If we reject all external sources of meaning as bullshit (and we may have good reason to do so), and refuse to care at all what anyone thinks, then this is freedom, on Professor Moglen’s view. The validity and attractiveness of this position are best addressed elsewhere, but the application and consequences of this view are my concern here. This kind of freedom replaces external means of self-validation for internal means of self-validation; this is potentially problematic. If the source of our values and self worth is exclusively internal, this creates a troubling solipsistic perspective through which one engineers whatever reality is most satisfying to the ego. Which is to say, rejecting the law school/corporate rat-race “bullshit” does not free you from ego needs- it’s just a cleverer way of feeling superior. I think Robinson is a very clear example of how this devolves into egomania-- or, at the very least, insufferable self-aggrandizement.

What’s worse, this sort of dissociation is hostile to moral constraints. For example, doesn’t this perspective necessarily commit itself to saying that the bigoted propagandist (from the article we read) would be a good lawyer? Or that, values aside, he is the kind of advocate we are supposed to be? He certainly embodies the kind of strategic systemic consciousness that this course promotes.

My question is: if what “freedom” looks like is the rejection of external sources of value, then where do we draw the line? Maybe we don’t need to hear that we should extricate ourselves from a world of bullshit, because the bullshit isn’t really the issue. We are. Maybe we need to hear something more difficult: it’s time to get over ourselves.

-- AlisonMoe - 09 Feb 2010