Living Speech: Resisting the Empire of Force

251 Pages·2006·0.66 MB·English

by  James Boyd White

LIVING SPEECH
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LIVING SPEECH
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R E S I S T I N G T H E E M P I R E O F F O R C E
James Boyd White
P R I N C E T O N U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S P R I N C E T O N A N D O X F O R D
Copyright © 2006 by Princeton University Press
Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should
be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
3 Market Place, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
White, James Boyd, 1938
Living speech : resisting the empire of force / by James Boyd White.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13 : 978-0-691-12580-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10 : 0-691-12580-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Law—Language. 2. Judgments—United States—Language.
3. Violence in literature. 4. Violence. I. Title.
K213 .W495 2006
306. 44—dc22
2005032670
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Sabon
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
pup.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To My Students
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No one can love and be just
who does not understand the empire of force
and know how not to respect it.
—Simone Weil
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Table of Contents
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Preface xi
Introduction
The Empire of Force and the World of Words 1
Chapter One
Speech in the Empire 13
Silence; valuable speech; Dante’s Divine Comedy;
our world of public speech; advertising and
propaganda; the “marketplace of ideas”; Robert
Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”; Frankfurter and
Jackson in the flag salute case; Abraham Lincoln’s
letter to General Hooker.
Chapter Two
Living Speech and the Mind Behind It 50
“Nature in her full glory”; the writing of children;
Polonius’ speech to Laertes; Francesca’s story of her
life in Dante’s Commedia; John Ashcroft on military
tribunals; the teaching of writing in college; Abraham’s
argument with the Deity about the fate of Sodom;
Blackmun’s opinion in Virginia Pharmacy Board;
Jackson’s opinion in Thomas v. Collins.
Chapter Three
The Desire for Meaning 91
The role of the reader in making meaning; the note on
the icebox; the statute; Frost’s “Road Not Taken”
again; three forms of the desire for meaning;
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18; the judicial opinion; desires
not for meaning but for use; Francesca once more;
Master Adam and Sinon.