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Poll
I am:
cold 0%
furtive 0%
callous 0%
snobbish 21%
selfish 7%
playful, but with a streak of cruelty 71%

Votes: 14

 Excerpt

 Author:  Topic:  Posted:
Dec 31, 2001
 Comments:
I have a small confession to make: From time to time, I read trashy bourgeous glossy scandal sheets like The New Yorker or The Atlantic Monthly. I know that such things are beneath me, but I can't help myself; it's like watching skyscrapers burn.

If it so please the Court, I would like to enter into the record an excerpt from an article in The New Yorker by Larissa MacFarquhar (whose children I would happily bear) entitled "The Bench Burner."

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Deletion Notice
Richard Posner is a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which in the judge trade is the best job you can land in the US without sitting on the Supreme Court. From the article:

"His accounts of the world are sometimes so eccentric as to be almost Martian. He has argued, for instance, that a higher proportion of black women than white women are fat because the supply of eligible black men is limited; thus, black women find the likelihood of profit from an elegant figure too small to compensate for the costs of dieting. As John Donohue, a law professor at Stanford, delicately puts it, "A little bit of empirical support goes a long way for him."

Critics find Posner exasperating, because often he doesn't take the trouble to answer their careful refutations. It is not that he is incapable of doing so--it is, rather, that he is more attracted to rhetoric than proof, and believes it is more powerful. He is not, in the end, very interested in the sort of prudent rigor that produces watertight logic. He is not the type to spend years testing his arguments for leakage, sealing tiny cracks and worrying endlessly over possible ripostes: he would rather risk sending them young into the world, flawed but forceful, with the advantage of surprise. And yet the uproaious pugilism and the desire to shock evident in his pages are nowhere visible on the surface of the man. "I have exactly the same personality as my cat," Posner likes to say. "I am cold, furtive, callous, snobbish, selfish, and playful, but with a streak of cruelty."

Discuss.

       
Tweet

A streak of cruelty is important (none / 0) (#1)
by error27 on Mon Dec 31st, 2001 at 04:19:37 PM PST
for a judge. Sometimes judges need to make examples out of criminals and miscreants. How could they do this if they were too touchy feely?


 
Wow (none / 0) (#2)
by SpaceGhoti on Mon Dec 31st, 2001 at 06:34:37 PM PST
It is not that he is incapable of doing so--it is, rather, that he is more attracted to rhetoric than proof, and believes it is more powerful. He is not, in the end, very interested in the sort of prudent rigor that produces watertight logic. He is not the type to spend years testing his arguments for leakage, sealing tiny cracks and worrying endlessly over possible ripostes: he would rather risk sending them young into the world, flawed but forceful, with the advantage of surprise.


I can't imagine anybody on Adequacy who sounds like this, of course. Certainly nobody I've debated with in the past. Certainly not groups of people.


A troll's true colors.

You're almost onto something, SpaceGhoti. (none / 0) (#3)
by RobotSlave on Mon Dec 31st, 2001 at 07:50:32 PM PST
Now, which one of you two is a Seventh Circuit Court Judge, and which one is flailing about hopelessly in the "comments" section of a publicly accessible worldly-net address?


© 2002, RobotSlave. You may not reproduce this material, in whole or in part, without written permission of the owner.

 
there's a simple explanation (none / 0) (#4)
by Anonymous Reader on Mon Dec 31st, 2001 at 08:29:17 PM PST
Posner is a libertarian, ideologically.


He's not that simple. (none / 0) (#5)
by Anonymous Reader on Tue Jan 1st, 2002 at 02:27:20 PM PST
He's got a strong Utilitarian streak as well, and his approach often bears the hallmarks of a Pragmatist. He even toys with Evolutionary Psychology at times. He's too smart to be sucked into a single philosophy.


 
Rule for living (none / 0) (#6)
by hauntedattics on Wed Jan 2nd, 2002 at 12:19:40 PM PST
Hauntedattics Rule for Living #8763: Beware of anyone who has the same personality as their cat, and especially those who admit to it.


Urgh... (none / 0) (#7)
by hauntedattics on Wed Jan 2nd, 2002 at 12:21:15 PM PST
Grammar error in the above post - it should read "Beware of anyone who has the same personality as his or her cat." Sorry about that.


 

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