sessions in clever and creative ways.
The difference between the advertisements for the show and the show itself provide a different, and more interesting critique, I think, on marketing and popular culture. The advertisements demonstrate what USA feels it must do or say to get you, the public, to watch its shows. USA thinks the only way you’ll tune in is if you’re given sex. You don’t care about justice unless it’s 5’5”, brunette, and has a great smile, right?
I noticed this marketing vs. actual product dichotomy recently with one of my Christmas presents from my father. He gave me a DVD copy of the film, Cyrus, the cover of which makes it look pretty damn dumb. It shows the main character, Cyrus (Jonah Hill), pushing John (John C. Reilly) away (or grabbing his chest, as I originally thought), and features the tagline, “Seriously, stay off his mom.” This makes the film look like a silly comedy about a weird, jealous son. I had never heard of it, and I was surprised that my dad, knowing my somewhat snooty taste in movies, gave it to me. He had seen it and insisted that I would like it. I watched it, and of course, my dad was right. The DVD cover, on the other hand, was not. In one way it is about a weird, jealous son, but it’s also one of most thoughtful and sensitive love stories I have seen in a long time. I can’t help but wonder how many potential viewers the film lost by the decision to make that DVD cover. As one friend who recently came over to my house said while examining the DVD, “Oh, is this good? I like these actors, but it looks like it could be really stupid.”
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 4,000 times in 2010. That’s about 10 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 14 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 24 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 29mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.
The busiest day of the year was April 27th with 1,213 views. The most popular post that day was The War on Terror Against Women.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
USA is wheeling out a new “legal drama” called, “Fairly Legal,” about a woman who was a lawyer at her father’s firm, but quits after her father dies, and begins working as a mediator. The preview begins with a narrator with a male voice saying, “So, what does justice look like? About 5′ 5”, brunette, great smile . . . .” This sexy embodiment of justice, called “Kate,” is played by Sarah Shahi of “The L Word.” The preview continues with Kate doing lots of cute things, like winking at the camera, and running around in high heeled shoes and tight skirts. You can see for yourself by clicking the link…
Now, I’m sure a lot of people reading this will say, “What are you worried about? No one watches USA anyway.” And that may be true. But, there is always the chance that someone, especially some little girl, or a girl in middle or high school, will turn this on, and get the idea that this is what lawyers look like. Yes, girls are already bombarded with images telling them how they should look, but there is something even more appalling when these ridiculous beauty standards are tied together with a profession that does not depend on or care about the attractiveness of the people who are a part of it. Kate is portrayed as a successful attorney and a successful mediator. Her good looks and sex appeal are part of her success. All she has to do is wink at the guys and she gets her way. This presents a few problems: (1) The risk that people watching will believe that a woman needs to be “attractive” (read: look like Kate) to be a successful attorney, and/or (2) more generally, that a woman must look like Kate in order to successful at all. It also presents a problem for female attorneys who do look like Kate, but got where they are because they worked hard, and not because of their looks. Male attorneys and judges may think, “She only got this far because of the way she looks.”
It is frustrating to no end to constantly see being conventionally good-looking tied together with happiness and success for women. Jessica Wakeman, writing for “The Frisky,” points out that a man with his own show is allowed to be brilliant at his career without having to meet certain height, weight, and attractiveness requirements, and she gives the great example of “House.” House is a white, male doctor who is somewhat of a misanthrope, and also a genius at diagnosing mysterious medical conditions. Can you think of a show that starred a female professional who was brilliant at what she did, where the emphasis was not placed on what she looked like? Can you think of a show where a female who was brilliant at what she did was somewhat misanthropic? Of course not, women must be attractive AND social butterflies in order to be good at their jobs.
I still remember seeing “Ghost World” in the theater for the first time. It was like a whole new world opened up. Girls! Being misanthropic! And sarcastic! And they’re not wearing all-name-brand, shiny, gold, skin-tight crap! You should see “Ghost World,” or read the comic, if you haven’t.
As a law student, I can personally attest to the fact that the majority of women in law school do not look like this Kate character. The vast majority do not run around in high heels and wink at people. The same can be said about female lawyers I have worked with in internships. While, of course, there are many attractive women in the profession, being a good lawyer does not depend on that at all. The women I’ve met while in law school care much more about being good at what they do, and about fighting for their clients, than about what they personally look like. I have never read an opinion in which the judge decided in favor of a female lawyer for being good-looking. I have, however, heard of female lawyers being referred to as “baby,” or “sweetheart,” by male lawyers and male judges, and I’ve also heard of female lawyers receiving sexually suggestive e-mails and phone calls from male clients. As long as shows like “Fairly Legal” continue to get on the air, more men will get the idea that it is OK to treat women as sexual objects, including female professionals. It may also lead women to think it is OK. What is really scary is the idea that shows like this can make some girls think twice about going to law school because they do not look like Kate. If you are reading this, and it did that to you, listen to me very carefully: It is all bullshit.
Call or e-mail USA to tell them that this show should be cancelled. Contact information is here.
My first post in AGES is a final presentation I gave in my Critical Race Theory course. Enjoy?
My presentation is on race and representation in three books by bell hooks. I am particularly interested in essentialism and how essentialist thinking creates notions of “authentic” black experience. I began by reading “Yearning: Race, Gender and Cultural Politics,” published in 1990, then “Black Looks: Race and Representation,” published in 1992, and finished with “Outlaw Culture,” which was published in 1994.
Essentialism posits that for any specific kind of concept, there is a set of characteristics or features that that thing must possess; that must belong to that thing’s essence. My first introduction to essentialism, without knowing that was the correct term to use, was in my freshman year of college, for the entire span of which I read Plato’s dialogues. In the Meno, Meno, a young man from an aristocratic family, famously asks Socrates whether virtue can be taught. In typical Socratic dialogue/law professor fashion, Socrates asks Meno what he thinks virtue is in the first place. Meno answers by saying that there is one virtue for a man, one for a woman, one for a child, an elderly man, a slave, and so on.
Essentialism comes out when Socrates asks Meno what it is that enables him to call all of these separates and seeming distinct acts virtue? What is it that makes all these particularly different things the same? The answer to that would ultimately be the “Form of Virtue” in the world of ideas. Plato’s philosophy is founded upon his theory of “forms.” There is a Form of virtue, a Form of justice, etc. These are “universals” that manifest themselves in the particulars of everyday life that we experience. Thus, if Socrates and Plato were alive today, they might assert that there is a form of “blackness” and of “whiteness.” But, this idea of essentialism, as we shall see, is a potential problem when it comes to race.
In the Introduction to “Outlaw Culture,” bell hooks says that studying popular culture to develop a critical consciousness can decolonize minds and imaginations, and “can be and is a powerful site for intervention, challenge, and change.” In the Introduction to “Black Looks,” however, hooks describes the mass media and representation of race not only as pedagogical tools for the development of a counter-hegemonic consciousness, but as tools that “maintain oppression, exploitation, and overall domination of black people.” Mass media and representation in popular culture propagate white supremacist capitalist patriarchal values that contribute to the oppression and devaluation of blackness. hooks roots this claim in history by noting that white supremacists since the time of slavery “have recognized that control over images is central to the maintenance of any system of racial domination.”
Although hooks does not discuss minstrel shows in these books of hers that I read, I thought of them to help me understand the history of oppression through images. In the 19th Century, “blackface” makeup was used on white and black actors portraying black people in minstrel shows, which included comedy skits, dancing, and music. “Blackface” makeup consisted of either a layer of burnt cork or black grease paint on the face. Exaggerated bright red lips were painted around the mouths. The actors were white, and after the Civil War, increasingly black, but a black person could not get on stage and perform unless in blackface makeup. Some stereotypical characters included the Mammy, which was pictured as a wise, good-natured, heavyset woman; or the Coon, a “lazy, inarticulate buffoon.” The images of the minstrel show were used by white people to maintain a system of racial domination by portraying black people as inferior through a few stereotypical characters. Such a device serves a dual function: 1) to reinforce in white peoples’ minds that they are superior, and 2) to convince black people that they are inferior. It is also important to note for purposes of our discussion that these minstrel shows exhibited black people and black experience in America according to white people.
Today, metaphorically speaking, black people are still not allowed on stage unless they are in blackface makeup. In her essay, “Postmodern Blackness,” in “Yearning,” bell hooks says, “It is rarely acknowledged that there is a far greater censorship and restriction of other forms of cultural production by black folks—literary, critical writing, etc. Attempts on the part of editors and publishing houses to control and manipulate the representation of black culture, as well as the desire to promote the creation of products that will attract the widest audience, limit in a crippling and stifling way the kind of work many black folks feel we can do and still receive recognition.” Thus, representations of black people and black experience in mass media are still controlled and dictated by whiteness.
As an example of these modern-day limitations on representations of black experience, we can compare and contrast two films: Fish Tank, directed by Andrea Arnold, and Precious, directed by Lee Daniels. I went to see both of these films at the Philadelphia Film Festival in the fall of 2009. Just before Fish Tank came on, a film critic spoke to us in the audience, and gave us some background. He described that both films fall into a genre called, “Kitchen Sink Realism,” which emerged as a British artistic movement in the 1950s and 60s that graphically and unapologetically depicted the lives of the working class. Usually, the main character of a Kitchen Sink Realist work was an “angry young man.” The film critic at the festival made a point that Fish Tank and Precious are somewhat revolutionary for the genre because they actually feature “angry young women.”
Let’s watch previews for Fish Tank and for Precious so that you have a taste of what I’m talking about.
First, we’ll watch a preview of Fish Tank, in which we have Mia, who is a white, teenage girl growing up in a housing project in England with her alcoholic/drug-addicted single mom who treats Mia like dirt. Mia’s mother gets a boyfriend who rapes Mia, and with whom Mia becomes infatuated.
Next, we’ll watch a preview of Precious, in which we have a black, teenage girl growing up in a housing project in Harlem, New York with her alcoholic/drug-addicted single mother who treats Precious like dirt. Precious is raped by her father more than once and has two children by him. She later discovers that she is HIV positive.
Although I have noted many similarities between the two films, there is a stark difference in the way the two “angry young women” are portrayed: while Mia displays resistance, Precious displays passivity.
Mia is visibly angry and defiant. We see her acting out her rage in the way she walks, and speaks, the way she picks fights with neighbors and strangers. She has outlets, however. She finds some peace in regularly taking care of a horse that she finds chained to a tree. She also finds a way to express her anger by practicing her break dancing, a traditionally male-dominated artform, in an abandoned apartment building. The film does not have a happy ending by any means, but we are left with the image of a girl who has enough passion in her to resist her oppressive surroundings through dancing and through connections with nature.
On the other hand, Precious, as Slate Magazine’s Dana Stevens said, “is supposed to be about the heroine lifting herself out of abjection, yet the film itself wallows in abjection . . . .” The preview we just watched opens with Precious declaring her determination to achieve capitalist materialist success by becoming a television star, and her desire to have a light-skinned boyfriend. These valuations are not critiqued in the film; they are presented as worthy goals. Unlike Mia in Fish Tank who is able to transcend a capitalist value system by finding freedom and beauty in things she can have regardless of her socioeconomic status, namely, dance and nature, Precious is unable to do this. Although it could be argued that Precious does find friendship and education once she transfers to an alternative school, it is not clear, first of all, that these are things Precious wants and loves, rather than what the world wants and loves for her, and second, it is not clear that she finds a resistance to her oppressive surroundings in her friendships and education, or if they are things that merely help her get by.
In the essay, “Revolutionary Black Women” in “Black Looks,” bell hooks talks about her own experiences being accused of not having an “authentic” black voice when she talks about how she had a positive experience of blackness growing up in the rural South. She recounts how, since she had shared a narrative of resistance, as opposed to victimization, she was deemed inauthentic by her listeners. It seems to me that this a danger that films like Precious seem to ignore. By continually representing black females as victims, any voice of resistance runs the risk of being deemed “inauthentic.” This assigning of victimization as the “’authentic” black female experience is a problem of essentialization.
Precious does not challenge the racist system of domination that creates oppressive economic circumstances. Indeed, in many ways, it conforms to white stereotypes of black experience by showing a passive victim living in poverty who longs for capitalist success, lacking a critical consciousness or voice of resistance. Precious, and other more mainstream films representing race are no different from a minstrel show insofar as they feature black people and experience conforming to white stereotypes of black people and experience.
Again, like the minstrel show, defining black experience so narrowly and representing it that way accomplishes a dual function: 1) since “authentic” black life is portrayed as taking place in segregated inner city neighborhoods—white people find reassurance that black people will not “infringe on their turf,” as hooks says. Also, much worse, it gives white people something to feel superior about. Dana Stevens, of Slate, described it as a type of voyeurism. She writes: “[I]t’s as if the audience is being encouraged at once to recoil from Precious’ world and to congratulate ourselves for being brave enough to confront it: a combination that I find complexly icky.” The other function of defining “authentic” black experience so narrowly is the continued oppression of black people. Instead of allowing individual black people to shape and determine their own “authentic” experiences, it encourages them conform to what white people’s essentialist notions of what black experience is or should be. These essentialist idea of “authentic” black experience also gives publishing houses, production companies, etc. reasons to reject diverse portrayals of black experience by claiming that it is not “authentic,” thus making less black people represented in the media overall.
I do not exactly know what this critique of essentialism means for Plato’s theory of the Forms. I’m sure many people much smarter than me have written about it. I just thought it was interesting to note that a Platonic Theory, which many take to be Gospel, is not infallible. It reminds me of something Karl Marx says in The German Ideology: “Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology . . . have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.”
OK, so I lied about posting in June. Honestly, I haven’t had the need to blog like I did during the school year. It might be because of the Drexel Summer Theory Institute in which I’m participating (you should really click the link and check it out). It’s giving me an outlet for a lot of the thoughts and worries I had before. It could be the fact that I’m working full-time, so I’m just exhausted in the evenings. Or, it could just be that I feel silly sitting at a computer for long periods of time when it’s summer and everything is beautiful. If you don’t believe me, here are some photos I took to prove it (click to enlarge):
Sidewalk-dining: a definite sign of summer.
Kids playing at the end of a street
Rittenhouse Square
Summer night at Rittenhouse Square
Surreal buildings
Lights
A bike with pretty flowers on Walnut Street
To see these photos in better quality, or to see a few more photos, check out my Picasa album:
I know it has been a while since my last post, but I have not abandoned the blogosphere! Final exams took my time and attention away (the nerve!), and I will be away on vacation for the next two weeks. But, I will be back with plenty more posts in June, so stay tuned. Happy Summer!
I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately by the news. There is almost too much going on right now. You’ve got Arizona making a bunch of crazylaws, the Times Square scare, the Gulf oil spill crisis, and (while it isn’t all over television news, it has been making quite a splash in the legal community) the racist email written by a Harvard law student. Is that all? I feel like I’m missing something.
Well, as I was slogging through a bunch of these grim stories on my Google reader, I realized something: Skinny jeans and leggings have been in the news a lot lately! Really, they have! It’s weird. And since it is weird, I began to question myself: What if skinny jeans and leggings have been in the news no more than usual? What if this is just me acting out of a need for “lighter” news in these trying times for our nation? Or, are skinny jeans and leggings really loaded cultural symbols that reflect societal opinions and beliefs?
The story that began all of this came out of Australia. On May 1st, a jury acquitted a 23-year-old man accused of raping a 24-year-old woman because she was wearing skinny jeans. Yes, you read right. Apparently, skinny jeans are the type that cannot be removed without collaboration and teamwork. The jury found it unbelievable that a man would be able to pull these jeans off of this tiny, tiny woman (42 kg, or 92.4 lbs., according to the article) without her help. Over at Feministing, Jos Truitt argued that this decision “smacks of slut shaming and victim blaming.” Truitt continues, “I think focusing on the skinny jeans is meant to suggest that the survivor was dressed provocatively, which in turn is meant to imply she must have wanted it.” I agree with Truitt, and the Italian court that reportedly said, “Jeans cannot be compared to any type of chastity belt,” when upholding a rape conviction in 2008.
Moving on to skinny jeans appearance #2. This story also happens to come from Australia, but involves people from many other places as well. An amazing and, as she would say, fancy girl named Natalie from Australia has a blog in which she writes about art, design, fashion, and advocates for fat acceptance. Natalie posts many pictures of herself on her blog to show readers her outfits and accessories, and she also lists where she bought her things. One such picture of Natalie ended up being posted to a facebook group called, “There’s a weight limit on leggings & skinny jeans.” I felt ill when I heard this existed and even more ill when I saw that it has over 700,000 members (including a facebook friend of mine… who has since been de-friended). Anyway, Natalie wrote an incredible blog post on how she dealt with this situation, and on how she deals with society’s rejection of body type-diversity in general. I wish I were as level-headed and confident as her all of the time.
Skinny jeans: Some collaboration required.
After reading these two stories, I became very suspicious of skinny jeans. Here we have one piece of clothing that is being used to deride women who wear them in one instance (rape case) and to praise them in the another (facebook group – albeit in a way that simultaneously insults others through exclusion). But, isn’t this bizarre? You, skinny girl, who we, as society, deem worthy to wear these skinny jeans, should feel exalted, loved, and worthy as part of a select group who get to don these denim duds without derision. But, be careful! We also think you are kind of slutty for wanting to wear them in the first place because you are showing everything, and if you ever claim, “rape,” we will know that it just isn’t true because you just had to help him get those crazy jeans off of you!
I really had it with skinny jeans and leggings when I read a recent article in the New York Times called, “On Formspring, an E-Vite to Teenage Insults.” Now, this article deals with another world of issues that, as a law review article author-turned-blogger might say, is beyond the scope of this blog post. The basics are that there is a new website/social media tool called Formspring, which allows you to post a question about yourself and have a bunch of your friends answer it anonymously. Now, why on earth I would ever want to do that, I just don’t know… but 13-year-old-me would probably be all about this, and according to the NYT, many 13-year-olds are all about it.
The NYT spoke to Ariane Barrie-Stern, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in New York City, who said, “I think it’s interesting to find out what people really think that they don’t have the guts to say to you. If it’s hurtful, you have to remind yourself that it doesn’t really mean anything.” Except it did mean something to Ariane. She stopped wearing leggings after she received a comment about a certain pair that she had worn.
Where did all of these expectations about “the kind of woman” that wears skinny jeans and leggings come from? Why are they the expectations that they are? Where did skinny jeans and leggings even come from? I can’t help but see skinny jeans and leggings as more wheels in the machine that make women overly self-conscious. They’ve become another part of the daily puzzle when getting dressed to walk the lines between being pretty and attractive, but not slutty or “inviting,” and certainly not “manly.” This is the year 2010, people. It’s about damn time to once and for all shift the focus away from what we, as women, should or should not be wearing, and put it on what we can and will be learning, achieving, and changing.
One very, very common stereotype of women is that they are sweeter, nicer, and gentler than men. I’ve learned through conversations on the topic that many people, including women, do not even understand this to be a problem. Being nice is a compliment, right? Sure, but not when it’s applied to all women as a generalization.
Michelle Cottle has a great article in the May 13,2009 edition of The New Republic called, “Pink Elephants,” about the “strange feminism of Sarah Palin and Liz Cheney.” She writes:
“Forget civility and compromise: [Palin, Bachmann, and Cheney] stand out for their ability to rant, rave, name-call, fingerpoint, and peddle the most outrageous distortions in service to their cause. (Death panels anyone?) And none seems burdened by the reluctance to self-promote that so often undermines professional women.
…I cannot help but be impressed by – and even a bit grateful to – these conservative girls gone wild. Say what you will about their ideology; these angry female fringe-dwellers are arguably doing more than anyone to tear down some of the most tiresome stereotypes about women in politics.
You know what I’m talking about: Every few years someone writes a book, publishes a study, or simply drops a quote suggesting what a kinder, gentler, less competitive, more collaborative, less power-crazed, and fundamentally more ethical place Washington would be if only the gals were in charge.”
Unfortunately, this stereotype doesn’t just exist in politics. I’ve heard it in law school, too, from both professors and classmates. Would corporations be nicer to consumers, the environment, etc. if more women were in charge? Would law firms be less competitive and provide better client services if more women were partners? In a class in which U.S. v. Virginia was discussed, many classmates agreed that the U.S. Supreme Court essentially ruined the Viriginia Military Institute (VMI) by requiring it to admit women because their presence would “feminize” (read: soften) the adversative methods of the Institute. They did not use those words exactly, but the language in the case itself shows that was really VMI’s concern. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes:
“Virginia next argues that VMI’s adversative method of training provides educational benefits that cannot be made available, unmodified, to women. Alterations to accommodate women would necessarily be ‘radical,’ so ‘drastic,’ Virginia asserts, as to transform, indeed ‘destroy,’ VMI’s program. . . . Neither sex would be favored by the transformation, Virginia maintains: Men would be deprived of the unique opportunity currently available to them; women would not gain that opportunity because their participation would ‘eliminat[e] the very aspects of [the] program that distinguish [VMI] from . . . other institutions of higher education in Virginia.'”
Ginsburg answers Virginia’s arguments by pointing out that there is no proof whatsoever that VMI’s adversative method would suffer by admitting women, and that such arguments raised by Virginia are the same ones that are “routinely” used to deny women opportunities and equal rights, such as admission to practice in the professional fields of law and medicine.
Regardless of how Palin and Cheney feel about the decision in Virginia, they do seem to fight the stereotype of women advanced by Virginia in the case, and still believed by many in the legal profession. And for that, I give them props.
It could be argued that in Dante’s Inferno, the Vestibule of Hell was worse than any of the circles of Hell insofar as it was the most unpleasant for the souls there. This is supported by the text (Canto III): Virgil tells Dante that the people in the Vestibule are “envious of every other fate.” (Emphasis added). The heavens will not accept them, and neither will the abyss. “Wow,” one thinks, “Are these murderers? Rapists? What did they do that was so bad?” The answer: They were apathetic.
They are the melancholy souls of those who lived without infamy or praise. They did nothing in their lives, for good or for evil, but only for “self.” Scattered among them are the Angels who took neither side in the War in Heaven that resulted in Lucifer’s expulsion. For all of eternity, these self-interested souls are doomed to chase a banner, which can never be caught, while gadflies and hornets sting them, and maggots drink their blood and tears.
It’s utterly fascinating that Dante would choose to give these souls, the indifferent and apathetic ones, the worst fate. Basically, he is saying that it is worse to do nothing than to do evil, which is a really brave thing to assert. I suppose it could also be interpreted as: it is worse to only be motivated by self-interest than to be motivated by evil. But, still, that is quite a thing to say!
Today, many of us would probably disagree with Dante. Many people would be outraged by the notion that a murderer deserves a better fate in hell than some dude with no convictions. (Please note that when I say “better,” I am still comparing two horrible and undesirable fates, and to that extent, one can only be so much better than the other). Part of this outrage and distaste might arise from the realization that most of us would be included in the indifferent and apathetic crowd, and none of us want to consider ourselves as somehow deserving of a worse fate than an “active sinner,” if you will.
The law certainly does not agree with Dante on this point. The law does not punish people who are indifferent, apathetic, or who do not take sides. Sometimes, it even encourages people to be this way. Take protests, for example. Many people may be deterred from protesting for something good and worthy out of the fear that they will be arrested. By looking out for their own self-interest, they refrain from taking sides in the matter. And unlike Dante’s G-d, the law does not reward selfless good actions (with the exception of a few tax exemptions or scholarships here and there). This only increases the likelihood that people will act self-interestedly, indifferent to issues that do not directly involve them.
Lawyer/law school culture definitely promotes amoral, self-interested behavior (note: amoral, not immoral). Law students are encouraged not to care about anything beyond their grades and class rank. They must be careful about what student organizations they join, or include on their resumes, because they may affect their chances of getting the job. They must also modify their appearances, even if it means changing something about which he or she felt strongly, in order to appease an employer or judge.
When students object to having to do these things to get a job, or to having a value system that relies solely on grades, they are not received well. They are considered naive, unrealistic, or lacking experience. Those who try to shift the focus away from grades are assumed to be doing so because they have bad grades, and so are probably not worth listening to anyway. It is accepted and expected that students will spend all of their time trying to get the best grades, and will sacrifice their beliefs and convictions to get whatever high-paying job they can. Especially in an economic situation like the one in which we currently find ourselves, the more one sticks to his or her convictions at the risk of losing a job opportunity, the more one is regarded as having lost touch with reality.
Opportunism is just a reflection of the values of a capitalist society. Here, money is what matters. “Success” means making a lot of money, and “freedom” means having the money to buy whatever stuff you want. If you have different definitions of success and freedom, you will most likely be an outcast in law school and in many parts of society, but look on the bright side: you’re less likely to be stuck in the Vestibule!
girl meets law 