Opinion
SHOHAM GEVA
EDITOR IN CHIEF
CLAIRE BRYAN
AND REGAN DETWILER
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
LAURA SCHINAGLE
MANAGING EDITOR
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
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4A — Monday, February 15, 2016
T
he tangerine sun shone
bright that evening, as
beads of sweat streamed
down my back. It
was week two of
our Global Ini-
tiative trip here
in India, and the
only thing left
for this rather
torrid day was a
cultural visit to
a Hindu Temple
—
Kapaleesh-
warar
Temple,
in Mylapore. I’ll
be frank: In this
group of eager, curious people, I
did not share that particular sen-
timent. I was not a follower; I had
been to enough temples in my life.
My back had a growing dull pain,
and I just wanted to lie down.
Alas, it wasn’t up to me, so into the
temple I went. I entered through
the large Dravidian-style gate — a
gopuram in the Tamil tongue — and
I did my trained bow of respect. As
I stood there, staring into famil-
iar, unblinking eyes, I felt an urge
concerning something I thought I
had misplaced and lost a long while
back. The sun grew warmer, the
noise denser and all I wanted to do
was pray.
Every childhood morning, I
woke up to the sounds of my father
praying and the scent of incense
sticks that oddly always smelled
slightly differently than they had
the previous day. I’d end the day
silently reciting chants, completely
unaware of the Vedic phrases I was
speaking, simply aware that I felt
better saying them. My parents
took me and my younger brother
to many temples, often against our
admittedly childish wills. This
was one of those instances where
I did not take kindly to parents’
blatant veto power over their chil-
dren. True, most temples were the
awe-inspiring, chaotic sanctuaries
for the tired and the devout, but I
wasn’t that kind of tired and I cer-
tainly wasn’t devout. But I went
because I was told, and I believed
because I was told.
Before long, the nightly recita-
tions stopped. Schoolwork became
increasingly difficult; I had to think
about college and what I should
and wanted to study. More impor-
tant things started coming up and
I didn’t have the enough hours or
mental stamina to consider reli-
gion. The sanctuary had gotten a
little too chaotic. Losing this part
of my routine wasn’t intentional or
rebellious, but rather more unspec-
tacular. As I got exposed to differ-
ent personal hypotheses and was in
my journey to find what was worth
holding onto, faith seemed a tad too
weighty. It was one of my extrinsic
properties that didn’t make the cut.
This is what makes that humid,
humid evening in Chennai feel so
dissonant. That urge seemed so
unreal, so much so that I had no
semblance of an idea of how to
deal with it.
Could it have been guilt? I don’t
think so. I didn’t feel an intense
constraint because of my religion.
Yes, my parents might have forced
me to participate, but never to
think like them. I think they did
this because it was our heritage —
it was tradition. They did it because
their parents did it and because
they always did it and because they
chose to do it. Moreover, I think
that they wanted their eldest to at
least be aware of this culture, that
they believed it was an utter shame
to have a child grow up and be
unappreciative and unknowing of a
tradition larger and more wondrous
than any one of us could imagine.
But truthfully, I think the rea-
son I encountered that urge to
pray was dependent on that par-
ticular situation. It was a hectic few
weeks, there were no familiar faces
around, I was getting no sleep and
my body ached all the time. In this
sea of vulnerability, prayer seemed
like a solace. It was safe and famil-
iar, like nothing bad would ever
happen to me here. I remember
holding out my strained arm so that
I could touch the ceremonial fire
that was being passed around. I felt
a warmth that I had long forgotten,
a warmth of rare reassurance. A
feeling that I was all right and that
everything was going to be OK.
So did I rediscover God? No, I
don’t think I ever really believed
in the first place. Fine, then did I
find God? Not really. I still don’t
believe religion is my personal
calling. But I think, at the time, I
needed help, and prayer was the
answer. So now would I at least
pray every night? Probably not,
but I’m not going to outright deny
it as a possibility. Perhaps of more
overall importance, is the fact that
I believe I found myself, or at least
a part I had buried. I found the
little, chubby boy who had once
prayed before bed. It was a singu-
lar moment of a vague, yet resolute
sense of being connected to the
person I once was.
Thus, in a final consideration,
does this mean something? The
answer is what it was always going
to be: not necessarily. I doubt I will
now live a life dedicated to serving
or searching for something higher
and unseen. As it happens, this
was not some life-altering moment
of significance. I did not find some
shiny, new personal truth, rather, I
was simply reminded of an old one.
And, sometimes, that’s just what we
need.
—Bharat Nair can be reached
at bnair@umich.edu.
Holy magnetism
Claire Bryan, Regan Detwiler, Caitlin Heenan, Jeremy Kaplan,
Ben Keller, Minsoo Kim, Payton Luokkala, Kit Maher, Madeline
Nowicki, Anna Polumbo-Levy, Jason Rowland, Lauren
Schandevel, Melissa Scholke, Kevin Sweitzer, Rebecca Tarnopol,
Ashley Tjhung, Stephanie Trierweiler, Hunter Zhao
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
P
olitical tensions were high on June
28, 2012. All eyes were fixed on the
Supreme Court, where the constitu-
tionality of Obamacare
and its individual man-
date would be decided
by the nine most influen-
tial judicial minds in the
country. The cornerstone
of the president’s legacy,
the historical legacy of the
Court and the health care
of millions of Americans
were on the line. It was at
this moment that Justice
Scalia saw an opportunity
to work the audience, ask-
ing one of the attorneys, “What happened to
the Eighth Amendment? You really want us
to go through these 2,700 pages?” implying
that to read the entire law would be cruel and
unusual punishment. This humor and levity
will be sorely missed with the passing of the
Supreme Court’s conservative anchor.
The vacancy left by the 79-year-old jurist
Saturday morning has thrown the political
world into chaos; President Obama has prom-
ised to nominate a replacement, while Mitch
McConnell and the GOP-controlled Senate
plan to block any confirmation before the
next administration. Meanwhile, three cur-
rent presidential candidates sit in the Senate
and will cast a vote on a nominee who would
otherwise be theirs. Political pundits and
journalists are calling Scalia’s death a monu-
mental loss for conservatives, and liberals
will inevitably see this as
an opportunity to push
the Supreme Court left-
ward. As a liberal, how-
ever, I would like to take
this opportunity to mourn
the loss of a brilliant legal
mind
and
his
unique
brand of conservatism.
It may be difficult for
liberals, who have long
painted Scalia as the judi-
cial equivalent of Archie
Bunker, to reconcile their beliefs with his
textualism. But this is a lazy oversimplifi-
cation of one of the most brilliant lawyers
of the 21st century. Though rare, Scalia had
his liberal moments over the course of three
decades on the bench. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld,
he railed against the Bush administration’s
suspension of habeas corpus and its treat-
ment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. He
consistently sided with the liberal justices in
cases involving law enforcement and the pro-
tections of the Fourth Amendment. Perhaps
most importantly, he cast the deciding vote in
Texas v. Johnson, invalidating a law against
flag burning and upholding a patently liberal
interpretation of the right to free speech.
Though a hero to the political right, Sca-
lia exemplified professionalism and a refined
political discourse, separating a person from
their beliefs. By liberal and conservative col-
leagues alike, he was affectionately referred
to as “Nino,” and known as much for his love
of opera as for his infectious laugh. Perhaps
most famous was his long friendship with
ideological opposite Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
who once said of Scalia, “I disagreed with
most of what he said, but I loved the way he
said it.” His response: “What’s not to like —
except her views on the law.”
Beyond the camaraderie and respect he
showed for his intellectual adversaries, Scalia
presented a compelling view of what a judge
should be. “We don’t sit here to make the
law, to decide who ought to win. We decide
who wins under the law that the people have
adopted. And very often, if you’re a good
judge, you don’t really like the result you’re
reaching.” In his opinions, he quoted Sesame
Street and Shakespeare. He called an argu-
ment “pure applesauce” and responded to a
reporter with a Sicilian gesture synonymous
with profanity. There may never be a justice
as colorful as Antonin Scalia.
Even if one cannot appreciate the person-
ality and flair he added to the high court,
liberals should commemorate the ways in
which Scalia’s conservatism helped refine
their beliefs. Where would the concept of
a “living” Constitution be if it had not been
crafted in response to the emergence of
originalist jurisprudence?
And that’s what needs to be appreciated
about Justice Scalia. In stark contrast with
the fear-mongering brand of conservatism
that runs rampant today, full of platitudes
about American values and radicalism, Sca-
lia based his philosophy on the Constitution.
He based it in irrefutable text and extensive
research into what the Founding Fathers
were thinking when they put pen to paper.
Disagreeing with “conservatives” like
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz is easy. Drum-
ming up an argument against a wall on
the Mexican border, anti-Muslim rhetoric,
ostentatious foreign policy or disparag-
ing women is easy. What
is infinitely harder is
to read Scalia’s defense
of Second Amendment
rights
in
District
of
Columbia v. Heller and
figure out why you dis-
agree with it. To piece
apart his dissents on
Obamacare and same-sex
marriage is to investigate
what it means to be a lib-
eral and how the Consti-
tution not only factors in, but also dictates
the rhetoric of the American left.
I believe in a “living” Constitution. I look
at the vast majority of Scalia’s career and my
brow furrows in disagreement as his bril-
liant prose takes aim at my core beliefs —
from affirmative action to a woman’s right
to choose and everything in between. Nine
times out of 10, I will disagree. But 10 times
out of 10, I will be challenged and will walk
away a better liberal for the experience.
In this hyper-politicized climate, Antonin
Scalia’s passing will be framed in terms of
winners and losers. Will Obama be the first
president since Reagan to succeed in nam-
ing three Supreme Court justices? Which
candidates will get a bump in the polls as
a result of their support or opposition dur-
ing the nominating process? Can the Sen-
ate GOP hold out for 11 months? Ultimately,
though, there are no winners. Conserva-
tives lost their champion, and liberals lost
the man who represented reasonable oppo-
sition and, maybe more than anyone else,
helped define the constitutional debates of
the past 30 years.
—Brett Graham can be reached
at btgraham@umich.edu.
Liberals, mourn Scalia
O
bjectivity is in many ways
a myth — but this isn’t a
novel thought. I think we
all accept that
no one can be
truly objective
in
how
they
view a situa-
tion. But our
lack of objec-
tivity goes even
deeper
since
worldview
is
continually
influenced
by
environment.
Peer
pres-
sure is one of the most powerful
of environmental pressures — so
powerful, in fact, that it can liter-
ally change what we see. Solomon
Asch famously put subjects in a
room with a number of confeder-
ates who, as a group, were asked to
compare the length of two differ-
ent-sized lines. The confederates
claimed that the two lines were of
equal length despite being obvi-
ously different. In many cases, the
subjects gave in and agreed that
the two lines were of the same
length. Peer pressure is not the
only environmental factor which
prevents objectivity but it is a
potent example.
Historically, our belief in objec-
tivity has been used to manipulate
the public. Because the sciences
drape themselves in objectivity,
we place a lot of trust in scien-
tists. These researchers can have
a profit incentive that leads them
to abuse this trust. One classic
example of this is the implementa-
tion of the electric chair. The state
of New York was trying to find
the best way to execute criminals
via the electric chair, and Thomas
Edison famously advocated for
inmates to be electrocuted by way
of the alternating current. Why?
Edison was trying to expand the
reach of direct current technol-
ogy and thought that an electric
chair powered by the alternating
current would scare the public
away from his competitor (despite
its not being any more dangerous
than direct current electricity).
Here, we see that our belief in
objectivity can be turned against
us and prevent us from realizing
an objective truth.
This lack of objectivity goes fur-
ther; it permeates deep into our
very language. Scientific terms are
often viewed as monolithic and
all-encompassing. This is not the
case. Consider the commonly given
definition of the word “species”: an
organism that can breed and whose
offspring can have kids. But there
are significant exceptions to this
definition. That isn’t to throw this
definition out the window, but to
complicate it and recognize how
even with science, a unified truth
doesn’t exist.
This
definitional
diversity
extends beyond the hard science
to every aspect of our lives. If
you were to ask 30 people about
the definition of capitalism, you
would get 30 different responses.
Each one will emphasize different
aspects of capitalism: its capacity
to create growth or inequality; its
focus on markets and deregula-
tion, etc. While everyone has the
same approximate definition, the
specifics will always be muddled.
To borrow from Supreme Court
Justice Potter Stewart: I shall not
attempt define capitalism, but “I
know it when I see it.”
Each
individual’s
definition
comes from their own political
location. Even if we were to turn to
a dictionary, capitalism’s meaning
would still be elusive. Merriam-
Webster has a distinct geopolitical
location: it’s made in the United
States, a liberal, western, demo-
cratic, capitalist country. If we
were to compare that definition
to one which originated from the
U.S.S.R., Iran or Norway, there
would be a bevy of differences.
This isn’t to elevate one over the
other, but to recognize the validity
and multiplicity of perspectives; a
singular objective truth is nearly
impossible to find.
The lesson here is one of skep-
ticism. We should recognize that
nearly everything is bent by our
human perceptions, society or out-
side interests, and thus not truly
objective. Whenever we encounter
a new idea, we should approach it
with a modicum of disbelief: Who
is making the claim and how did
they come to their conclusion?
By synthesizing this skepticism
with the claims we face every day
and our own beliefs, we can come
closer to creating a comprehensive
perspective.
—Roland Davidson can be
reached at mhenryda@umich.edu.
Subjective objectivity
ROLAND
DAVIDSON
BRETT
GRAHAM
BHARAT
NAIR
“Liberals should
commemorate the
ways in which Scalia’s
conservatism helped
refine their beliefs.”
“We should recognize
that nearly everything
is bent by our human
perceptions.”
“I believe I had
found myself, or at
least a part that I had
buried.”
—Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Saturday, to CBS News in 2008.
“
NOTABLE QUOTABLE
I love to argue. I’ve always loved to argue.
And I love to point out the weaknesses of
the opposing arguments. It may well be
that I’m something of a shin-kicker. It may
well be that I’m something of a contrarian.”
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