Here are two disturbing items from the April 2006 "Harper's Index": 1. Amount by which Americans' total spending last year exceeded their earnings: $41,600,000,000. 2. Last year in which spending outstripped earnings: 1933. Then again, the citizens aren't doing anything different than their ruling political party. For some startling graphics…
Jimmy Carter on Fundamentalism: one can find it in religious circles and now "very overwhelmingly" in Washington. A fundamentalist believes, say, in religious circles, that I am close to God. Everything that I believe is absolutely right. Anyone who disagrees with me, in any case, is inherently wrong and therefore,…
ABSOLUTELY NOT, according to the administration. At least that is what we've heard so far. Instead, we've heard various other purported reasons, such as the following: Because Saddam Hussein has shown contempt for the United Nations and for his deceptions and cruelties. Because Iraq has failed to co-operate with United…
Young rocks impersonating old rocks. My favorite program was the hike to the base of the falls. Layers of rock are like chapters in a history book and this canyon, carved so deeply, told an ancient story. Standing at the bottom, calling out over the roar of the falls, I…
Many professionals (including many lawyers) believe that the careful use of “reason” cannot involve the use of one’s imagination. This is absolutely untrue. The belief in “pure reason” has always and everywhere proven to be the source of great confusion among those who strive to use langage precisely.
Responding to the Enlightenment claim that Reason itself is “rigorous, linear, cool, and unemotional” Steven L. Winter points out that such a claim actually proclaims the metaphorical quality of reason: “reason is cold; it is rigorous; it is linear; it is clear; it is felt. Indeed, in its dependence on embodied experiences like temperature and rigor, the metaphorical quality of reason is anything but detached and impersonal.” Steven L. Winter, “Death is the Mother of Metaphor,” 105 HARV. L. REV., 745, 749 (1991).
Winter gives numerous examples of metaphors connecting our immediate experience even high-level legal concepts. One of these metaphors is of law as a “person.” For instance, we speak of the body of law, we ask what laws say “on their face.” We refer to “seminal” cases, as well as their “progeny.” We “strike down” statutes, and sometimes recall “dead” legal concepts. Winter, Mark Johnson and George Lakoff each argue that these uses of metaphors constitute far more than poetry. Their use is essential to bridging the gap between the high level principles of every profession and the real world.
