>>> "Nathan Newman" <nathan.newman at yale.edu> 01/08/00 10:47AM >>>
Justin,
I never said anything about lawyers as people, only as a profession. I actually agree with you that academics probably have a higher percentage of psychotics and petty thugs than law. A lot of lawyers are very pleasant people-- by the nature of their work, they develop good social skills and often care about their clients.
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CB: My problem personally with lawyers is when they are on the other side of a case with you. It gets wearying to be on guard all the time. You have to be thinking all the time. Protecting your weaknesses. Attacking their weaknesses. Yet , politely. It gets crazy.
As Nathan says some in his comment, lawyers are , obviously, overwhelmingly a strata which aids the ruling class in upholding the status quo. The small percentage of exceptions does not refute the validity of this generalization about lawyers as a group. Since law is politics, more than physicians, lawyers are involved in bad politics, capitalist hegemony building and legitimization of the existing law and order. Judges and lawyers are politicians pretending not to be politicians, posing as upholders of Reason.
Post-modernists should do more deconstructing of lawyers as Age of Reasoners, modernists and powermongering wolves clothed in the discourse of reason.
CB
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