The intellectual force in this scientifically and technologically oriented century, as Gatland and Dempster indicate, resides with men who have renaissance minds that can ably embrace scientific as well as societal propositions, reason anew and reach unique and far-reaching conclusions beyond the realm of current thought. To date, the intellectual strength of the lawyer has been his pervading understanding of problems from every societal view. This test can remain valid; however, the province of the legal  skill-elite group must range far beyond his traditional social science touchstones into decidedly esoteric scientific subjects. The horizon of jurisprudence now embraces the mechanical universe of Newton, the relativistic universe of Einstein, and perhaps even the  levels of energy  universe of Helmut Hoeppner

Scafuri, Allison L.

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Vanderbilt University Law School: Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law

Vanderbilt Law Review Volume 18 Issue 2 Issue 2 - March 1965 Article 15 3-1965 Book Review Allison L. Scafuri Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr  Part of the Jurisprudence Commons Recommended Citation Allison L. Scafuri, Book Review, 18 Vanderbilt Law Review 863 (1965) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol18/iss2/15 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact mark.j.williams@vanderbilt.edu. BOOK REVIEWLAw ANm PUBLic ORDm IN SPACE. By Myres S. McDougal, Harold D.Lasswell & Ivan A. Vlasic. New Haven and London: Yale Uni-versity Press, 1963. Pp. 1147. $15.00.Law and Public Order in Space is a monumental, and perhapsworthwhile, effort to characterize the myriad legal problems inherentin extraterrestrial activities within a unified juridical framework. Itmust be noted, however, that the authors have needlessly dissipatedtheir energies by casting their rather simple propositions into cumber-some, pseudo-scientific jargon.Elsewhere I have alluded, by example, to the authors' semanticmachinations.' Paradoxically, while attempting to create order withtheir terminology, they create a form of chaos. The failure of theauthors' system can be illustrated by their attempt to establish anddefine "the Maximization Postulate" as follows: "The maximizationpostulate . . . asserts that people adopt any given response (RB)rather than (R2 ) when they expect to be better off in terms of alltheir values by adopting (R1) ."2 This proposition might have beensimply stated as: "People tend to act in their own best interest."It is peculiar that though the authors reduce their postulate to sym-bols, they neither create equations nor do anything else with thesymbols, i.e., they create symbols for no purpose. It is not possible toreduce propositions to common denominators by inventing jargon; thiscan only be achieved, to a degree of perfection, through the mediumof mathematics.It is not expected that a legal treatise must have literary merit tobe worthwhile, though Holmes, Cardozo and Hand achieved thisadmirable duality. The turgid style of the instant authors, however,is a standard one lamentably handed down through the ages bysocial scientists. An exact parallel can be noted, for example, in theimportant work of Thorstein Veblen.3 H. L. Mencken, who oncereviewed Veblen, dissected a characteristically ponderous paragraphin a manner that might well be emulated in the instant case, i.e.,Well, what have we here? What does this appalling salvo of rhetoricalartillery signify? What was the sweating professor trying to say? Simplythat in the course of time the worship of God is commonly corrupted by1. 1964 Report of the Special Committee on Space Law, Mich. S.B.J., Sept. 1964, pp.68, 70.2. McDouGAL, LAw Am PUBLIc ORDm IN SPAcE 173 (1963).3. VEBLEN, Thm THEoRY OF THE LEisuRE CLAss (1918).VANDERBILT LAW REVIEWother enterprises, and that the church, ceasing to be a mere temple ofadoration, becomes the headquarters of these other enterprises. Moresimply still, that men sometimes vary serving God by serving other men,which means, of course, serving themselves. This bold platitude, whichmust be obvious to any child who has ever been to a church bazaar, washere tortured, worried and run through the rollers until it spread out to 241words, of which fully 200 were unnecessary.4The analogy to the 1,147 pages of McDougal, Lasswell and Vlasicis too obvious to require further comment. They have preserved theVeblen tradition like a mastadon in ice. For what purpose? Considerthe applicability of these further words of Mencken on Veblen: "Inbrief, he stated his hollow nothings in such high, astounding termsthat inevitably arrested and blistered the right-thinking mind. Hemade them mysterious. He made them shocking. He made themportentous. And so, flinging them at naive and believing souls, hemade them stick and burn."5In order to know what the authors attempt in Law and PublicOrder in Space we need only wrestle with their own statement:The basic design of our book is the modality of policy-oriented juris-prudence: we first seek to identify the major recurring types of problems-that is, types of contraposed claims to authoritative decision which raisecommon issues in policy and which are affected by common conditioningfactors-and to locate these problems in their most comprehensive contextof community process; we then proceed to explore each major type ofproblem by employing the various relevant intellectual techniques of policy-oriented inquiry, including the detailed clarification and recommendation ofgeneral community policies, the description of past trends in decision on4. MFNci=zN, A MENcKc r CHmEsTomATHy 271 (1956). Here is the Veblen paragraphfrom The Theory of the Leisure Class referred to by Mencken: "In an increasingproportion as time goes on, the anthropomorphic cult, with its code of devoutobservances, suffers a progressive disintegration through the stress of economic exigenciesand the decay of the system of status. As this disintegration proceeds, there cometo be associated and blended with the devout attitude certain other motives and impulsesthat are not always of an anthropomorphic origin, nor traceable to the habit ofpersonal subservience. Not all of these subsidiary impulses that blend with the habit ofdevoutness in the later devotional life are altogether congruous with the devoutattitude or with the anthropomorphic apprehension of the sequence of phenomena.Their origin being not the same, their action upon the scheme of devout life is alsonot in the same direction. In many ways they traverse the underlying norm ofsubservience or vicarious life to which the code of devout observances and theecclesiastical and sacerdotal institutions are to be traced as their substantial basis.Through the presence of these alien motives the social and industrial r6gime of statusgradually disintegrates, and the canon of personal subservience loses the support derivedfrom an unbroken tradition. Extraneous habits and proclivities encroach upon thefield of action occupied by this canon, and it presently comes about that the ecclesiasti-cal and sacerdotal structures are partially converted to other uses, in some measurealien to the purposes of the scheme of devout life as it stood in the days of the mostvigorous and characteristic development of the priesthood."' Id. at 270-71, quotingfrom VEBLEN, op. cit. supra note 3, at 332-33.5. Id. at 270.[ VOL. 18BOOK REVIEWcomparable problems, appraisal of the factors which appear to have affectedpast decision, the projection of probable future conditioning factors anddecisions, and the recommendation of alternatives in policy content andprocedures more appropriately designed to secure overriding communitygoals.6What the authors are trying to tell us is that: (1) they will definejurisprudence as a policy regime; (2) they will characterize problemsaccordingly; and (3) they will analyze these problems with a view toascertaining whether or not policy should override precedent.At one point in their immense work, the distinguished authors raisea valid point relative to space law. It is when they quote two Britishscientists, Gatland and Dempster, as stating: "Man has no alternativethan to re-examine the whole basis of his culture and learn to thinkagain from the beginning. There is no easy solution and manybeloved conventions must fall by the wayside as the Old World givesway to the New."7The authors then wisely state that rapport is necessary betweenscientists ("skill-elite groups") and lawyers in attacking space lawproblems.8 They do not, however, recognize the basic premise, i.e.,that the lawyers themselves must be grounded in the sciences tomake the rapport fruitful and to break the bonds of traditionalthinking that can carry them beyond the bounds of beloved conven-tion to the new intellectual frontier. This myopia on the part of theauthors leads them to betray, in their own book, the very call tobattle of Gatland and Dempster that they quote. It leads them,incredibly, to label science as mere "esoteric knowledge,"9 and torely upon Life Magazine's picture book studies of elementary scien-tific propositions. 10 It leads them ultimately, I think, back to the old,easy solutions and beloved conventions. Intellectually it imprisonsthem in the very old world of ideas from which they presume to leadUS.The intellectual force in this scientifically and technologicallyoriented century, as Gatland and Dempster indicate, resides withmen who have renaissance minds that can ably embrace scientificas well as societal propositions, reason anew and reach unique andfar-reaching conclusions beyond the realm of current thought. Todate, the intellectual strength of the lawyer has been his pervading6. McDOUGAL, op. cit. supra note 2, at v.7. Id. at 30, quoting GATAND & DEMpsTER, ThE ImrABE UNvmisE 198 (Premiered. 1959).8. Id. at 98. Scientists are, hopefully, included within the authors' definition of"skill-elite groups."9. Id. at 143.10. Id. at, for example, inside the front and back covers.19651866 VANDERBILT LAW REVIEW E VOL. 18understanding of problems from every societal view. This test canremain valid; however, the province of the legal "skill-elite group"must range far beyond his traditional social science touchstones intodecidedly esoteric scientific subjects. The horizon of jurisprudencenow embraces the mechanical universe of Newton, the relativisticuniverse of Einstein, and perhaps even the "levels of energy" uiverseof Helmut Hoeppner.11ALLISON L. ScAFum*11. Scafuri, Space Law: A Plea for the Technolegal Approach, Mich. S.B.J., March,1962, pp. 42, 46-47.* A.B., LL.B., University of Michigan; graduate international legal studies, FletcherSchool of Law and Diplomacy and Harvard Law School, 1954-1955; Chairman, SpecialCommittee on Space Law, State Bar of Michigan; member, International and Com-parative Law Committees of State Bar of Michigan and Detroit Bar Association, andof American Bar Association International and Comparative Law Section and itsPeaceful Settlement of International Disputes Committee; American Institute ofAeronautics and Astronautics; Michigan Aeronautics and Space Association; AmericanSociety of International Law.

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