The Imperative

Law school is a battlefield. If you didn’t know that, you’ve probably already lost. If you’re going to survive (and win), you’d better know who you’re fighting with and against. Of course, as with biology, there are surely species yet to be documented. It’s a big world out there.

Participants in Socratic combat fall into two general categories: mercenaries and soldiers. Mercenaries are out for number 1. Mercenaries are soldiers without a cause save clerkships, recommendations and sweet jobs. Soldiers fight for something else too– learning, first and foremost, or the common good. The lines can blur, and combatants can change sides. But the Garden Variety Gunner (GVG) and Machine Gunner are almost always mercenaries ’til the end (the Nerf Gunner is just kind of cute in his naivete). For everyone’s good, please be a soldier.

The Garden-Variety Gunner (GVG)

You know who they are. No class is complete without the GVG taking a shot. Reliable as a Sig Sauer P226, the GVG is going to make his point or ask that question. GVGs may be expert sharpshooters tolerated for their accuracy, or pathetic shots mocked behind their backs. At the end of class, the GVG shifts to melee combat, rushing the podium to relate how that last case is just like one from the Queen’s Bench in 1869.

The Machine Gunner

The typical Machine Gunner has one goal: clerking on the Supreme Court. Anything or anyone standing in the Machine Gunner’s way probably will suffer from the encounter. He comes out with guns blazing, spraying hypos and triple-barreled questions without remorse. Like the honey badger, the Machine Gunner really doesn’t give a shit. He takes what he wants and leaves everyone else to pick up the scraps. He has no regard for any other student. The Machine Gunner is fine with missing sometimes: they’ve ammo to spare, gathered painstakingly in long hours on Westlaw or the “recommended” reading. The Machine Gunner’s probably that guy who erased your name on the Google Spreadsheet for professor dinners and typed in his own. He might be a perfectly nice person outside the law school. But he still sucks.

The Nerf Gunner

The Nerf Gunner tries his very best to gun. But unlike the GVG or Machine Gunner, he’s not even using real ammo. His questions might not even be on the same case the professor’s talking about. “Oh, we moved on from that an hour ago?…Sorry.” It’s hard to be annoyed by the Nerf Gunner’s repeated attempts: they’re cute and harmless, because he’s really trying to do his best.

The Sniper

The Sniper lies in wait for weeks or months,  biding her time, camouflaged in anonymity. The expert Sniper strikes without warning, stunning the professor and class with her brilliantly incisive comment, eliciting a stammering “Wait-wait- what was your name again?” Those present for the Sniper’s shot may find their perspectives on the world forever changed. The Sniper smiles modestly and sneaks off, waiting for her next target. A Sniper who misses her shot, however, may panic and flee, never to be seen again.

Sniper Sub-Type: The Camper

The Camper waits anxiously for his perfect scenario to unfold, without knowing what that is. The indecisive Camper may find himself at the end of the semester with a full belt of ammunition and a hollow feeling of disappointment. A Camper about to strike but preempted by another– perhaps an over-eager machine gunner– may find himself jaded, left to drown his sorrows in cheap beer and indolent Facebook wandering.

Sniper Sub-Type: The Professional

The Professional picks his prey early on and waits all semester for it to appear.  Class action? Affirmative action? They’ve assembled a dossier, chosen a vantage point, and simulated their attack. Grutter v. Bollinger didn’t know what hit it.

The Assassin

You probably don’t know who the Assassin is. That is, until they’re clerking for Ginsburg and you realize they’ve been operating in silence for years. Unlike the Sniper, the Assassin doesn’t operate in the open. The Assassin chooses a different arena: professors’ office hours. While you’re screwing around on Facebook, the Assassin’s making besties with legal experts. She’s probably chatting over froyo with Justice Breyer’s best friend right now.

The Trick Shooter

Host a show on CNN? Parent their kids? Win a Pulitzer Prize during 1L year? It’s all in a day’s work for the modest and hard-working Trick Shooter. She’ll do her thing, make a good point in class, and act like it’s no big deal. The Trick Shooter’s not out for blood: everyone wins when the Trick Shooter performs. You probably wish you were a trick shooter. (I do.)

The Insurgent

The Insurgent has a bone to pick. What do you mean, we can use the Coase Theorem to understand this? The Insurgent probably disagrees with the very premise for the discussion. The Insurgent has a different aim than most of the other combatants: he’s here to make a point about the world. He’s a freedom fighter against law and economics, originalism and everything Antonin Scalia stands for. The Insurgent strikes with venom, lobbing questions that aren’t really questions so much as veiled attacks on legal philosophies.

The Under-the-Gunner

The Under-the-Gunner can’t operate without a deadline pressing in. The Under-the-Gunner only succeeds under the Sword of Damocles of due dates hanging overhead, or the knowledge that they’re on call that day. The Under-the-Gunner has to be called to the fight.

The Conscientious Objector

The Conscientious Objector refuses to fight in the first place. She might disagree with the whole structure of black-letter law, the case method or the Socratic style. Or, she might simply not care to fight this battle. But she’s usually there, silently protesting. Cold-called in class, the Conscientious Objector typically responds with either studied disregard or shell-shocked silence.

The Deserter

Not to be confused with the Conscientious Objector, the Deserter hasn’t been in class since the first week of school. You see him walking near campus and realize you forgot he even existed. The Deserter might have gone rogue, doing his own thing with hornbooks and old outlines. Or he might have given up the fight completely. You’ll probably see the Deserter at Bar Review, though.

(additional credit to Ryan Watzel, Grant Damon, Tom Maher and all my Facebook friends)

Occupy Wall Street isn’t what you probably think it is.  It’s not leaderless, it’s not just the same activists operating under a different name, and it’s not just a formless fireball of anger.  Occupy is what a social movement can look like in our modern era.  It’s executiveless. I’m neither an expert on the topic nor a formal member of the movement.  I did, however, take a step further beyond the scene at Zuccotti Park.

On Tuesday, I took a train down to NYC with my friend Tom to see OWS for ourselves.  When we reached the Occupation at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, I was dismayed. Makeshift tents of tarp and duct tape overlapped, crammed together in a quilt of blue, black, gray and green. Signs for various leftist and far-left causes– advocating an end to war, anarchy, or an embrace of communism– festooned the scene. Metal barricades ringed the park.  Occupiers leaned up against the barriers, peering at the outside world, holding handmade placards and crying out those walking by. “What are you looking at? We’re not fucking animals!  This isn’t a fucking zoo!” one of the occupiers yelled as passerbys snapped pictures with their Canons and Nikons. To her right, another occupier petted a cat nestled in his hoodie.

Tom and I walked inside, stepping delicately along the narrow paths between the tents, and past a table labeled “Occupy Legoland.” I looked for people to speak with. A man behind the “Press/Legal” table said, “Here to see the sights?” I mumbled back, asked him how long he’d been there. “Two weeks,” he said, and turned away. To my left, a middle-aged lady crouched writing a schedule of events on a whiteboard.  I peered around her at the long list of meetings, training sessions and conversations.  I saw an entry at 1PM, for an “Organization” meeting at 60 Wall St., listed as open to anyone.  “Hey Tom, want to go to that?”  He agreed.

We showed up at 1PM at 60 Wall, which turned out to be the atrium of Deutsche Bank.  Several groups sat meeting in large circles.  While Tom and I stood in the atrium’s center debating which one was the “Organization” meeting, a young lady walked up to us.  “Hey, are you here for the ‘Organization’ meeting?”  We assented and introduced ourselves.  Though our new friend Katie was a little confused by our exploratory mission, she explained that this was the fourth meeting of the “Organization” group.  According to Katie, “Organization” was working to build structure and promote best practices among the many groups working in OWS, operating in tandem with larger efforts including the Spokes Council, which serves as a more structured venue  for collaboration for OWS’s many constituencies.  In comparison, the General Assemblies held regularly at Zuccotti Park are totally open, consensus-driven meetings.

In response to my question, Katie mentioned that few of the people living in the park attended these meetings at 60 Wall.  60 Wall, she also noted, served as the meeting ground for each of these various working groups, like Security or Direct Action. A city law forced atriums like 60 Wall to be left open for public use, though Deutsche Bank was doing all it could to deter this turn of events.  Deutsche Bank, she said, had turned off WiFi for the atrium and removed the toilet paper from the bathrooms.

Other members of the “Organization” group filtered in.  About 10 or so, ranging from college-age to elderly, white college students to a middle-aged Hispanic labor activist, looking like they had showered regularly, they would have fit in walking the halls of Yale Law School.  Some had been activists beforehand; some were new to the scene.  The meeting ran efficiently, with one member diligently keeping time and another recording minutes.  The group’s facilitator, Katie had told us, had been one of the student leaders at Tiananmen Square.   The group discussed ways to make meetings run more efficiently, daily meetings to share information, and the importance of recording minutes online.  As with Katie, they were a bit confused when Tom and I told them we were in town for the day from Connecticut to learn and observe, but friendly and encouraging as well.  “You should take what you’ve learned back to New Haven,” one man told us.

After the meeting, Tom and I went back in a bit and caught a glimpse of Nash and Crosby playing at Zuccotti Park.  It was too far to hear their unamplified acoustic guitars, so we started the trip home.

In all, Tom and I spent only several hours at Occupy Wall Street.  We didn’t make it to a Spokes Council meeting, or a teaching session, or a General Assembly.  But I do believe we saw something different than most people’s expectations or perspectives of OWS. There’s considerable organization behind the scenes, a tireless effort to bring some structure to the movement, focused on the themes of corrupt elections, financial regulation and economic inequality.  I saw numerous leaders at the meeting we attended, from its facilitator, to Katie, to a new arrival whom one participant noted had done “a hell of job on a lot of different things.” At the same time, I don’t believe that those people in 60 Wall are any “better” or more valid civic participants than the people somewhat incoherently protesting at Zuccotti Park.  However, the frustration and energy of the physical Occupiers has to be channeled through some structure to make an impact.

Before we reached the Occupy site, I had told Tom, “I want to establish this: I don’t want to come in and say, ‘I’m a Yale Law student.  I can fix your problems for you.’” “You wouldn’t say that, would you?” “No, I hope not. I just have to make sure.” In the day or so preceding our trip, some of my fellow law students had surprised me with their views on OWS.  A few– and who I think consider themselves liberal– thought OWS was a waste of time, that it was totally incoherent, that it lacked leadership. In these comments, I saw a notion that bothers me: the belief that we need elites, technocrats, to act as executives, make the important decisions and change the world from the top down.

Occupy Wall Street, and the Occupy movement in general, don’t need executives.  In fact, executives would kill the movement.  It has leaders and a loose structure, even if most passerbys or media members don’t take initiative to walk over to somewhere like 60 Wall and find that out.  It’s an example of a different conception of leadership, one in which anyone who participates is a leader, not only CEOs, Executive Directors, Presidents or meeting facilitators.  Occupy’s only a month and a half old.  Give it time.

The notion of narrative was in full focus last week.  I’ve never seen an article linked so frequently on Facebook as Drew Westen’s New York Times piece examining President Obama’s seeming inability to develop a narrative that Americans understand and enroll in.  My experience reading Westen’s essay was almost painful. The article spoke to my growing disappointment in both the administration’s progress and its communication strategy, punctuated by the budget deal.  I think many of my friends– and Americans in general– felt the same way. I’m not sure I agree with Westen’s criticism of Obama’s character. It’s hard for me to separate his administration’s strategy from Obama himself. However, blaming Obama alone avoids another issue: the absence of unifying vision upon which to construct a narrative for governance.

For one, there’s another, more potent narrative vision in American politics. The budget crisis was proof enough of that. The anti-tax, bootstrap conservative narrative has been woven with substantial tenacity, volume and funding.  The frame is clear: taxes are bad, government should be whittled down to bare bones, and people are best when left to their own devices, dependent only on themselves. The Republican Party has become a vehicle for this narrative. GOP primary voters threaten even reliable conservatives like Orrin Hatch of Utah who fail to ace their test for total orthodoxy to the storyline.  While anti-tax hegemon Grover Norquist is no John Rawls, there’s no question he has succeeded in his mission to enact his vision.  Though unelected, he might be the most powerful man in Washington today.

Looking to the Democratic Party and the progressive movement (or to just about anybody else), there’s no clear alternate narrative to this conservative vision.  That’s not especially surprising, given the Democratic Party is far more ideologically diverse.  Diversity is inefficient– it requires far more time and effort to align people with more diverse perspectives.  Moreover, while liberals may cry out in irritation when the administration abandons the public option for health care, or makes a budget deal without provision for revenue increases, Democrats aren’t aligned with one ideologically “pure” set of policy choices.  Democrats’ preferences also tend to be more nuanced.  While Republicans have become the party of no (no gay marriage, no taxes, no government, no global warming, no illegal immigration), it’s harder for Democrats to explain their policies.  How is a more progressive taxation system structured?  How do you address global warming? What does more sensible immigration policy look like?  Nuances render crafting a narrative more difficult.

You might argue that the President should lead the way to this narrative through his bully pulpit.  That’s fair.  It also doesn’t get any closer to solving the problem.  Furthermore, it’s a terrible idea to form a governing narrative purely around methods.  Times change and strategies need to change, too.  While the conservative vision might allude to the ends at which its means are aimed, such explanation is always murky.  How does gay marriage actually hurt families?  Does trickle-down economics actually help anyone other than the very wealthy? Even if their policies create economic growth, how does that lead people closer on the pursuit of happiness?

And that’s where the President and others have the opportunity to craft a new narrative: around outcomes and their vision of a better America. Too often the President has focused on methods instead of ends.  Why would he talk about “bending the cost curve” to explain the benefits of health care reform, instead of its potential to help Americans lead more fulfilling lives?  What convictions drive him– not in terms of methods, but outcomes? How do his policies help Americans ?  What does that actually look like?

Obama was elected on a platform of hope.  Its success was not unsurprising.  Americans love possibility and potential. We call ourselves, perhaps now inaccurately, the Land of Opportunity.  And I believe strongly in hope, not as an outcome but as a means.  The welfare of people is the end to which hope can be directed.

On a personal level, I’ve spent a great deal of time lately considering what a better America would look like.  I believe it’s a place where people have not only the opportunity, but the capability to lead more fulfilling lives.  It’s an America where people have the ability to feel engagement at work and at home.  It’s an America where people can have more fruitful relationships with their friends, families and neighbors.  It’s an America where people have greater opportunity to pursue the passions that provide meaning in their lives.  It’s an America where we work together and sacrifice as part of local and national communities, whether through taxes, volunteering or acting humanely to our fellow citizens.

That’s my conception.  And whether that’s the best paradigm or not, outcomes provide the opportunity for a new, more powerful and ultimately more successful narrative.  It’s a hard conversation to have when the world feels like it’s falling apart.  Big ideas require time, dialogue and considerable cognitive effort.  But if you’re truly crafting a better world, not merely returning it to the old state of affairs, a sense of direction is a critical thing to have.

The internet is a scary place.  Not only for what you might find, but what other people might find out about you.  For example, Google-searching me shows some scintillating anonymous criticism of me as a student government leader (as well as a lengthy screed from me ignoring their suggestion– ah, my barely-younger days):

“People should really stop letting chase sackett speak.”

Be careful: anything you write (or is written about you) might be dredged up thirty years from now for your Supreme Court confirmation hearing.  Imagine it now:

Sen. Buckinghamshireton: Ms. Bland, I was disappointed to so little written evidence for your judicial outlook. In thirty years you appeared to say little of substance anywhere– in your decisions, written articles or even your Facebook!  However, my aides did find a Facebook post from several years ago in which you said– I quote– “This is why I hate Republicans.”

You: Hold on, I was only twenty–

Sen. Buckinghamshireton: That doesn’t matter!  How can we trust you to judge impartially, knowing this?

(The crowd murmurs its assent.)

And that would be it!  No more Supreme Court for you, despite thirty years of conscientious caretaking of your digital persona.  And even if you don’t want to join the fabled nine, any high political position might be denied to you on the basis of a careless email or status update.  After all, to join the Obama Administration, candidates had to satisfy 63 requests, including:

#13) Electronic communications: If you have ever sent an electronic communication, including but not limited to an email, text message or instant message, that could suggest a potential conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment for you…

Facebook didn’t even exist ten years ago.  So maybe it’s not so surprising that many of my peers have declined to share their thoughts on the pressing issues of the day in lasting form.  One columnist suggests that “it could end up being that only the blandest can survive in public life, and that would be a grand shame.”

I’m not going to say I haven’t considered whether writing anything substantive or controversial, online or otherwise, could sink a future, politically-involved me.  But today politicians rarely reflect publicly on big ideas, and our society lacks a guiding narrative beyond the now-mythical American Dream.  If I have anything worthwhile to say, to avoid doing so seems cowardly.  (Of course, whether it’s worthwhile isn’t really mine to decide.)

And so, to the counter-party operative reading this thirty years in the future, I say: Come at me, bro.  Yeah, I wrote that.