The most revealing thing is not that he hates the term "swing vote." That's not surprising. He wants to be thought of as serious and consistent. The term impugns.
The most revealing thing is that in thinking about an abstraction, he gets a visual image and his thinking about an abstraction is, it seems, influenced by the way that abstraction-made-concrete looks in his mind.
This is useful for lawyers who are trying to figure out how to tip Kennedy one way or the other. Did "tip" just give you a visual image? If not, then you don't have the kind of mind that Kennedy seems to have.
Personally, I have this kind of mind, and I know very well how thought is influenced by language that generates images. The word "swing" makes Justice Kennedy picture a swing — picture himself as a swing, suspended, ungrounded, susceptible to pushes — and he hates (strong word!) how he looks in that image. Perhaps he sees himself as a child on a swing. Perhaps he sees himself as the bad guy in a western who's going to swing in a hangman's noose.
Stressing the vividness of the image as it appears in his mind, he indulges — even as he's speaking with notable concision — in a redundancy, adding the unnecessary adjective "visual" to "images."
So it seems that Justice Kennedy is one of these people for whom the metaphors within words feel alive. George Orwell wrote about dying metaphors in "Politics and the English Language":
A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically "dead" (e.g. iron resolution) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan song, hotbed...What Orwell didn't say was that the effect of language varies from person to person. There is no objectivity to the perception whether a metaphor is fully alive, totally dead, or somewhere in the gray area between life and death.
The life of a metaphor is a subtle matter that belongs within the realm of the individual mind, including the mind of the man who (co)wrote: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
Did he get a visual image of a heart, a beating heart of liberty? Did he see, within that heart, the universe? Did the image of the universe inside a heart blur into a mystery as he compared the universe inside a heart with the unborn baby inside a womb — two bodily organs containing — who's to say? — everything?
You may think the life of that baby is undeniably, concretely real, but do you understand how real liberty might look in the mind of a man who gets visual images?
ADDED: The Orwell quote contains the very phrase I marked as a redundancy: "A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image..."
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५९ टिप्पण्या:
I hate how he is so inconsistent and unmoored from the text of the constitution.
This one reminds me of Pogo: "The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song."
I recommend Fowler (2nd edition) on Metaphor.
...[T]he line of distinction between the live and the dead is a shifting one, the dead being sometimes liable, under the stimulus of an affinity or a repulsion, to galvanic stirrings indistinguishable from life.
...[D]ead metaphors will not lie quietly together if there was repugnance to them in life; e'en in their ashes live their wonter fires, and they get up and fight...
On impugning, by the way, the gn comes not from knowledge but from fight, as in repugnance.
Kennedy is given to complex reasoning, having lost the knack for manly reasoning.
A swing consists not just of the dangling seats but also the unmoving structure from which they dangle and sometimes align in their back and forth motion. Kennedy could think of himself as the immovable structure and the other Justices as moving back and forth. Instead he indicated that it was the cases that swing.
The Justices in the conservative and liberal seats probably hate that they have to swing into line to pick up Kennedy's vote. Kennedy's metaphor may be designed to make that easier for them.
Thou art Peter and thou shalt pick pickled peppers.
Kennedy sucks.
How would he visualize that?
"...but do you understand how real liberty might look in the mind of a man who gets visual images?"
If Kennedy is the man in question then I think he pictures Europe.
I am Laslo.
"The cases swing"
"Justice Kennedy is one of these people for whom the metaphors within words feel alive"
I get the visual image that we are totally screwed.
Casey was written by a man who had no visual image of what an abortion looks like.
Carhart was written by a man who had found such an image...and did not like it.
We censor abortion photographs so as to not upset the people who have had abortions.
But we also (perhaps) censor abortion photographs so as not to upset the people in power, and our own ideologies.
The New York Times once won a Pulitzer prize for its work in covering up Stalin's atrocities.
Good post.
As for "visual image" being redundant -- not necessarily. A visual image is one experienced by a human. The image can be seen as a pattern of light, or remembered visually. But an image can also exist in the mechanical realm. If you take a photograph, you have a latent image on the film. People talk about digital images, of course. In many reprographic processes, images are made and transferred but are not created to be viewed in their native state. Braille documents are tactile images. And then of course there is a person's image, which is like their reputation except on a more superficial level.
Kennedy has expressed some rather juvenile justification for some of his ideas.
I agree with to Scott, that "visual image" is not neccessarily redundant - I immediately looked up image - because I do music and have sound images in my head all day long - it comes from "imitate" - so needn't be 100% visual - though all the definitions seem to assume that
I suspect Justice Kennedy's thought process is like this:
"I'm just upholding a woman's right to choose. I think she's killing her baby, but it's up to her. It's her choice, it's her autonomy. It has nothing to do with me."
That's how Justice Kennedy sleeps at night, and how he goes to church on Sundays. And note how similar the dissent's view of abortion is. Scalia and Thomas and Alito and Roberts would overturn Roe and send abortion back to the states. So if California wants to kill babies, that's fine.
"I'm just upholding federalism. I think California is killing these babies, but that's up to California. It's federalism, it's state's rights. It has nothing to do with me."
But of course abortion has a lot to do with the Supreme Court. Specifically, they have dehumanized these babies, marked them as sub-human, as property, and put them outside of our legal system.
Or, to put it another way, we fought, bled, and died to put the equal protection clause in the Constitution.
And then nine attorneys go into a room and say they don't know what a person is.
"Specifically, they have dehumanized these babies, marked them as sub-human, as property, and put them outside of our legal system."
Yes, I agree and I am pro-choice. I just wish women having abortions (and I suspect many feel this way) recognized that they were taking a life for their own purposes. They just consider that purpose worth it.
The abortion industry, and it is one now, spends a lot of effort and money to convince them that it is nothing, just like a biopsy. I keep going back to the nauseating column in the NY Times written by a guy whose girlfriend had an abortion. The night before the procedure, they were having dinner and she declined to have wine, "because it might hurt the baby." What was in her mind ?
And it's fine to mock Kennedy for his inability to read and follow text. But it's worth noting that all nine Supreme Court Justices say that corporations are people. And all nine Supreme Court Justices say that babies are not.
I believe this ideology is motivated by greed. Specifically, corporations make money and babies cost money. That was the motivating factor for Roe v. Wade. Not feminism. It was greed and money and a belief that the poor single moms should be allowed to save money by getting rid of an unwanted mouth to feed.
I just wish women having abortions (and I suspect many feel this way) recognized that they were taking a life for their own purposes.
I have so much sympathy for the men and women who have had abortions, and who realize (too late) what they have done. I believe we censor these images to keep the truth from people, to avoid upsetting those who have already done the deed.
But our censorship keeps a new generation of young boys and girls in ignorance.
We're glib on human sexuality in this country. Very, very glib about the possibility that we might be making a baby.
So, Kennedy perceives that everyone is a universe unto themselves. That interpretation of reality is incompatible with the establishment and maintenance of civilization, community, and family.
There is nothing undeniably, concrete real that could not change in an instant. While perception is malleable and can vary between individuals in nuanced ways, the purpose of [social] consensus (e.g. religion/morality) is to promote a common reality. The purpose of science is to constrain perception to limited, reproducible frames of reference. So, while a biological human life undeniably begins from a source: conception, it cannot be scientifically concluded that it has a single, coherent source or that it is ever real. At least not until this limited causative force knocks you over the head or raises its voice (e.g. cries).
What I want to know is, what visual image of sex did Kennedy have when he ruled on Same-Sex Marriage?
David Begley said...
I hate how he is so inconsistent and unmoored from the text of the constitution.
If he doesn't want to be thought of as the swing voter on the supreme court, perhaps he shouldn't keep acting as one. We could all save a lot of time and money by sending the other 8 justices home and just ask Kennedy what he feels about any particular issue before the court.
Althouse notes: ADDED: The Orwell quote contains the very phrase I marked as a redundancy: "A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image..."
That is precisely what I love about the German language: its stark, often visual imagery. I think that only we English speakers appreciate this consciously because we also have the dull and sedate latinate contrast in our language too.
Saint Croix said...
I believe this ideology is motivated by greed. Specifically, corporations make money and babies cost money.
All this talk of "money" and "babies" reminds me of the movie... Swingers.
I wonder how he visualizes "Justice Kennedy, King of America."
Some advice to women: don't abort your child. However, if you do, then have the good sense to repent, not repeat your action, and certainly don't normalize or promote this "choice" as legitimate. The significance of retaining a perception of the intrinsic or exceptional value of human life cannot be underestimated and should not be destroyed for light and causal causes.
Saint Croix:
The normalization of elective abortion was motivated by the seven deadly sins. The greed associated with economic factors is only one aspect of its underlying foundation.
Also revealing is how much this lifetime appointee thinks about how others think of him and what they say. I think the liberal lawyers before the court figured that one out quite a while ago.
The objection to "swing vote" may come more from "swingers" in the sexual sense. He doesn't want to be seen as unfaithful, and doesn't think the law should be about being faithful to an ideology.
All this talk of "money" and "babies" reminds me of the movie... Swingers.
You're so money. You're money and you don't even know it!
The objection to "swing vote" may come more from "swingers" in the sexual sense. He doesn't want to be seen as unfaithful
Bork was borked so swingers could swing.
You can tell that a metaphor is really dying when people can no longer remember which homonym to use. I've seen "tow the line" a number of times, for example, and "reign in."
Kennedy is most famous for swing votes in sexual freedom cases. Perhaps his image of spatial gyrations is more Freudian than yours.
That's nice. A mind of such unshakable rigor that he employs it in cosmic Altparse.
toe the line
I've seen this error a lot online. The phrase comes from the Roman Empire days when people who disagreed with the Emperor were sentenced to be gladiators, and part of their punishment was to tow a lion into the arena that they then had to fight. But if they recanted their opinion, then they didn't have to do it, their sentence was commuted. And so adjusting your opinion to suit the powers that be came to be called "towing the lion".
Visual image, as opposed to a painted image, a graven image, a sculpted image, etc., has validity as a non-internally-redundant phrase.
"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
Is that a metaphor? Or a simile? Or just irony in that the statement is used to justify defeating one person's existence in favor of another's CONCEPT of existence?
Many modern hymns are especially puzzling to people who think in images. A line I saw last week:
"And like a flood His mercy reigns."
Huh? A water blob in crown and robe standing on a dais and wielding a scepter?
I think I agree that Swing Vote is not the proper visual for Kennedy.
I believe Swivel Vote (as in weather vane) would be a more accurate visual.
Another one that is less problematic:
"Blow through the caverns of my soul"
It has caverns? Dry caves honeycombing it? Hm. The odd image of this dry, cavernous soul is distracting.
While Kennedy perceives images emanating from a penumbra, other justices have a cold, objective, but conflicting view of the reality outside.
@Freeman Hunt:Many modern hymns are especially puzzling to people who think in images.
I could never figure out why Round John was never in the Nativity scenes; he was clearly important enough to rank with Mary and Jesus in Silent Night.
I could never figure out why Round John was never in the Nativity scenes; he was clearly important enough to rank with Mary and Jesus in Silent Night.
Ha ha ha!
King Kennedy just wants to be the center of attention.
How dare anyone accuse Kennedy of swinging. These are his principles, and if you don't like them...well, he has others.
Meet The Swinger, Polaroid Swinger!
Meet The Swinger, Polaroid Swinger!
It's more than a camera, it's almost alive!
It's only nineteen dollars and ninety five!
Never mind his hate for the term "swing vote". What's relevant is the impoverished judicial philosophy which he exemplifies, as in the Obergefell vs Hodges decision: that 5 out of the nine on our Supreme Court can claim to have discovered, by some process of enlightenment, what our Constitution should now come to mean, with the actual text being entirely irrelevant. (Actually the 4 in his cohort may not have had the same mystical revelation-- it was now time for gay marriage, dammit!).
And most of us-- you anyway-- seem to accept such claptrap.
What about imaginary images? Hollywood Dreams.
Visual images are from the infamous eye witnesses.
The two images together are our favorite. They are like blended whiskey.
What was in her mind ?
11/3/15, 9:03 AM
Please don't make me do this oh please don't make me do this?
Given his absurd opinion on gay marriage, what is he claiming, that he is consistently illogical?
He has visual images, as apparently did the idiot from the Seventh Circuit, of children of homosexual parents traumatized because their parents are unmarried - but not because their parents are homosexual - in a world full of single and unmarried parents.
The word "swing" makes Justice Kennedy picture a swing — picture himself as a swing, suspended, ungrounded, susceptible to pushes — and he hates (strong word!) how he looks in that image. Perhaps he sees himself as a child on a swing.
If the shoe fits...
The truth sometimes hurts.
So it seems that Justice Kennedy is one of these people for whom the metaphors within words feel alive....Did he get a visual image of a heart, a beating heart of liberty? Did he see, within that heart, the universe? Did the image of the universe inside a heart blur into a mystery as he compared the universe inside a heart with the unborn baby inside a womb — two bodily organs containing — who's to say? — everything?
I certainly hope so. It would be comforting in my old age to know that going senile is like an acid trip.
Imagine what it feels like to be the Justice whose vote will typically decide what the Constitution means. There are 4 Justices who feel one way, and 4 Justices who feel the other way, and there you are: The "swing" Justice. Whatever you decide, will be "the law". Your vote can be based on a gut feeling, a prejudice, a whim -- it doesn't matter. Your vote decides the matter.
I think this may be why some of Kennedy's most controversial opinions are the most overwrought.
Swing vote means the same thing as swing state (in Presidential elections)
What a horseshit, verbal diarrhea post.
Justice (and that term applied to him is a joke) Kennedy is a retard. His decisions are based on whether he had a good bowel movement or was constipated that morning. There are 3 Supremes who should grant interviews. The Liberals and the swing voters(tough shit Kennedy) should just shut the hell up. They're already look foolish enough.
Ps. Freud--Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Other times, its a big brown dick.
+1 Anthony Kennedy. I would not lose sleep over it. I suspect he does not either. But it's a good point about language reflection (or not reflecting) reality. It is /the case/ that swings. (Or perhaps better: it is /the result of the case/ that swings.)
"having lost the knack for manly reasoning."
Is "manly reasoning" reasoning that accepts arguments ad hominum?
Or are people who use that phrase while refusing to define that phrase /guilty/ of arguing ad hominum?
I disagree that visual image is a redundancy. In 1961 Daniel Boorstin published The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America, an early essay on fake culture. Today we commonly refer to the exact replication of computer data as an image. Neither of these usages implies visual. There are more examples if you dig into the word’s many definitions.
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