Romanticism and the Law in the 21st Century

The Romantic movement flourished in Europe and America from the late 17th to the mid 19th century, bringing with it profound changes in art, music and literature. While it rejected the philosophy of the era of Enlightenment which preceded it, it also benefited from the stability and prosperity generated from the advances of that age. Among Romanticism’s principal ideologies was the emphasis on feelings, emotions, and imagination over logic and facts and the celebration of ‘"outsiders" as representatives of special worth excluded by rigid societies or irrational norms’ along with the admiration of ordinary individuals as role models of authority and legitimacy. 

There appears to be a resurgence of Romanticism in academic and intellectual circles as reflected by the Op Ed piece by Jillian Kay Melchior, “Lorde of the Flies: Why College Students Reject Reason” in the December 9th edition of the Wall Street Journal and the November 27th article by Hank Berrien, “Law Professor to Students: If You Say ‘I Feel’ Rather Than ‘I Think,’ You Must Cluck Like A Chicken.” Melchior’s article talks about the influence of Audre Lorde, a feminist black lesbian poet of the 20th century, whose writing reflected the belief that “survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world where we can all flourish.” 

Lorde had reason for her alienation. Her mother was of mixed race parentage and was favorably biased towards those of lighter skin like her own. Lorde took after her darker complexioned father. She was raised in a very rigid and rules based atmosphere. Lacking love and affection from her parents, who were too focused on establishing financial stability in the post Depression years to provide a nurturing home environment, Lorde found a creative outlet for her angst in her poetry.Those who follow her beliefs (whom Melchior describes as the modern champions of social justice) reject the foundational teachings of humanities, just as the earlier Romantics rejected the ideas of Enlightenment. A reliance on evidence to support a claim, a crucial step in the scientific method, is, in Lorde’s words, not only “a personal affront but an example of the oppressive system at work.”

I first came across Berrien’s article in a Facebook post by friends debating the merits of emotion over reason. In the discussion thread, one of my friends believed that the conflict was a generational issue, and that the suppression of emotion and reliance on logic in our generation led to an ideological backlash from the millennials. I argued that lack of clarity of purpose or understanding led to confusion and uncertainty, providing tenuous support for feelings based statements. The provision of justice in the legal system requires the application of reason to the evaluation process, which was the crux of the argument by Professor Adam McLeod, the law professor in Berrien’s article. He criticized the millenials’ (and Lorde’s) fanatic championship of “diversity and inclusion” which impairs his students’ ability to make critical judgments. Proper administration of the law rests on the awareness that “nobody is equal in all respects” but should be primarily concerned with adjudicating right from wrong, without prejudice.  The justices of the Supreme Court swear to “administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich.” 

Mcleod faces significant pushback in his efforts to reform the flawed reasoning processes of his students. Former President Barack Obama shares a similar background to Lorde as a child of mixed race parentage and appears to sympathize with her perspective. He clarified his selection process for appointment to the Supreme Court as follows: “We need somebody who’s got the heart — the empathy — to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old — and that’s the criteria by which I’ll be selecting my judges.” Given his continued popularity among the supposedly marginalized segments of society, his opinion will carry greater weight than that of a professor who tells his students that if they ever begin a statement with the words “I feel,” they must “cluck like a chicken.”