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Re: Rogers' Rebuttal
Or maybe what's going on is just this: literacy fosters
independent thinking. Written communication engenders the taking of
critical stances much more than oral, face-to-face communication does.
Exhibit A: The Supreme Court, under John Marshall (chief justice from
1801 to 1834), did all their deliberating orally--generally around the
Marshall's dinner table. Nearly all the decisions were unanimous. Today
the justices have an entirely different culture, heavily reliant on
writing. They lobby for the five votes they need by circulating drafts and
memos. If one justice actually does mosey into the chambers of another
and starts discussing one of the cases before them, s/he will be
interrupted and told: "Write your argument up and I'll give it some
thought." They rely on writing, and written communication creates
independent thinking. The result: lots of 5-4 or 6-3 decisions even
before Ginsberg's 1993 appointment ended 25 years of nothing but
Republican nominees (Carter made zero nominations to the high court).
(During the two years 1991-1993, the eight justices on the court who had
been appointed by Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or Bush -- that is, Blackmun,
Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, and Thomas --
often split 4-4 or 5-3. And these are the people whose judicial
philosophies we'd expect to be similar, given who nominated them.) I'm
digressing 'cause I find the court fascinating. The point is written
communication leads to more independent thought. The downside of
independent thought, of course, is that people disagree so damn much.
Meredith Garmon, Fisk U.
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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