Rhetoric and Law
January 19, 2016 2:19 PM Subscribe
The double life of Richard Posner, America’s most contentious legal reformer
Richard Posner is an author and federal appeals court judge. He has written more than 2500 published judicial opinions and continues to teach at the University of Chicago Law School.
Eight Provocative Passages from Judge Richard Posner’s New Book. Glenn Greenwald is not a fan.
Posner used to write at The Becker-Posner Blog until Gary S. Becker passed away.
Richard Posner is an author and federal appeals court judge. He has written more than 2500 published judicial opinions and continues to teach at the University of Chicago Law School.
Eight Provocative Passages from Judge Richard Posner’s New Book. Glenn Greenwald is not a fan.
Posner used to write at The Becker-Posner Blog until Gary S. Becker passed away.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's request -- restless_nomad
From the Greenwald article: posted by Fizz at 2:30 PM on January 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Greenwald always sounds like a precocious teenager. So cute and angsty!
posted by jpe at 3:19 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by jpe at 3:19 PM on January 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't agree with Posner on a lot of things, but those not familiar with him should not lump him in with judicial conservatives like Scalia (they in fact despise each other). He's a Chicago School libertarian and has made supportive rulings on things like abortion and same-sex marriage.
He is extremely smart and it would be worth your while to learn about his stances before dismissing him because he is extraordinarily influential. His writing is brilliant though it can be snotty and arrogant.
posted by Sangermaine at 3:32 PM on January 19, 2016
He is extremely smart and it would be worth your while to learn about his stances before dismissing him because he is extraordinarily influential. His writing is brilliant though it can be snotty and arrogant.
posted by Sangermaine at 3:32 PM on January 19, 2016
Greenwald always sounds like a precocious teenager. So cute and angsty!
All right. So what did he write that was wrong?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:33 PM on January 19, 2016 [5 favorites]
All right. So what did he write that was wrong?
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:33 PM on January 19, 2016 [5 favorites]
> Greenwald always sounds like a precocious teenager. So cute and angsty!
posted by jpe at 3:19 PM on January 19 [+] [!]
that does not seem to reflect how his writing works as I read it, but I'm basically a perpetually precocious perpetual teenager, so ymmv I guess.
But yeah, when I think teenager writing, I think a lot of very broad statements governed by an expectation that the world is ruled by justice and fairness rather than power and low cunning — a tendency to treat normative claims about ideals as if they were descriptive claims about the world, and then to throw tantrums when the world for whatever reason diverges from those ideals. That's not at all what I see in Greenwald's writing. Instead he seems devoted to documenting in as much detail as possible how the world really works, rather than how we would like it to work.
Greenwald is, in his way, a liberal rather than a leftist in that he seems to write with the expectation that documenting in detail how the world really works will shock people into changing it — this is a common failing of writing by "well-meaning good government" types. That might be what you're observing when you say he writes like a teenager, and it is a flaw, but it's important to note that it is something very different from teenager writing.
However, it's also important to note that Greenwald has taken a number of concrete actions in the world to make things better, most especially related to his facilitation of the Snowden revelations and his material support for Wikileaks. "Cute and angsty" is an appropriate description for someone who doesn't do real things, but this doesn't seem to describe Greenwald at all.
Also note that Greenwald was a target of HBGary. Although you can't always judge someone by the quality of the enemies they make, it is worth acknowledging that some very bad people take Greenwald very, very seriously, which is in turn indicative of Greenwald being something more than just an angsty teenager.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:42 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by jpe at 3:19 PM on January 19 [+] [!]
that does not seem to reflect how his writing works as I read it, but I'm basically a perpetually precocious perpetual teenager, so ymmv I guess.
But yeah, when I think teenager writing, I think a lot of very broad statements governed by an expectation that the world is ruled by justice and fairness rather than power and low cunning — a tendency to treat normative claims about ideals as if they were descriptive claims about the world, and then to throw tantrums when the world for whatever reason diverges from those ideals. That's not at all what I see in Greenwald's writing. Instead he seems devoted to documenting in as much detail as possible how the world really works, rather than how we would like it to work.
Greenwald is, in his way, a liberal rather than a leftist in that he seems to write with the expectation that documenting in detail how the world really works will shock people into changing it — this is a common failing of writing by "well-meaning good government" types. That might be what you're observing when you say he writes like a teenager, and it is a flaw, but it's important to note that it is something very different from teenager writing.
However, it's also important to note that Greenwald has taken a number of concrete actions in the world to make things better, most especially related to his facilitation of the Snowden revelations and his material support for Wikileaks. "Cute and angsty" is an appropriate description for someone who doesn't do real things, but this doesn't seem to describe Greenwald at all.
Also note that Greenwald was a target of HBGary. Although you can't always judge someone by the quality of the enemies they make, it is worth acknowledging that some very bad people take Greenwald very, very seriously, which is in turn indicative of Greenwald being something more than just an angsty teenager.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:42 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
@RE -- Well, in light of the national acclaim that Posner received for his opinion (of September 2014) striking down the gay marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin, Greenwald's statement (of December 2014) that "Judge Posner recognizes rights only when they belong to agents of the state or the economic elite" appears incredibly thoughtless.
posted by Mr. Justice at 3:44 PM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Mr. Justice at 3:44 PM on January 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
on lack of preview: apparently Greenwald is being sloppy in this particular article. Nevertheless, Greenwald, like Posner, is not someone to just dismiss out of hand.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:44 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:44 PM on January 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
« Older “Falafel is a meal that transcends socio-economic... | "'Say it with me people. Pulitzer. Motherf***ing.... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments