Dan Erwin

Barrett, Scalia and the Tone Deafness of Legal and Biblical Originalism

I paid little attention to Clarence Thomas’ appointment in 1991 other than to recognize, given my background in nonverbal communication, that he was probably lying about harassment. The research reveals that telling whether a person is lying is not nearly as easy as some would like you to believe. So, my conclusion was “probable.” But in watching Anita Hill all the nonverbals indicated a high probability she was telling the truth. That was all very frustrating. My focus was completely upon the harassment issues and what that meant for the future of the court. But what I ignored at the time was Thomas’ hermeneutic (interpretive) approach of Originalism to his interpretation of the Constitution. A serious mistake on my part.

In contrast, I paid a lot of attention to Scalia’s appointment and his hermeneutic. I was especially perturbed and rejecting of his later interpretation of the Second Amendment. My response was “Oh god, no. I’ve been here before. This is just crazy.” And then there is his protégé, Amy Coney Barrett.

I have yet to find a legal writer who understands—or cares--that we’ve been dealing with Biblical parallels to Originalism that date back to the 1920s and the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy. Thomas, Scalia and Barrett would be considered “Fundamentalists.” Legal Fundamentalists. The comparison has been enlightening. What drives my interest in both the Controversy and the Scalia-Barrett commitments are my seminary education in systematic theology and my graduate studies in modern rhetoric and intellectual American history--and the legalized mass murder made possible by Scalia’s Originalist (mis)interpretation of the Second Amendment (D.C. vs. Heller) and the NRA.

Why I Still Write Blogs

Periodically, I get asked why, at age 86, I’m still writing blogs. Usually the person asking is in their sixties or seventies. It’s a question that just keeps coming up again and again in spite of the fact that 62% of my blog viewers are under age 34, and 55% are using mobile devices—all of which says a lot and is very satisfying for me. But the older age of my questioners makes my answer easy. I just say something along the line of wanting to keep my gray matter working, lest it slow down. Older adults understand that response and seem to be happy with it. There’s truth in that answer. But actually, it’s a brushoff.

To understand why I still write, you’ll first need to understand my life as a child and adolescent. I was the elder of two sons, three years apart, in a profoundly dysfunctional family. My mother was a flaming narcissist and, as my brother said over her grave, “a mean lady.” My father had divorced her two years into my life—a rare act in the 1930s--and then remarried her when he realized my younger brother was on the way. I cannot remember a single week in my entire life before leaving for college when there were not emotional fights and tears. My father actually attempted suicide once. When angry, he broke plates and cups on the floor, then went off hunting with his dogs and a Black buddy, in season and out. Of course, there were significant consequences of all that to my life. To protect myself, I learned to become deceptive, a tool which I have mostly unlearned. My language skills were always the best tools for self-protection. Whenever possible, I retreated to books—books of all kinds—in my search for new language and new ideas. My brother lacked my language competencies. He wasn’t even a good liar—the primary tool for avoiding our mother. Instead, he was the family scapegoat. The two of us had little relationship. Always in trouble, he was sent off to three private schools in his junior high and high school years. Two, out-of-state, before my dad finally shipped him off to the army at age eighteen. The differences between my brother and myself were also instructive. It was one more driver of my language and relational learning. With my background in psychology, I now understand that he was an attachment avoidant and I was a low-level anxious avoidant—a dysfunction that, calculatingly, I worked on changing throughout the first 10 years of my adult life.

What’s obvious, and also profoundly frustrating, is that my mother was my teacher--and an exceptionally capable tutor. Attendance in her school was compulsory and I spent 24 hours a day figuring out how to win the top grades. My best friend recently described that learning as highly reflective. Continually ruminating, I spent all those years attempting to outsmart her. It was language, I kept confirming. It was always the best tool. I worked hard at becoming linguistically effective, eventually escaping, marrying a wonderful woman and moving to another world. It turns out that having someone believe in my failure enabled my success. My friend, also said, laughing, that I would have been a superb Courtier in the Court of Elizabeth the First. I’d be able to manage all the politics and come away rich. My brother, in significant contrast, decided that the best way to manage our mother was to escape. And he spent his years at home attempting to escape her clutches—usually failing. Elizabeth’s henchmen would have tracked him down and murdered him. Essentially that’s what happened. It just took my mother 70 years...

Turning Points and Milestones of Growth-Fostering Relationships

Every person who intends to exert leadership in his personal life, in business or any other vocation—and even in the family--will intentionally focus on personal growth. Research has shown us that effective business leadership growth inevitably requires mentors. Though true, that notion is plainly inadequate. The fact is that all living and all development takes place only with relationships. To put it still more directly, we experience growth because of our connections to other people. I can go through my years since grade school and well into my sixties, and still point to people that changed my life, impacts that would have to be considered as turning points and often milestones. Change that would never have happened without those connections.

 

The underpinnings of growth are inevitably acts of creativity built on relationships. Virginia Woolf puts it this way: Masterpieces (turning points and milestones) are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of thinking in common, of thinking by a body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.  

I still have a lot of memory about my first real growth experience, a phenomenally unique milestone while only in the 7^th grade. I’ll explain later why the experience was so important, why I remember so many details, and what it did for me. To begin, the experience was initiated by a civics teacher, Mr. Fickes, a teacher whom I thought was pretty dumb. I opened my mouth too often and after one episode he chewed me out, telling me I’d be in the “insane asylum by the time I finished high school.” Shortly after that experience, the chair of the social science department, Dr. Arthur, a very impressive intellect, and a delightful woman with sparkling eyes and a Michigan PhD, took seven top students out of the class and created a seminar group on civics for us. Fickes did not return the following year.