In class we discussed Sigmund Freud’s book Civilization and Its
Discontents.  In his book, Freud addresses how civilization is at odds
with our primitive instincts and how civilization restricts the
possibility for satisfaction.  Tension arises from the individual’s
search for liberty and civilization’s demand for conformity.  In class
we said that people grow up being taught that civilization is good.
We discussed how civilization drives us to be “punctual” and
“showered”.   Society teaches us that appearances, both inward and
outward, are everything.  We desire organization and we care what
people think about us.

In class, we also discussed the possibility of a correlation between
civilization and genocide.  We said that as society becomes more
civilized, humankind becomes even “bloodier.”  The twentieth century,
with tremendous advancements in technology and communication,
witnessed five genocides.  At the time of the Holocaust, the Germans
were the most civilized on earth; they had everything, including the
best killers.

I find this an interesting topic because of our present technological
evolution.  Many of the previous blog postings before mine mention
technology.  The world of Facebook and iPods are taking over.  Mankind
has figured out how to manipulate science farther than ever before.
Without us paying much attention, satellite systems, new techniques,
medical treatments, etc. are progressing everyday.  Is the rise of
communication and technological growth a sign of increasing
civilization?  What exactly is civilization?

If society is becoming more civilized, how do we prevent future
genocides?  Especially in our state of tension abroad, it is important
that we acknowledge the potential for harm.  We must take steps to
protect ourselves from both foreign forces and from evil arising from
within our own nation.  The economic downturn combined with the war on
terror leaves America in a frightening state of being.  Hard times can
bring out the worst in people.  In the 2008 production of The Dark
Knight, the character of the Joker stated: “When the chips are down,
these civilized people, they’ll eat each other.”

America has the strength to fight off tragedy if it takes necessary
precautions.  It is important to understand atrocities and to teach
history.  History repeats itself because although society evolves,
humans are built with the same emotions and complexities.  If we do
not know history, we cannot learn from it.  For example, I consider
myself very educated, but until class this year, I did not know about
the Armenian Genocide.   Especially after 9/11, our country should be
sensitive to war and terror.  We need to educate our people to prevent
history from repeating itself.  After all, the Holocaust did not
happen very long ago.  Even in the 1960s we were still fighting for
civil rights.  Therefore, it is important that people are educated and
knowledgeable.  It is not acceptable that some people deny the
Holocaust’s existence.  After the Holocaust, several schools of
thought tried to explain it.  However, Goldhagen wrote that historians
of the Holocaust did not speak to victims because they thought they
would be bias due to the magnitude of their pain.  This denial of the
subjective experience of pain is the same as suppressing history.  If
we want to tell the story of the Holocaust, we must tell it from the
victims’ point of view.  Lastly, it is interesting that Freud’s book
was written in 1929, right before the Holocaust . . .

By Amy Pollak

This summer, Michael Jackson’s unexpected death stunned the world.
Though the cause of Jackson’s death remains, for the most part,
unresolved, nobody can deny the mental anguish that plagued Jackson
throughout his life.  Jackson’s battles with the law undoubtedly
contributed to his mental strife.

Michael Jackson’s rise to fame began when he was just a child.  At the
age of eight, he made his debut as the lead singer of The Jackson 5.
By fifteen, Jackson launched his phenomenally successful solo career.
With innovative albums like Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous, and with
signature dance techniques like the moonwalk, Jackson quickly became
hailed as one the most influential performers in the world.  Through
his music and success, Jackson broke down racial and generational
barriers.  In his personal life, however, Jackson did not receive
similar accolades.  Jackson’s personal life was particularly
scrutinized during two highly publicized legal battles in which he was
accused of having improper relations with minors.

Though Jackson maintained his innocence in both of his criminal
proceedings and was never found guilty of the crimes of which he was
accused, his struggles with the law took their toll on the performer’s
soul.  Moreover, these legal proceedings, operating under the
conventional moral paradigm system of justice, completely ignored the
personal demons that plagued Jackson since childhood.  Growing up,
Jackson was physically and emotionally abused by his father.  He
received frequent whippings, beatings, and verbal abuse.  In one
instance, Jackson was held upside down by one leg and pummeled over
and over again.  Jackson also admitted that he sometimes vomited when
he saw his father because of the deep fear that had been instilled in
him.

Yet because the conventional legal paradigm rejects spiritual harm in
favor of injury that is tangible and quantifiable, Jackson’s history
of abuse was ignored by the legal system.  As such, Jackson was
subjected to legally sanctioned investigations that not only violated
him, but also likely dredged up painful memories of childhood abuse.
For example, during Jackson’s 1993 legal proceeding, the District
Attorney’s office examined him in the nude, following testimony from
his child accuser about the appearance of Jackson’s genitalia.  As it
turned out, the description was not close enough to be used as
evidence.

The treatment Jackson received played a pivotal role in his personal
demise.  Two days after the investigation, Jackson issued a statement
that described his utter disgust with the situation.  Consequently, he
developed a drug addiction from the stress of the proceedings and the
pressure of the media.
Even as Jackson maintained his innocence and battled not only the
charges against but also the demons of his youth, the legal system was
only concerned with reaching a verdict as efficiently as possible, so
long as the means to achieve it fell within the boundaries prescribed
by the law.  If that meant subjecting Jackson to treatment that may
have violated his privacy and harmed his spirit, then so be it.  As
Professor Thane Rosenbaum maintains in The Myth of Moral Justice, the
American justice system does not provide individuals with protection
for the harm done to their souls.  Rather, it requires physical proof
of an injury, and the “spiritual sphere of human existence is too
mysterious and elliptical to have any place in the courtroom.”

Though Jackson’s exact cause of death is largely unresolved, it is
said that anti-depression drugs, evidence of his ongoing mental
unrest, may have played a role in his sudden cardiac arrest.  Although
Jackson’s personal life may have been fraught with personal
shortcomings, it is evident that the legal system did not weigh any
moral considerations in its encounters with the late King of Pop.

–
Priya Ravishankar
Fordham University School of Law
J.D. Candidate, 2011

By W. Zeledon

These days there seems to be a fine line between the public need to know and the individual’s right to privacy. We see this line blurred and trampled on every day and it is all perpetuated by society’s obsession with celebrity gossip. I’ll be the first to admit that I am a victim to the obsession. Do I check Perezhilton.com more than once a day? For sure. But I am aware of my sick obsession and nothing makes me more aware then when a celebrity passes.

This past Sunday celebrity blogs broke the shocking news that relatively famous actress Brittany Murphy died from cardiac arrest at the age of 32. People.com has written eight articles about her death in the span of 48 hours. When searching through their archives, the last time Brittany Murphy was even written about was March 2008. Although it is respectable that websites want to honor the memory of Ms. Murphy, the sites often cross this line of remembrance and enter into an all-too-creepy dissection of the celebrity’s personal life. Articles on Ms. Murphy began respectfully, saying she was a “ray of light” but slowly shifted into invasive with headlines such as “Brittany Murphy’s Inner Demons.” Celebrity news providers defend their selves by saying that the public has a right to know. But is that really a right or a privilege?

It’s common knowledge that dead celebrities sell. When Michael Jackson died, traffic on most celebrity gossip websites was significantly increased. But the buck doesn’t stop there. When Heath Ledger died in February 2008, a photo of his dead body sold for $300,000. These celebrity news websites and programs like TMZ no longer care less about the actual celebrity and care more about how much they can increase their revenue. They dig into celebrities’ personal lives to create stories so that more people click on their link or tune into their programs. Gone are the celebrities’ dignities, which these publications first claimed they would honor. Memorializing the dead is not for profit. You should not be able to benefit from someone else’s loss.

Our society and our legal system provide no incentives to stop this invasive machine. Magazines chronicling a celebrity’s death are some of the publisher’s best sells. The legal system provides less protection for public figures for the benefit of the rest of society. This “benefit” insulates gossip websites, magazines, and TV programs from legal culpability and, most importantly, moral culpability. In America, we tend to think that if it’s not illegal it’s not wrong. But this is clearly false. The California state legislature has tried to respond to this sentiment by enacting anti-paparazzi laws that prohibit photographers from taking pictures of certain personal activities. However, this does nothing to prevent the articles where “sources” comes forward and discuss the inner details of a celebrity’s life. The legal system won’t act until we act. So next time you find yourself clicking on a link to the latest gossip on a dead celebrity, think about how you’d feel if that was you or a family member. Would you really want your name, or a loved one’s, smeared all over the latest headlines? Didn’t think so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120402609.html

This article addresses the trials of major war criminals after nations
have been destroyed by conflict. It alludes to legal proceedings that
help reestablish the law and encourages transparent trials that target
key individuals.
However, it is often impossible for courts to impose moral justice in
these scenarios. Courts focus on their truth seeking inquiry and
their desire to seek revenge. they are controlled by political
influences rather than by the rule of law. This is problematic
because it often involves more strict moral and legal standards, and
further reduces the possibility of moral justice. The legal system is
unable to look at the idiosyncrasies and backstories of the defendants
because it becomes overwhelmingly concerned with the public, political
desire for revenge. This in turn may prevent defendants from getting
a just, fair trial. The desire for revenge can be driven by rage and
irrationality, which can result in convictions of innocent people.
These trials are essential in restoring legal order and tranquility
and war torn countries, but it is essential to try to find neutral
jurors who are not completely biased by prejudice and have the ability
to examine the legal situation without prejudging.
This situation is similar to the Book of Daniel, where the Isaacsons
were not necessarily given the opportunity to be innocent. They were
prejudged and held to standards representative of a society concerned
with political repercussions. Their only escape was to give up
people, which would have required that they admit guilt. This same
situation might be available in current war tribunals, and may result
in false accusations just to escape extreme punishment. Or, more
dangerously, it may result in innocent people being punished.
Innocent people may refuse to erroneously admit guilt to escape a sure
death. They may be inclined to preserve their morality and stand by
the strength of truth rather than to give in to false accusations.
The moral defendant will refuse to give in to the legal system and the
prejudices held against him.

By Elliot Buckman

Gracing the cover of last week’s Newsweek was every American tabloid’s
new favorite celebrity, Tiger Woods. The cover shot was a close-up of
Tiger’s face, adorned with that million (actually, billion) dollar
smile, with the words “Why We Can’t Look Away” across the page. Every
time I walk past my coffee table to see this magazine cover, it
resonates with me. But not because I am a particularly big Tiger fan
or foe, or because the author (Neal Gabler) has pegged my obsession
with the “craven celebrity culture.” Rather, this cover story strikes
a chord because its tacit assumption is both morally, and-on a
personal level-factually wrong.

Let’s start with the moral prong. Forgive the triteness of this
argument, but in a week during which ESPN.com, CNN.com and a
substantial portion of my facebook live feed were dominated by talking
heads discussing the future of the marriage of a man they have never
met, one refrain lingered in my head:  “This is none of my business.”

Human Rights, the Holocaust and the Law spent considerable time
discussing the inevitable moral failings of a legal system which
allows for innocent bystanderism. There is a flipside to this
argument. Sometimes, one must relegate himself to the role of a
bystander. There are times when we must get involved, times when we
may get involved, and times when we should not get involved. Public
scrutiny of the details of Tiger’s marriage is an example of the last
category.

I recognize that this argument is at best theoretical and at worst
hopeless. The major media networks will milk this story for all its
worth, regardless of the outcome of my-or your-decision whether to
turn away or tune in. There’s also the “This is what he signed up for
when he became a celebrity; he’s rich, famous and a sports legend; I
can’t feel bad for a guy like that” argument. But both of these miss
the point that capitalizing on another person’s misfortune to fill a
void in one’s own life is not only wrong, it reflects incredible
insecurity and narcissism. In this sense (though concededly not in any
practical way), following the Tiger scandal with religious fervency is
just a moral stone’s throw from stealing money from an elderly woman
as she crosses the street.

My personal sentiments towards this issue can also be summed up by a
fairly pedestrianly. I just don’t care. The guy is good at golf.
Really good. Good enough to make me (not a golf fan) sit glued to my
TV a few Sundays out of the year. He also cheated on his wife. And
each of these facts, when taken alone, arouses in me only a certain
degree of interest. When combined, the resulting level of interest is
quantitative, but not exponential. I don’t claim to be an angel; I am
more innately intrigued by a famous athlete who cheated on his wife
than I would by an equally famous athlete who committed no such
indiscretion (or for that matter, an accountant who cheated on his
wife). But the difference is not exponential, and certainly not large
enough to cause me to obsess over a story which is truly none of my
business.

So, Tiger: On behalf of your fans, your haters, the media, its
consumers, and pretty much the rest of the civilized world: I’m sorry.
This is none of our business, and we have no reason and no right to
get so involved in yours.

I recently became involved in a discussion regarding the promotion of
political agendas through mass media, in particular Hollywood movies.
As the debate ensued, and the back and forth became more sharp, a
friend retorted that the position I was postulating indicated that I
did not find the political agenda of the movie Schindler’s List as one
promoting beneficial ideals. I paused for a moment, thinking that I
could not counter that viewpoint. How could I claim that the message a
movie about a man who attempts to save Jews from persecution during
the Holocaust sends is one that is not beneficial? Were I in his
position, would not taking those same steps prove to have been surely
beneficial? I was ready to concede that he had a point, but then
remembered some points we had discussed in Professor Rosenbaum’s
class, and some relevant readings. I told my friend that I indeed
found the message to skewed, and perhaps not the most beneficial of
messages. The movie does in fact have as its protagonist a man
portrayed in a heroic and caring light, and likely rightfully so. But
the heroism of the protagonist comes in his saving of Jews from
persecution in the Holocaust – one of the worst massacres humanity has
had to face. I pointed out to him that, rather than display the
atrocities of the Holocaust, and the depravity of those involved, all
that was displayed was the heroism of one man. That one man was
surrounded by many others – others who did nothing but stand by and
watch, allowing the devastation to continue. I told him that I felt
that the movie had taken one of the most unspeakable tragedies – one
unsuitable to be encompassed in mere words – and had used it as a
backdrop to tell a story of a warm and nice man. How dare they, I
said, take a topic such as that one, and rather than educate or inform
us of the causes and effects of such a tragedy, use it to create a box
office blockbuster? What message did that really send, I thought to
myself. Remembering back to the theatre I sat in the first time I saw
the movie, I can remember my feelings then. I remember thinking how
Schindler was a good man, and how he had wanted to help so many. I
remember the impression the final scene – his turning a gold ring into
money to save yet another victim of an needless tragedy – left on me
in my youth. But I remembered how something had always felt amiss. I
was watching a holocaust movie. Where was the holocaust? I was seeing
urban Germany, a factory employing Jews – but where was the tragedy so
central to the plot of the movie?

It was not until I took Professor Rosenbaum’s class that I realized
exactly where the tragedy was. The holocaust was nothing to sell
movietickets and popcorn buckets to. The holocaust was a dark time in
the history of humanity, a time whose story needs be told, whose heirs
in history must study and know, so as to prevent anything similar from
happening again. Schindler’s List was not a documentary or an
educational movie – it aimed to sell tickets. The movie had done just
what the Nazis would have done had they made the movie: the holocaust
was brushed aside, put in the background, largely ignored, given a
facade of attempting to reconcile things, and then exploited for
profit.

By Carley Groobman

Last week, Ashlyn Hough, 6, was walking down her street on her way to
school when someone backed out of their driveway and hit her, rolling
on top of her.  A father in a nearby car, Nick Harris, who had just
dropped off his daughter at school saw Ashlyn get hit and jumped out
of his car to help.  Harris, 5-foot-7 and 185 pounds, lifted the sedan
and pushed the tire off of Ashlyn, who escaped with only minor
injuries.   Harris said he did not know where he found the strength,
and even tried lifting a car later that same day to no avail.

This amazing story made me think of our class discussions of
bystanders and the duty to rescue.  The law draws a distinction
between misfeasance and nonfeasance.   Nonfeasance describes inaction
that results in harm to an individual and generally does not result in
liability absent a duty of care toward the injured person.  The reason
why we do not have a duty to act/rescue is because an individual’s
conduct is judged according to an objective standard called the
reasonable person.  According to the reasonable person standard, every
individual has a duty to act as a reasonable person would under the
same or similar circumstances.  And according to the law, the
reasonable, average bystander would not act.  The reasonable person
test essentially capitulates to mediocrity: the law asks no more of an
individual than to act as the average person would act under the same
circumstances.  The failure to rescue is even worse than that – not
only is there no duty to rescue, but there is a disincentive to even
try: the law punishes the individual who attempts a rescue and
subsequently fails.

The reasonable person standard reflects the law’s preference for the
body over the spirit.  The law focuses on the cause of action: in
order for one to be held liable there must be a physical act, and a
causative link between the act, the harm, and the person being accused
of doing the act.  In contrast, the bystander, by definition, is
merely standing by.  The reasonable man’s preference is to deny the
significance of his behavior.  The irony of this is that the bystander
in every instance is in the majority: there are always more people
watching the harm than committing the harm or being injured by the
harm.  The bystander is the one person claiming to be impotent, but
arguably bystanders have more power: the very thing that allows them
to be bystanders – watching, denying the significance of their
behavior – operates under the assumption that even if the bystander
understands what the law is, he was not doing anything affirmative.
But is watching without acting not an act?  Standing by may not be an
affirmative step, but one could argue that it is an act – it is a
conscious choice not to care.  The reasonable bystander is a slippery
slope and poses a danger to moral virtue.

Nick Harris (or “superman” as Ashlyn and her family call him) did not
act as the reasonable man would under the circumstances when he lifted
a car off of a little girl trapped beneath its tires.  Instead, Harris
behaved as a virtuous and moral man who did not think twice about
doing the right thing.

By Sy Sommer

This post contains spoilers about the film “Inglorious Basterds.” You
have been warned.

Quentin Tarantino’s most recent film, “Inglorious Basterds” is a World
War II era “Jewish revenge fantasy” that extols virtues of revenge and
retribution in response to gross violations of human rights and
dehumanizing conduct that constituted official Nazi policy. By
subjecting the fictional Nazis in the film to summary executions in
the field of combat, and through the film’s climax of orgiastic
violence, where the entirety of Nazi leadership is burned alive,
Tarantino’s story evokes the Morganthau Plan put forth as an option
for handling Nazi leadership in the wake of World War II. Under the
Morganthau plan, Nazi leaders would be hunted down and subjected to
summary execution without trial. Former Secretary of Treasury
Morganthau would have likely been a fan of Tarantino’s film.

In “Basterds”, eight Jewish soldiers embark on a simple mission; kill
as many Nazis as possible. Brad Pitt, portraying the Basterds’
commanding officer, says to his Jewish platoon that he “did not cross
the ocean to teach the Nazi humanity. The Nazi has no humanity,”
before charging his soldiers with the order to collect one hundred
Nazi scalps each before the conclusion of the war. Here were
Morganthau’s summary executions, carried out even before the cessation
of hostilities.

The Basterds also made a point of always leaving one Nazi alive to
tell the tale to his superior officers. However, letting him go as a
mere witness to the scalping of his comrades would not be enough for
Tarantino’s Basterds. Instead, the surviving Nazi is treated to a
brutally graphic tattooing of a swastika upon his forehead with a
bowie knife, to be worn for the rest of his life like a scarlet
letter; a permanent and public sign of his, and his countrymen’s,
crimes against humanity. The Basterds turned the table on the Nazi,
dehumanizing him, branding him for life, and leaving him with his own
tale of victimization to report back to his commanding officers.

In the other storyline of “Inglorious Basterds,” Shoshanna, a
beautiful young Jewish cinema proprietor who witnessed the systematic
massacre of her family at the hands of a brutal SS commander, plots
the mass murder of the entirety of top Nazi leadership as they view a
Joseph Goebbels directed propaganda film in her theatre in Vichy
France. As the top Nazi brass, including a hilariously fictionalized
portrayal of Adolf Hitler, burn to their collective deaths amidst a
hail of machine gun fire, an image of Shoshanna appears on the screen
and her words echo through the flames; “I have a message for Germany,
that you are all going to die, and I want you to look deep into the
face of the Jew who is going to do it. Burn it down.”

In the real world, Nazi officials had their day in court at Nuremberg.
However, Morganthau’s proposal, and Tarantino’s film, are testament to
the powerful feelings of desire for retribution and revenge that can
reasonably occur when seriously victimized or when faced with the
opportunity to mete swift and punitive justice upon gross violators of
human rights.

Related previous article:
http://www.fordhamlawandculture.org/blog/2009/12/02/tiger-woods-should-he-be-shamed/
http://www.fordhamlawandculture.org/blog/2009/12/20/tiger-woods-online-apology/

Tiger Woods was an inspiring athlete. I loved watching him play
golf. He was just so good. Maybe that was the problem. He was so good
at golf I unconsciously equated that as him being a good person as
well. So for me personally, it was big shocker when stories of his
infidelities came out.

The past couple of weeks have been nonstop gossip/news about
Woods and his “indiscretions”. First it was the car crash and that
his wife came at him with a golf club (still not sure what really
happened), then the women, one after another, came out. I’ve lost
count of how many women after woman #10 but really, who knows how many
at this point? And does it make a difference?
After the car crash, when only the car crash was news, all of
Woods’s sponsors stood by his side. They published statements
basically saying things like “We stand by Tiger and his family in this
difficult time.” – like he had lost a dog or something. I don’t
remember exactly, but I think it was mentioned by a CNN commentator
that after Clinton it seems that these corporations were anticipating
that the American public would also stand by Woods and continue to
support him and his golfing career despite his infidelities.
I was perplexed by this comment. Have we really come to a point
in our society where we are OK with public figures that have shown bad
moral conduct? Shouldn’t we hold them to a higher standard of morality
considering their role as public figures rather than giving them a get
out of jail free card every time they mess up? Or at the least, hold
them to a standard of morality that we would want our spouses to
follow? Why are we so generous to these public figures?
In Professor Rosenbaum’s class we talk about the divide between
the public/professional and private spheres of existence that we have
been taught by society to buy into. We think that what we do in public
goes into the professional sphere and so the private sphere is not
affected by what we do at work or in a public sense. In other words,
what Woods may have done in his private life is not something that
should be relevant to what he does as a golfer. However, when you
break this paradigm, it’s easy to see that all this divide does is to
provide us with a loophole to hide our moral discretions. By
rationalizing our immoral acts as something that doesn’t count in
defining oneself, we are let off the hook and are able to live with
our moral failures.
I say, let’s change that. Let’s see what Woods’s “indiscretions”
are for what it is. He failed as a person, as a husband, and as a
father. Now his family must decide whether or not to forgive. What we
as the public should do is not brush it off as gossip but to judge and
to keep our moral standards in tact.

Now the sponsors have changed their minds and many have withdrawn
their associations with him, pulling products off shelves, changing ad
campaigns etc. But shouldn’t they have done that from the beginning?
Shouldn’t they have said “We do not tolerate bad moral conduct. We
hold ourselves to a higher standard.” Now that would make me want to
drink blue colored water.

by J. Kwak

By Caroline Phillips

Tiger Woods’ recent scandal has forced him to finally answer the
public outcry and apologize via his website. While the apology stated
all the correct things a sincere apology should, any online apology
seems insincere. Even if Tiger has been stupid enough to cheat on his
wife, his publicist(s), lawyer(s), and agent(s) were smart enough to
ensure that Tiger’s apology was written correctly and as sincerly as
an online apology can be written. The problem with the apology is
that an online apology cannot express feelings and is almost
necessarily written by a celebrity’s team. This might be alright if I
was going to see Tiger and I could see that he felt true remorse. As
a celebry it might be that he does not owe the public an apology for a
personal matter. However, Tiger has marketed himself as a down to
earth family man, and that has lead to his public appeal and support.
Even the law recognizes that to some extent being famous means that
you and your persona are public property; intellectual property law
endorses news commentary and criticism and American libel law makes it
difficult for the plaintiff to prove defamation. Therefore even though
I do not know Tiger personally, to some extent the public and I
deserve a sincere apology. Tiger like all celebrities has the access
to media to make a sincere apology to the public. He might even make
up some of the money he has lost from his endorsements. He has no
excuse for making a sincere apology.
If Tiger decides to make a public statement he should not take notes
from Chris Brown. Chris Brown, who threw a hissy fit on his website
when some retailers refused to sell his cd, made many public excuses
for his violent behavior. Chris Brown’s excuses might have been
overlooked if he had done anything to show that he feels genuine
remorse. However, Chris Brown has done nothing for the community of
abused women and instead has spent his time partying with young
Hollywood. If celebrities are going to bother to apologize or explain
their abhorrent behavior teh public demands some sort of genuine
remorse and sadness; neither of which can be shown through online
apologies or excuses and partying.