The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog

Ressentiment, the Internet, and the Cloak of Invisibility

At last weekend's privacy conference, Martha Nussbaum described in vivid terms the objectification of women by men acting anonymously on the internet.  This was not a simple argument that men look at porn and fantasize a level of control they will never achieve legally in the real world.  Instead she (and Brian Leiter and others) described the systematized targeting of individual woman in "cyber cesspools," complete with engineered images of rape and sodomy of the target, exhortations to molest and kill, revelation of personal addresses and social security numbers, and cybertrespasses designed to erase the target's web presence. This is not only control and objectification in fantasy (which is bad enough but usually not actionable), but control, objectification, and psychic rape in the real world.

Most interestingly, Martha exposed much of the motivation of the wrongdoers as a species of ressentiment explored by Nietzche, an attempt by the powerless and resentful to wrest control from the strong whom they envy and fear.  It is no surprise that the worst abuses described at the conference were perpetrated against successful women who would be likely to prevail in an open contest of wits.  Only anonymous rumour can bring them down. Think of the arch-example of ressentiment:  James Claggart whose envy and distorted desire for Billy Budd leads to his whispered lies about Billy's involvement in mutiny.

Student Blogger - Did Anyone Notice When Colonel Bogey Marched into the Public Domain?

Professor Paul Heald on Copyright Extension and Early 20th-Century Music Compositions

In 1988, works from the early 20th century began entering the public domain, a process that continued until Congress passed legislation extending copyrights in 1998. Were the musical compositions "freed" during this window performed any more (or less) often as a result?

At this Thursday's Faculty "Works in Progress" (WIP) talk, Professor Paul Heald (JD '88 and currently visiting from the University of Georgia) presented his most recent work on "Testing the Over- and Under-Exploitation Hypotheses: Bestselling Musical Compositions (1913-32) and Their Use in Cinema (1968-2007)." Regular readers of the blog will be somewhat familiar with Prof. Heald's work through his recent posts here but, as this paper's title clearly indicates, it deals with intellectual property, his area of greatest expertise.

The Gay Rights Debate and the Death of Law and Literature

In a new essay, I argue that Law and Literature scholarship has run its course. Our 30 years of interdisciplinary work seems to have had no discernable effect on how judges or legislatures behave. Work by empirical scholars in economics and psychology seem to have tremendous traction, but the articles by even our best scholars seem to have little effect. I claim, however, after conducting two seminars (one with state judges and one with federal judges) that fiction itself directly influences the behavior of judges. Especially striking were conversations I had with judges after discussing Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden with them. I conclude that law and literature scholarship may be largely irrelevant, but fiction itself is alive and kicking in the background of the legal process.

The Complexity of Self-Disgust

I learned my most profound lesson about self-disgust at the poker table one night several years ago (no, I did not unsuccessfully try to draw to an inside straight). Rather, one of my regular playing partners, Dr. Henry Adams, was the head of the psychology clinic at the University of Georgia, and he had just finished an interesting study of attitudes about homosexuality. He had surveyed a large group of men about their attitudes toward homosexuals.  He then showed them gay porn and measured their sexual response in terms of turgidity.  You guessed it--those who evidenced the most disgust about homosexuality were the most aroused by gay porn.  For a brief summary of the study see http://www.blurtit.com/q446401.html

The Evolutionary Biology of Disgust, Part II

It’s unfair to blame everything wrong with Western Civilization on St. Paul, but let’s give it a try . . .

I argued yesterday that evolutionary biology provides an explanation why disgust may generally have a rational basis as a tool for self-selection, but that it does a poor job explaining professions of disgust aimed at homosexuality. Disgust is clearly a powerful emotion to hijack, but how it becomes amenable to hijacking, particularly in the context of homosexuality, requires a short history lesson.

The Old Testament evidences plenty of disgust felt by the people of Israel, and plenty of disgust that their God plainly wanted them to feel. And yet, as Martha Nussbaum points out, there is a striking paucity of disgust at homosexuality revealed in the Hebrew scriptures and in ancient Greek culture. Something happened on the way to the Middle Ages. It may have been a two-step process, and I think it begins with the discovery of a general discomfort with the human body.

The Evolutionary Biology of Disgust, Part I

How can a rational emotion be hijacked for political purposes? The answer holds the key to much human misery . . .

In a forthcoming book, Martha Nussbaum describes the Politics of Disgust that has frequently dominated American discourse over homosexuality. She reminds us that its roots run deep in human history, providing historical depictions of Jews and Untouchables in India as filthy, disease-ridden, and necrotic. She has no problem finding current examples in American politics to support the notion that anti-gay sentiment (but not anti-lesbian sentiment) is driven by the same strategy of rendering homosexual acts, real and imagined, as disgusting and unnatural. For practical reasons, however, she cannot spend too much time examining the rational basis for disgust as an emotion and its stunning amenability to being hijacked.

When Did Marriage Cease to be a Sacrament?

Americans, especially observant Christians, would revolt if state governments passed laws defining what constitutes baptism (sprinkling or full immersion?) or what constitutes valid communion (wine or grape juice?) or who could hear confession or who could be a minister or priest (or a rabbi for that matter). An even greater number would object if the right to receive significant government benefits turned on whether the applicant was validly baptized, confirmed, or regularly received some other traditional religious sacrament. Why, then, are Americans so willing to have the state get into the marriage business?

I’ve been out of the Law & Religion/Law & Literature business for a while now (except to write a festschrift essay entitled, tellingly, “The Death of Law & Literature”) and have been content for years to explore the economics of intellectual property law. A visiting stint at the University of Chicago Law School, however, has a way of reawakening latent passions, and a recent work-in-progress talk by Martha Nussbaum has got me thinking beyond patents once again. Martha, who contributed two essays to my book on Literature and Legal Problem Solving, presented several chapters from her forthcoming book on law and sexuality that deal with the Politics of Disgust. It’s a wonderful project, and over the next several days I’d like to make some arguments beyond her text.