I recently had the occasion to re-watch, after oh so many long decades, the Stanley Kramer classic from 1961, Judgment at Nuremberg. And the viewing experience resonated into an unavoidable series of comparisons with the current state of the world. Of course, there are so many people who, while during the era of the Trump presidency couldn’t stop themselves endlessly condemning as fascists and Nazis, Trump, his supporters and indeed anyone who wasn’t prepared to offer similar unqualified denunciations, but today bristle at the alleged absurdity and unreasonableness of using those same historical precedents when reflecting upon the current COVID hysteria. And yet, as the Kramer film illustrates, the comparisons are difficult to ignore.
Mar 30, 2022·edited Mar 30, 2022Liked by The Evolved Psyche
Judges do not live in vacuum. Neither do laws exist in vacuum. At their best they are based on moral and religious (in the wider sense of that word) foundations of society. And as those foundations change, so does the interpretation of the laws - which means the laws themselves change, even though their text stays the same.
"All men are created equal" meant "white affluent males" to those who signed under that foundational myth. Nowadays people read it as "all human beings" (and don't ask what that means - I am not a biologist.)
Moreover, religious and moral changes lead to judges inventing laws ex nihilo - e.g. Brown v. Board of Education, or Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey
A judge who *honestly* thinks that in a certain case subverting the literal law for the sake of the common good is net positive has a long-standing tradition to rely upon, and very intuitive at that. Something that most people who are not over-trained in philosophy would subscribe to.
I did not watch the movie, but from your synopsis I gather that Lancaster's character did not honestly think that.
It's interesting in that I believe the film is premised upon the idea that there is an ideal of the law and the role of the judge. I might even agree with that from a purely pragmatic perspective. The common law tradition is rooted in the idea that judgement should be consequentialist; the best judgement was that which was best for the community. (Richard Epstein is a great interpreter of that tradition.) In the English common law tradition, as I understand it, the original purpose of the jury was rooted in this idea. Judges travelled circuits and didn't know well the communities in which they passed judgements. The jury was initially a protection of the community against a travelling judge who didn't understand their mores and norms. Though, I understand you're taking issue with a more transcendent ideal of judgement. And to answer your question, as I recall, Tracy's character most definitely believed in and appealed to such a transcendent ideal of judgement. But I believe that, ultimately, so did Lancaster's character, despite his own contradiction of that ideal in practice. That contradiction was what made Lancaster character's so tragic.
Mar 31, 2022·edited Mar 31, 2022Liked by The Evolved Psyche
>I understand you're taking issue with a more transcendent ideal of judgement
Sort of as an aside. I've been thinking about this, and here is one of the earliest definitions of what makes a good judge:
"You are to appoint judges and officials for your tribes in every town that the Lord your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.
Do not deny justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
Pursue justice, and justice alone, so that you may live, and you may possess the land that the Lord your God is giving you."
We see several things:
- Judges should be local ("in every town".) That jibes with what you mention about the juries being local (and also the concept of the "jury of one's peers")
- Their main purpose is to judge with "righteous justice". (In the original "righteous judgement" in the first verse and both "justices" in the third are the same word, which I think can be best translated as "righteous justice".) Both concepts - and hence their conjunction - of "righteousness" and "justice" are rather subjective. They depend on one's moral, religious, and philosophical outlook.
- There are things that are always antithetical to administering the "righteous justice": corruption (e.g. bribery) and partiality.
Then there is a very consequentialist conclusion: "righteous justice" leads to "you may possess the land". From which follows (since this is not mathematical, but human logic) that lack of "righteous justice" will lead to the opposite effect.
Great article. Yes, you are spot on. We have been betrayed and abandoned by those who claim to stand for justice in our courts system. This is a worldwide betrayal and, in fact, it happened long before COVID. I dare anyone to look, for example, at the leniency of sentences handed down to the most despicable of sex offenders. Here in Ireland, we have a pro-paedophilia justice system and it has been like that for years (see here : waketfupweekly.substack.com/p/irelands-department-of-injustice). It is no different in the US or the UK. Like you say in your article, the law has been subverted in the name of evil. But that is what happens when your nation is infiltrated with Masons and Marxists. The COVID scam has merely illuminated this issue. It has been there for a long time.
Judges do not live in vacuum. Neither do laws exist in vacuum. At their best they are based on moral and religious (in the wider sense of that word) foundations of society. And as those foundations change, so does the interpretation of the laws - which means the laws themselves change, even though their text stays the same.
"All men are created equal" meant "white affluent males" to those who signed under that foundational myth. Nowadays people read it as "all human beings" (and don't ask what that means - I am not a biologist.)
Moreover, religious and moral changes lead to judges inventing laws ex nihilo - e.g. Brown v. Board of Education, or Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey
A judge who *honestly* thinks that in a certain case subverting the literal law for the sake of the common good is net positive has a long-standing tradition to rely upon, and very intuitive at that. Something that most people who are not over-trained in philosophy would subscribe to.
I did not watch the movie, but from your synopsis I gather that Lancaster's character did not honestly think that.
It's interesting in that I believe the film is premised upon the idea that there is an ideal of the law and the role of the judge. I might even agree with that from a purely pragmatic perspective. The common law tradition is rooted in the idea that judgement should be consequentialist; the best judgement was that which was best for the community. (Richard Epstein is a great interpreter of that tradition.) In the English common law tradition, as I understand it, the original purpose of the jury was rooted in this idea. Judges travelled circuits and didn't know well the communities in which they passed judgements. The jury was initially a protection of the community against a travelling judge who didn't understand their mores and norms. Though, I understand you're taking issue with a more transcendent ideal of judgement. And to answer your question, as I recall, Tracy's character most definitely believed in and appealed to such a transcendent ideal of judgement. But I believe that, ultimately, so did Lancaster's character, despite his own contradiction of that ideal in practice. That contradiction was what made Lancaster character's so tragic.
>I understand you're taking issue with a more transcendent ideal of judgement
Sort of as an aside. I've been thinking about this, and here is one of the earliest definitions of what makes a good judge:
"You are to appoint judges and officials for your tribes in every town that the Lord your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment.
Do not deny justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
Pursue justice, and justice alone, so that you may live, and you may possess the land that the Lord your God is giving you."
We see several things:
- Judges should be local ("in every town".) That jibes with what you mention about the juries being local (and also the concept of the "jury of one's peers")
- Their main purpose is to judge with "righteous justice". (In the original "righteous judgement" in the first verse and both "justices" in the third are the same word, which I think can be best translated as "righteous justice".) Both concepts - and hence their conjunction - of "righteousness" and "justice" are rather subjective. They depend on one's moral, religious, and philosophical outlook.
- There are things that are always antithetical to administering the "righteous justice": corruption (e.g. bribery) and partiality.
Then there is a very consequentialist conclusion: "righteous justice" leads to "you may possess the land". From which follows (since this is not mathematical, but human logic) that lack of "righteous justice" will lead to the opposite effect.
Great article. Yes, you are spot on. We have been betrayed and abandoned by those who claim to stand for justice in our courts system. This is a worldwide betrayal and, in fact, it happened long before COVID. I dare anyone to look, for example, at the leniency of sentences handed down to the most despicable of sex offenders. Here in Ireland, we have a pro-paedophilia justice system and it has been like that for years (see here : waketfupweekly.substack.com/p/irelands-department-of-injustice). It is no different in the US or the UK. Like you say in your article, the law has been subverted in the name of evil. But that is what happens when your nation is infiltrated with Masons and Marxists. The COVID scam has merely illuminated this issue. It has been there for a long time.