Compassion and Critique

In this Essay, I am interested in the relationship among ideology, ideological critique, and emotion. I argue that the ideological critique produced by Marx in the nineteenth century and by critical legal theorists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries undertakes not only to persuade our minds but also to rally our emotions. To accomplish this, critical theorists show us that ideology is already a technique of emotion management. Ideology makes suffering invisible and compassion inappropriate by assuring us that the status quo is natural, normal, and necessary. Ideological critique, in turn, reveals the suffering beneath the bland façade of ideological concepts like "capital" and "property." It tries to persuade us, moreover, that this suffering is unjust and unnecessary: that politics and not nature is its source, and that we should act to relieve it

Vulnerability and Power in the Age of the Anthropocene

Feminist legal theorist Martha Fineman has suggested that recognition of universal human “vulnerability” should be the starting point for thinking about the state’s obligations to its citizens. This Article argues that Fineman’s concept of vulnerability is valuable for situating political and legal theory within a concern for the natural world. We live in what some scientists have dubbed the Anthropocene—an age in which our collective behavior has serious implications for the flourishing of all life on earth. The concept of “ecological vulnerability” recognizes that humans are vulnerable not only because they age, become ill, and die, but because their survival depends on complex macro- and micro-ecologies—all of which are, in turn, vulnerable to harm. Ecological vulnerability can serve as an important conceptual bridge between critical legal theory and the emerging “green” legal theory, helping to close the gap between projects of social justice on one hand and environmental sustainability on the other. Misused, however, vulnerability analysis can make power relations, and therefore injustice, invisible. Legal and political theorists in search of conceptual frameworks appropriate to the Anthropocene must therefore be careful to incorporate a robust anti-subordination principle into their analyses as they adopt the language of ecological vulnerability

Lawyering as Peacemaking

A lecture by Angela P. Harris titled Lawyer As Peacemaking, given University of California, Davis, is presented on the topic of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.\u27s speech The Quest for Peace and Justice. Topics include the civil rights movement in the U.S., the ways in which attorneys can contribute to the peace process, and lawyers\u27 commitment to justice

Vultures in Eagles\u27 Clothing: Conspiracy and Racial Fantasy in Populist Legal Thought

This Article has three interrelated aims. First, I will briefly describe the online world of the legal populists. My second aim in this Article is to give an account of legal populism that connects it with the American tradition of conspiracy theory and with the political consciousness of survivalism. My third and final aim in this Article is to examine, as David Williams has done in a wonderful series of articles, the relationship between the nation dreamed of by many legal populists and the one inhabited by state-sanctioned legal insiders

Heteropatriarchy Kills: Challenging Gender Violence in a Prison Nation

We need an analysis that furthers neither the conservative project of sequestering millions of men of color in accordance with the contemporary dictates of globalized capital and its prison industrial complex, nor the equally conservative project of abandoning poor women of color to a continuum of violence that extends from the sweatshops through the prisons, to shelters, and into bedrooms at home. How do we develop analyses and organizing strategies against violence against women that acknowledge the race of gender and the gender of race

Toward Lawyering as Peacemaking: A Seminar on Mindfulness, Morality, and Professional Identity

In the last few years, a number of books and articles have touted the idea that lawyering should be seen as a form of “peacemaking.” The peacemakers argue that “new lawyer” practices, such as “holistic lawyering,” “collaborative lawyering,” and old and new forms of alternative dispute resolution are transforming lawyering itself. Instead of pursuing victory over the opposing party, lawyers are looking for mutually beneficial settlements; in- stead of functioning as gladiators, lawyers are becoming experts at “trans- forming practices,” finding ways to bring peace and happiness to them- selves and their clients. In the fall of 2010, Professor Stephanie Phillips and I taught a seminar at the SUNY Buffalo School of Law called “Mindfulness and Professional Identity: Becoming a Lawyer While Keeping Your Values Intact.” The experience revealed to me a productive connection between the “mindfulness” movement and the peacemaking literature, and changed my view of the relationship between law and social justice