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Learning About Constitutional Law With Star Wars
An anonymous reader writes: In an upcoming paper (PDF) for the Michigan Law Review, scholar Cass Sunstein draws on Star Wars to make a couple key points about how constitutional law evolves. He writes, "Human beings often see coherence and planned design when neither exists. This is so in movies, literature, history, economics, and psychoanalysis—and constitutional law. Contrary to the repeated claims of George Lucas, its principal author, the Star Wars series was hardly planned in advance; it involved a great deal of improvisation and surprise, even to Lucas himself. Serendipity and happenstance, sometimes in the forms of eruptions of new thinking, play a pervasive and overlooked role in the creative imagination, certainly in single-authored works, and even more in multi-authored ones extending over time. ... The misdescription appears to respond to a serious human need for sense-making and pattern-finding, but it is a significant obstacle to understanding and critical reflection. Whether Jedi or Sith, many authors of constitutional law are a lot like the author of Star Wars, disguising the essential nature of their own creative processes."
...from Ewoks: The Battle for Endor?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Star Wars was based on Nazis
Sorry, I can't take seriously a paper on the development of constitutional law which starts with an analogy to Star Wars.
If this guy is considered the epitome of constitutional thought.
The constitution is like an author changing plot twists at the last minute.
No... it's not. That's why there's a whole set of checks and balances in how law is written and executed. These days with the legislature being flaccid, the executive branch implementing and reinterpreting law at whim and the judicial branch outright creating law - Yeah, to a supposed "constitutional scholar" it might seem like that - But that's not and never was the intent.
Words HAVE to mean things. Otherwise there's no common understanding and no way of acting as a unified whole.
I thought the political message of Star Wars was clear: a powerful executive gradually demonizes, marginalizes, ignores and then disbands a representative body, while using force to intimidate and even kill anyone who resists or speaks against the central government.
Now where could we find a parallel....hmmm...
Forgive me if I skip any lecture about the Constitution from Cass Sunstein.
It isn't like the partial law from Star Wars isn't based on the well documented Roman System of governance.
You know the idea that there was a Republic system of government with a constitutional rule that will grant someone emergancy full authority in times of war. Which was abused by Julius Caesar to allow him to create the Roman Empire. Or was it Senator Palpatine who created the Galactic empire?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Does Cass Sunstein write Vogon poetry too?
"I will make it legal"
All you need to know about constitutional law is in Episode 3. A henious enough event can be exploited to the point where you can essentially invalidate an entire constitution and, instead of condemnation, you will hear only cheering.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
How on earth did this get enough votes to make it into the Slashdot pool... Our founding fathers and George Lucas being compared?
Where it's not very deep, Even Slashdot isn't usually this shallow.... Or is it?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
To the conservative majority here on slashdot, few things are scarier than the notion of something evolving. They are extremely selective about acknowledging changes to the constitution as being valid at all - notice their new war on the 17th amendment as one example - even when they are ratified by congress through the proscribed methods for amending the constitution. The idea that the constitution could itself evolve is nothing short of heresy for them.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Up votes? No, Ars Technica just pays to get on the front page.
He didn't need no constitutional law.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Isn't it in their nature to resist change, isn't the very definition of a conservative one who resists change? I believe everyone should live according to their nature.
Conservatives should do their thing, and if they find the world changing around them too rapidly, they should construct a mountain of bullshit and live safely on top of Bullshit Mountain.
Progressives and other communist sympathizer should live according to their nature as well, their family should get a fraction of resources equivalent to the world population (1 / 7 billion). Ideally that fraction includes a small soap box to stand up on to pontificate their chosen lifestyle. They can give everyone passing them by on the street the stink eye. Which is according to their nature and therefor the most direct route to True Happiness.
We run into troubles when one side controls police powers and uses that force to drag the opposing side to some terrible point in between (this is the math of vectors). One solution is to have color coded uniforms. One side can wear baby blue uniforms, the other can wear pink uniforms. The police force would only be permitted to act against people wearing the same color. Two opposing societies that are peaceful because we silently ignore one another. This is what is known as a social armistice.
The less is that a person with enough money and influence can force everyone to accept something obviously false, like Han shooting first or dollars having more rights than citizens.
do and doing wHat rooting corpse task. Research invited back again.
Well, Star Wars *is* a global phenomenon and a staple of US culture loved and adored by millions across the globe. So, now that you draw the comparison to the founding fathers, in our modern times George Lucas has probably been more significant to most people than the founding fathers have.
Oh for Pete's sake... GEORGE LUCAS has had more significance than our founding fathers to the current generation?!?
What kind of history are they (not) teaching in public schools these days? If what you say is true, this is sad. It means we are abandoning our founding principles and putting principles in place from fictional stories, and between Star Wars, The Hunger Games and the like we get our ideas of government? Lord help us.
I dare say that MOST of us are way more impacted by our founders than by Star Wars, what's lacking is understanding of what that impact actually is because we haven't learned our history.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
No doubt humans are great at seeing and inventing patterns, its built in our brains at a deep level, for good and for ill. Certainly this ability plays a significant role in creativity. There's a missing bit here though, in that we build a pattern that is in some sense deeply meaningful. "Luke, I am your Uncle, " would have made as much sense and filled in pretty much all the similar spots, but doesn't have the same punch.
When the courts go to try and understand a new, real life situation against the background of the history of judicial judgement, there is a part of this that is just inspired. But there is a huge part that is research and questioning and trying to bring the pattern into a meaningful and consistent whole, something that is an expression of certain foundational opinions and reasoned principles. Although there is a connection here, the article seems to suggest that the pattern we devise is much more arbitrary than I think it really is. "Making up patterns where none exist" would imply that we can end up anywhere. I don't think that is the case.
Peace, or Not?
The secret history of Star Wars explains how the treatment Lucas proposed was a ripoff of the Samurai film Hidden Fortress with s/horses/hovercraft/ s/bumbling thieves/comical robots/ s/the crown's gold/Deathstar plans/, s/Protective General/Jedi Master/, etc. Afterwards Lucas added many elements to the movie drawing inspiration from Metropolis (see C3PO), Buck Rodgers (and other sci-fi serials, thus starting at the 4th episode as if you were catching the show mid way), Dune (Tatooine, but the spice was ultimately unneeded), etc. Many ideas were drawn from the set R2D2 was the name of a 2nd reel of film, and others were spouted during stream of consciousness sessions.
Many plot elements were made up on the fly, not pre-planned for twists. Luke and Leia weren't siblings (hence their kiss, which they have to explain away later). Darth Vader really did kill Luke's father, but his writers changed things as they neared the third film, Revenge of the Jedi (s/Revenge/Return/). George Lucas never had some grandiose script that was too demanding of the technology of the day such that he had to start the original trilogy at episode 4. He lucked into Star Wars with good cast chemistry, the existence of Industrial Light and Magic, and despite a lack loathing ow writing (hence the initial plagiarism) he stumbled into a classic "hero's journey" tale. He did achieve his initial intention to create a "cowboys in space" movie that "every 10 year old boy would love", and I put it to you that even if most of the details were changed, society was primed for such a movie.
Unfortunately you can't create luck on demand; Which explains episodes 1-3. Disney has some competent writers and directors that understand the technical feats play a second fiddle to the emotional roller coaster, so I'm glad the franchise passed to them. If only the copyright terms were shorter we could have tons of films with Star Wars settings, similar to how we have many films and TV shows incorporating folk fairy tales like Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc. (the preexistence and collective nostalgia of which helped Disney attain his fortune).
Just like with Star Wars, when one thinks of Constitutional Laws one needs to understand their necessity due to the circumstances they were penned under.
they were voted into power, by folks who had a democratic, constitutionally chartered government. Anytime a fictional work needs to show the evil of people giving over to "the dark side", either out of fear, demoralizing shame, or for some other reason, "The Nazis" provide a good model to emulate. Authors, screenwriters, and other artists are who understand this history can be forgiven for copying the concept. The excesses of Communism, while often "evil" are not nearly as interesting, from a creative point of view.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
Rome replaced its monarchy with a Republic early on. But several centuries later ambitious generals took over the republic with a neo-monarchy called the Imperium.
This is the same man who proposed infiltrating and attacking any groups that dared think something of which his government didn't approve.
Although as a deeply-connected member of the Obama Administration, I'd have to agree that, at least when it comes to his own efforts at governance, "Human beings often see coherence and planned design when neither exists."
Anyone who's ever worked for George understands George himself was, however unconsciously, the model for both Darth Vader and the Emperor. Frightening but revealing that Sunstein would use this - a ruthless dictator who in truth has neither coherence nor a plan - as his template for constitutional government.
The reason Communists won WW2 because they were greater Evil. So evil that participated in pulling the wool over the UK and US societies. Keep in mind that during WW2 both sides portrayed themselves as good and tried to de-humanize the opponent.
There is a significant layer of WW2 secrets that are not declassified yet, and probably will never be declassified, on how Soviets managed to influence Western countries. They have convinced UK and US to support them with material support to begin with. Significant part of Western intelligence, as well as Axis countries intelligence, has been completely infiltrated by Russians.
On a basic level Communists won because they were crueler, merciless, nastier and meaner than their "civilized" opponent Germans.
In Communist Russia, if there was suspicion that individual was captured or switched sides, his entire family has been prosecuted, including taking away rationed food. If that is not convincing, check the basic statistics. 30 million Soviets died, and only a minority of those died because of Germans.
The greatest Satan's trick is that he managed to make you believe that he does not exist.
When our constitution is disregarded over and over? This article is just an excuse to completely disregard the US constitution. Our founding fathers "accidentally" make the 2nd amendment. It was just a coincidence.