Document Type

Blog Post

Publication Date

2-25-2020

Abstract

According to psychoanalysis in Freud and beyond, human beings have an ego ideal, or self-identity projected outward onto society, so why can’t a discipline like the Law? Like Mathematics or Psychoanalysis, Law surely has a self-identity it continually articulates and applies. If the Law would speak for itself, how would it explain this identity? One answer would be that the Law’s version of itself as logical to the point of absurdity is projected onto society as a whole, which it subjugates through the illusion of quasi-mathematical certainty. Caught up in this intoxicating mirage, its various purveyors and practitioners, like lawyers, work tirelessly to embody Law’s idea of itself through the endless verbal (oral and written) performance of briefs, arguments, opening and closing statements, depositions, client meetings, emails, and even more ephemeral forms of expression, like Tweets or Snaps.

Share

COinS