A few years ago I read an interview with Gene Sharp, a nonviolence advocate, on the value of protest:

You have to use your head if you want to succeed. If the issue is only how to express yourself, that's irrelevant and selfish. People do not make the distinction between expressing themselves and doing something that can win.

Law schools have a reputation of being filled with left-leaning people -- students and professors -- certainly this is true at UCLA. What tires me about it sometimes is how it encourages this gap Sharp describes between expressing yourself and winning.

One of the charming aspects of undergraduate leftism, much in evidence on the op-ed page of the campus newspaper, is how 19-yr-old writers act as if they are the first person to notice the injustices of eating meat / poverty / the import economy / drug regulation / etc. For instance: "People need to recognize that racism has been a serious problem in American history." What?! There was racism??

You'd think (?) law school students would move up the evolutionary chain of argument -- to recognize there's two sides to an issue. You can't win by denying there is another view. You can't win by being dismissive of that view. These are hallmarks of legal reasoning in general.

Yet left-leaning positions are often staked out in exactly that manner. "I loved O'Connor's opinion." "Well what about Rehnquist's dissent criticizing her reasoning." "He's crazy." Uh, ok.

This is not a way to win. This is just self-expression. People are entitled to it, but it's a limited way to treat an issue. You don't have to like the dissenting opinion. You do have to treat it in a substantive manner.

08 Apr 05