Literalists = rigidity?
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Anonymous
It was designed to change, not to be reinterpreted. And there is a process for changing it. And maybe that process is bad now, and the document has outlived it's usefulness. There is a giant monument in our nation's capital explaining this idea. The Constitution we use today is the 2nd one that was created in a span of only 13 years. Now it's 230 years later! It's OK to say the Constitution or Bible or whatever is a flawed work of humans and cannot be fixed using its own rules. It's not OK to say that it is a perfect document but it doesn't actually mean what it clearly says. |
Anonymous
YES! This describes the people I know perfectly. They universally have a terrible sense of humor and can never just take a step back to see the big picture. |
Anonymous
This is begging the question. "Illness" just means "an attribute of someone that someone (same or else) doesn't like and hopes to change" . |
Anonymous
Are you finding certain "backgrounds" cause rigidity? |
Anonymous
I think it’s more of a developmental disorder. |
Anonymous
I went to HYPSM+, so my judgements are educated and accurate factual statements. That's not "judgmental". Everyone should make decisions like I do, purely based on reason not emotion. |
Anonymous
"developmental" is factual, but "disorder" is opinion. |
Anonymous
Not always. Siblings typically have very similar environments but they can grow up to become very different people. |
Anonymous
Can you give an example of a judgement that is educated and accurate factual statements? |
Anonymous
Yes. Law school often instills rigidity. |
Anonymous
A main function of law school is to teach you how to bend text to serve your own purpose. If law school taught rigidity, we wouldn't need judges. Lawyers would all agree. |
Anonymous
I think you are conflating two very different kinds of documents. Legal documents like the Constitution *should* be taken literally--the whole purpose of such documents is to use words to constrain decisionmakers and future actions and once you say "well, let's not take this too literally..." there is no stopping point. That's not to say that a literal reading of such a text leaves no uncertainty--a literal reading of a text can be ambiguous if the text is imprecisely written or as applied to a particular case, and it may well leave a host of uncertainties when you try to apply text written at a certain level of abstraction to detailed questions. For example, "cruel and unusual punishment" establishes a literal clear principle that is easy to understand at its own level--"cruel" and "unusual" are terms people can and should take literally--but reasonable interpreters might well come to different conclusion about how that principle applies in a particular case. Cruelty-in-general is easy to understand, but underspecified when it comes to evaluating particular practices, and judgment needs to be applied there. But there is all the difference in the world between good-faith interpreters of a text who come down on different sides of the question of whether the death penalty is "cruel and unusual" and interpreters who say "I'm not constrained by a 'literal' reading of the text and can decide whatever I want." As for the Bible, that document is obviously different than a legal text and how it should be interpreted is not as clear. Portions of the Bible are straight up poetry; aphorisms such as the Proverbs are generally understood to be principles and rules of thumb, not precise guides to action; books like Revelation are intentionally occluded and not literal; and how advice that someone like Paul gives to first century Christian groups is to be interpreted and applied to those it is not directed to is inherently uncertain. I personally there is a range of defensible readings of the Bible, some quite literal and others less so, and taking a more literal appoach is not indicative of a character flaw or personality disorder in the great bulk of cases. |
Anonymous
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The purpose of the Constitution, as its name suggests, is to give life to an organism - the nation. It turns a mere collection of individuals into something more. It's not merely a calcified code of laws. If it were, the nation would die.
Per PPs example of "cruelty," a calcified understanding of the word would limit the interpretation to the understanding of cruelty in the 18th century. The word means something different today, and it's ok for the interpretation to evolve organically. |
Anonymous
Tell that to the staff attorneys in my office! |