The judicious mind
Phenomenon blogger Virginia Hughes, facing jury duty, has done some research into the role of stress in making us excessively judgmental. She concludes that a prospective juror would do well to embrace relaxation techniques, which seems sensible. It also occurs to me, however, that if we want people to judge us with calmness and temperance, we would do well not to put them under stress. Many of civilization's proudest achievements are the ways we signal to strangers that we are not necessarily an immediate threat.
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On the other hand, if I can strike hard enough, suddenly enough, I don't have to worry about what the stranger might think of me....
Eric Hines
On the third hand, if you judiciously demonstrate that you are just as prepared to be a threat as not -- depending on the goodwill demonstrated by your adversary -- you can often avoid conflict entirely.
But being able to walk the streets in peace without having to demonstrate what a threat you are...that indeed is civilization.
I'm glad this lady's being thoughtful because just being made to serve on the jury in the first place is a big stress for many people. It's because the selfish bastards are just made that way, and not because of their unique situations and all the work that's piling up while they're away...
The findings she reports are interesting in the context of allowable arguments. At the guilt phase of a trial it's always important to watch for improper arguments from the prosecutor...and this suggests that a certain class of improper arguments (e.g., telling the jury that the public's eyes are on them, or that their decision will affect race relations in the future) are going to be more effective because they put the jury under extra pressure and so make them more judgmental.
Good find, Texan; thank you!
P.S. - I wonder if that's why (as lawyers' lore has it) that "laughter in the courtroom is good for the defense."
As I recall, Joseph, a variation of that sentiment is among Maimonides' proofs for the existence of God. How do you know there is a King? You find that the strong and violent do not oppress the weak, even though there is apparently nobody right there to stop them. How do you know that there is a God? Likewise, because you observe order and lawlike behavior in nature even though no one is apparently designing it or making it happen.
Of course, adequate belief in the existence of the king could produce the peaceful behavior even if in fact there were no king.
If you get rid of all the lawyers and judges, people will solve their own problems more times than not.
It's the ones that can't solve their own problems that must be either terminated or adjudicated arbitrarily by their peers (who sometimes aren't their peers).
One of the Australian city cliches they like to use is that if Aussies had guns like Americans, every bar fight would end in a shooting. That's because almost every Aussie bar fight escalates to fists and then knives, because the legal system has forbidden them the natural state of risk and reward.
So why isn't every bar fight in America going from fists, to knives, and then guns? Why not straight to guns?
Mostly because the presence of the ultimate deterrence actually causes people to stop acting stupid, because the stupid ones get killed. And they get killed by EVERYONE. So it's like having 330 million lawyers and cops in America doing the job, instead of the actual numbers.
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