Art and Craft

“In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.”

        -      Thurgood Marshall

Law is imperfect.  Built upon habit and common practice, its normal course is to ease forward by increments.  Occasionally, kicking and screaming, stare decisis yields to truth from all corners: social science, “hard” science, technology, and even humanity.  However, our idea of justice, learned but blind, giving all who come before her fair and equal benefit of her wisdom requires some artistic license.

Law, ideally being the construct of people struggling to establish a fair society in which everyone understands what is expected of him and the consequences of violating that public trust - even if pure in its essence - is imposed by humans, and alas we are all fallible.  Often, we allow Justice to be blind, deaf, and stumbling in distress.  The craft of lawyering comes from analytical knowledge beginning in law school and developed in practice.  But, good lawyering involves humility and humanity which we learn from outside our selves.

Unlike the law which is staid, art is revolutionary.  Mozart’s music, soothing to the modern ear, was complex and confusing to his audiences.  Shakespeare’s examples of prejudice, greed and chicanery convey his timeless understanding of the human condition.  In very few words, Langston Hughes told a story of racial animus that resonates through time.  Walt Whitman celebrated himself despite society’s disdain for who he was. 

Sometimes art speaks through generations.  Woodrow Wilson Guthrie's influence on songwriters from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen is legendary -  probably because he used his light to curse the darkness (on the edge of town).  In protest to Irving Berlin’s jingoistic “God Bless America” which showers accolades on mountains, prairies and foaming oceans begging for prayer, Woody Guthrie gave us one of his greatest gifts.  He reminded us that this nation, physically stunning as it is from diamond deserts to endless skyways and golden valleys, is blessed because of who lives here.  He reminded us that within this bounty of beauty are our brothers and sisters, some of whom are suffering.  By refusing to shun the poor and downtrodden, he expresses a love far greater than Berlin’s adoration when he proclaims that no one can make him turn his back on this land, this land made for you and me.  Hold those truths to be self-evident.  Revolutionary indeed.

Sometimes art reflects such truth that it inspires us to understand our world better.  Only then can we improve it – and make no mistake - the lot of lawyers is to improve society.  This may come from preserving the law and it may come from working to change it, but there is no purpose in a lawyer whose vigil is to remain stagnant.  We are champions of freedom; freedom depends on humanity.  Art opens a door, even for the stodgiest attorney, in a way that is all at once uncomfortable and accessible.

Even when art is representative, from Copley's portraits to Adams' photographs, we are forever changed by the experience of seeing through another’s eyes.  This, of course, becomes a markedly different experience when the impressionists give us their vision, one granting freedom to view the world however we choose to see it.  One need never witness war to understand it through art.  From Picasso’s tormenting Guernica to Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List to George’s Hotel Rwanda art can make the most rugged recoil in horror.  Just as quickly, we are universally lifted by Sam Cooke's voice...and Twyla Tharpe's dance...and Charlie Chaplin's antics... and John Newton's Amazing Grace.  And so like war, we learn peace through art.

Art can be raw – exposing itself and us, drilling into our own humanity.  Kanye West’s hip-hop or Robert Mapplethorpe’s images or Natasha Trethewey’s poetry or John Coltrane’s jazz or Verdi’s operas or Michaelangelo’s sculptures all leave an imprint.  Art is supposed to make us think, to get outside of ourselves, to explore without ever leaving our own minds.  Indeed, in art we find compassion for the afflicted, the accused and convicted that betrays us in real life.  We cheer the disabled in The Elephant Man, Mask  and Forrest Gump; we root for the criminals in The Sting, The Town, Goodfellas and The Shawshank Redemption; we praise union activism in Norma Rae and North Country; we connect to characters in every John Steinbeck novel and every August Wilson play.  Art reminds us that we care.

Woody Guthrie wrote with humanity about America.  Although falling short of its own promise, Guthrie's America was strong and glorious and striving.  Guthrie's America was all at once different from and identical to today's America - a place of hope and also where hopes get dashed.  He acquitted Sacco and Vanzetti in the public eye long after their deaths through song (as an aside, future Justice Frankfurter wrote of the injustices of that trial in this 1927 Atlantic article).  In a similar but more timely way, Bob Dylan would later create a storm of interest in Reuben Carter's unfair trial which would prove instrumental in his ultimate release from prison. 

 

Art makes a personal expression of truth comprehensible to strangers; it is a vehicle for communication that transcends time and color and race and nationality and religion and social strata.  Because of that, art speaks to our core humanity.  While law involves curiosity, creativity and craft, it is not art.  It is scholarship and precedent and analysis associated more with restraint than revolution.  But, also it is and ought to be reflective of our humanity.  Only if we seek that higher notion in the practice of law can we create and celebrate a more fair and just society.  

The criminal justice system paints with big, broad, ineffective strokes  - we punish, we incarcerate, we label.  And, it is not working.  When we discount the value art has in the justice system, we dilute our own humanity.  Incredibly, art does create meaningful change in adult prisons.  It gives voice to children housed in juvenile detention facilities.  It keeps folks successful on probation.  It brings people together in our neighborhoods. 

Energy recouped from tapping in to the kindness and compassion art percolates can improve our common condition.  By accessing our own humanity, even lawyers can invite the humanity of others.  We have a duty – all of us – yes, to represent our clients and to preserve and defend the Constitution of the nation and of our state - but also to hold up the mirror of truth.  By defending the Constitution, at a minimum, we pledge to ensure both due process of law and the equal protection of the law.  We, therefore, carry an obligation to address the causes of poverty instead of punishing the poor, to address our own prejudices instead of making presumptions about members of our community.

In tribute to Woody Guthrie on the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, let us take a moment to recognize the humanity in others.

 

Such is the power of art.  Such is the craft of law.