Page 4-Sunday, Januy 20, 1980-The Michiga Daily
S
The
80s
as
viewed
from,
the
Ivory
T
The Miigan Daily-Sunday, Jai
ower
Vincent Blasi/Constitutional Law
------------
University Law Professor Vincent Blasi
is an expert in Constitutional Law and the
First Amendment. He graduated from the
University of Chicago and has taught
law at several schools across the country.
N SPECULATING about the likely drift
of the Supreme Court in the next ten years,
three important facts about the Court must be
kept in mind. First, the Court is a political in-
stitution. Its decisions are influenced, though
by no means completely determined, by
larger political currents and by the political
points of view of the individual justices. In
this regard, the 1980 election looms as quite
significant for the future of the Supreme
Court, for the next President figures to have a
number of opportunities to appoint new
justices (five of the current members of the
Court are over 70). Reagan appointees would
almost certainly read the Constitution- quite
differently than, say, Carter appointees.}
Second, the .Court does not initiate cases or
otherwise set its own agenda. To forecast
constitutional developments, one must con-
centrate as much on assessing what cases are
likely to be brought, what disputes are likely
to arise, as on what turns are likely to occur
with the thinking of the justices. Third, con-
stitutional change has traditionally been
more gradual and less thematic than other
political developments. As a result, this sort
of thange is probably more difficult to under-
stand or assess without the perspective of
hindsight, and thus prediction is especially
hazardous.
The most likely trend of the 1980's seems to
me to be a continued and perhaps accelerated
reduction in the rights of persons accused of
crime. In the last decade, the Burger Court
has gone surprisingly slowly in dismantling
the liberal doctrines of the Warren Court in
this area. In the next ten years, I wouldn't be
astonished to see the Court finally overrule
such landmark casea as Mapp v. Ohio
(which provides that evidence acquired by
unlawful search and seizure cannot be used in
court) or Miranda v. Arizona (which grants
criminal suspects the right -to consult a
lawyer before and during interrogation by the
police).
It is possible that the Court's finest hour of
the next decade will come in response to
government efforts, arising out of a new Cold
War neutrality, to prosecute, depart, or
otherwise harass persons who hold unpopular
political beliefs. Whether or not we have a
reversion in the political forum to anything
like the McCarthy era, I am confident (unless
a President Reagan or Connally gets to make
at least four Supreme Court appointments)
that the First Amendment will weather the
storm. The legal doctrines and philosophy
safeguarding the basic right to dissent,-and to
subscribe to even the most hated political
ideology, seems to me very securely rooted.
In the area of women's rights, I foresee
more of the same. Even if the Equal Rights
Amendment it not ratified, the Equal Protec-
tion clause of the Fourteenth Amendment will
probably be interpreted, as it has been over
the last several years, to disallow almost all
gender-based government classifications. I
think abortion law will stay much as it is: no
constitutional right to have abortions funded
but a constitutional right of privacy to have
See LAW, Page 8
.-~-
-F-. -~~'
"'
"--.
~ ~<~?
~
flp ~
A
A~~' ~
~ ~ .7..
~ .~'
-.
s l
<f
a,
George Johnson/Economics
Alice Simsar is the founder of
Alice Simsar Gallery Inc., and is
owner of the Simsar Gallery at 301
North Main Street.
THE OUTLOOK for the fine arts
is excellent for the 84s. We are,
experiencing a strong support of the ar-
ts by the National Endowment for the
Arts as well as state and local arts
councils in realizing sculpture in public
places to artist in residence programs
in rural communities. This has brought
about an awareness among individuals
and corporations, thereby actively sup-
porting and developing art programs..
They have gone beyond thinking of
sculpture as a memorial to our war
heroes and have accepted art work as
objects to be enjoyed for the pleasure of
looking at, sitting under or collecting.
Alice Simsar/Art
We have become more sensitive to and
desirous of understanding the artist,
the work and the benefits thereof. The
proliferation of art fairs is evidence of
this extensive interest in art.
The 70s was a period of openness in
that an ism did not dominate the art
world. The established artists made
major changes in their work and a
healthy co-existence of movements
allowed younger artists visibility. Open
attitudes brought about acceptance of
monies spent for earthworks, wall
murals and outdoor sculpture. More
communities acknowledge their
responsibility to research and critically
select art works on merit, not
mediocrity based on emotion.
We are moving towards the twenty-
first century and the 80s will be a period
of looking back and evaluating the
major developments and their impor-
tance. Of primary interest for
Daily PF
Americans is
the refuge for
40s and has be
temporary ar
tunate to be a
ticipate in a d
It is the artist
vironment a
reflect our tir
sonal expres
reflecting or
rediscovering
fluence upon
decade as the
press it. We h
around as we
tactile and se
using oil pair
handmade pa
woven; tapest
forms. We are
war influence.
of-contemplati
Alexandra Aldridge/Future in the classroom
Alexandra Aldridge was interviewed by
Daily University editor Brian Blanchard.
T HERE'S THE FUTURE, and then
there's the future.
There are the thinkers who puzzle out
predictions for technology and the economy,.
possibilities for war and peace, the prospects
for Democrats and Republicans. Then there
are philosophers like Alexandra Aldridge-a
University Engineering/Humanities lec-
turer, instructor for interdisciplinary Univer-
sity course 488, "Alternative Futures," and
co-editor of the quarterly "Alternative-
Futures: The Journal of Utopian Studies."
"There's no future lying in wait out there
for us," says Aldridge. "Even seemingly
manageable forecasting in the area of
technology, say, can be filled with inac-
curacies. There's always the unexpected."
If, on the other hand, one avoids specifics
and aims at "holistic concepts," she says, the
present state of our institutions and "both the
most viable and most desirable options" for
the future take shape. Aldridge and her
students read Heilbroner, Huxley,
Schumacher, Pirsig, and others in a search
for "the collective social imagination of our
time."
In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Main-
tenance, Pirsig "deals with some fundamen-
tal questions: 'How did we get here?' 'How
did we lose our imagintive side while building
up the technological side?'," Aldridge says.
A basic question for the future is which way
the traditional conflict between centralized,
technological institutions and "small is
beautiful," decentralized ones will go, accor-
ding to Aldridge.
Even more basic is the institutional versus
psychological approach to change.
"Some of the philosophers tend to say that
the revolutions to come will be not in our in-
stitution, but in consciousness," she points
out. For example, the "myth of objectivity"
may become outmoded at some future point,
allowing people to involve themselves in their
pursuits and observations instead of trying to
stand back.
Courses like Future Alternatives are im-
portant, the instructor points out, because
contemporary thought seems to be lacking in
"positive utopias," or comprehensive ideas
for the future that are optimistic.
Professor George Johnson has
taught graduate and undergraduate
courses in economics at the University
since 1966. He is also a research scien-
tist at the University's Institute for
Public Policy Studies (IPPS), special-
izing in benefit cost analysts. From
1977-78, Johnson served as senior staff
economist for the President's Council
of Economic Advisers.
O NE WAY TO FORECAST what will
be the major developments in the
discipline of economics over the next
decade is to observe what happened in the
1970s and extrapolate the trends of the
1980s. Solely from the perspective of
economics as practiced in the United
States and the other "developed" coun-
With respect to the first trend, I cer-
tainly see no reason for economics to be
considered less relevant in social decision-
making. The constraints associated with
the "age of limits" mean that there will
be an even greater emphasis placed on the
efficient allocation of resources, and that
is what economics is primarily about. Fur-
ther, an increasing fraction of college un-
dergraduates take at least the introduc-
tory course on the subject, so future
lawyers, politicians, journalists, corporate
leaders, and the like will, for better or
worse, think in economist's terms when
approaching problems.
I suspect the second trend of the 1970s,
the shift from macro to micro approaches,
will not continue during the 80s. Part of the
John Hagen/Psychology
'We used to think we had the answers,
but perhaps, like Bluto and his buddies in Ani-
mal House, we stole the wrong examination. '
tries, there seem to me to have been two
major developments.
First, the degree- to which economic
analysis is applied to "real world"
problems has been increasing exponen-
tially. This is especially apparent in
government decision-making, but it is also
true in business, law, and several other
areas.
Second, during the 1970s there was a
shift in the relative attention devoted by
economists away from macroeconomics
(the study of aggregative phenomena like
GNP) toward microeconomics'(the study
of individual economics units). This has
been accompanied by an invasion by
economists into many areas that were
formerly the exclusive domain of other
social scientists.
Will these trends continue. during the
1980s?
reason for this shift in emphasis was that
the paradigm for macroeconomics in the
1960s was based on a misapplication of
J.M. Keynes' prescriptions for the ills of
the 1930s. It is not surprising that conven-
tional macroeconomics-and our con-
fidence in our ability even to predict when
the next recession is coming-broke down
during the past decade.
But the most pressing problem afflicting
most economies like that of the U.S. are
macroeconomic in nature-low growth in-.
flation, high unemployment, etc. The
social benefits of improving our under-
standing of these phenomena would be
very great, and, accordingly, more
economists will thus be attempting to find
answers to these old problems. We used to
think we had the answers, but perhaps,
like Bluto and his buddies in- Animal
House, we stole the wrong examination.
A University professor and re-
search scientist, John Hagen is
chairman of the University's pro-
gram in developmental psychology.
Hagen has written a book on chil-
dren's memory and is currently on
the Advisory Council to the director
of the National Institute on Child.
Health and Development.
WHY ARE MANY pessimistic
about the future of psychology
in the decade ahead? One of the
greatest concerns is with the predicted
decline in enrollment and in resources
available to higher education. Others
feel that the field of psychology has ex-
panded too rapidly and with insufficient
controls in many applied areas, so that
there is no "core" left that is
psychology. However, it is my view that
there is every reason to expect a bright
and interesting future for psychology.
While some specialty areas will no
doubt decline, and may disappear,
others show real promise of expansion.
While employment in academia may
not be on the rise, opportunities in other
settings are increasing.
I hesitate to try to predict just what
the major breakthrough might be, or
even to suggest which areas are most
likely to experience major advances in
knowledge. Certainly, new technologies
of the past decade have played major
roles in important advances, com-
puters being perhaps the most obvious
example. Old theories have given way
to new. Many of psychology's key
problems have been subject to
criticism and rethinking, and it seems
inevitable that the years just ahead will
bring solutions that we cannot even
imagine now.
Further, our technical knowledge in
many areas has advanced so that im-
portant applications are being made or
are about to be made in just about any
area of applied behavioral science.
Organizational psychology has expan-
ded way beyond its early roots in
analyzing problems in industry and is
now employed in just about all areas of
human organizations including gover-
nment, at all levels, law, business,
education and medicine. Community
psychologists are employed in systems
analyses of neighborhoods and the in-
stitutions impinging upon them.
Developmental psychologists are in-
volved in day care, assessment and
programming, designing toys and
games, and other activities to help
foster human development. Within'
neuropsychology, psychologists are
working with other specialists in
unraveling the complex links between
the brain and N
well as impaired
continue citing e
should be clear.
that the prospec
basichand app
psychologists
problem areas, a
Doily Photo by PAUL ENGSTROM
Daily Ph~