this must be the place

The debate over pity constructs, in effect, two visions of political community, and of the good citizen and judge within it. One sees the human being as both aspiring and vulnerable, both worthy and insecure; the other focuses on dignity alone, seeing in reason a boundless and indestructible worth. One sees the central task of community as the provision of support for basic needs; it brings human beings together through the thought of their common weakness and risk. The other sees a community as a kingdom of free responsible beings, held together by the awe they feel for the worth of reason in one another. Each vision, in its own, way, pursues both equality and freedom. The former aims at equal support for basic needs, and hopes through this to promote equal opportunities for free choice and self-realization; the other starts from the fact of internal freedom -- a fact that no misfortunes can remove -- and finds in this fact a source of political equality. One sees freedom of choice as something that needs to be built up for people through worldly arrangements that make them capable of functioning in a fully human way, independent of all material arrangements; the other takes freedom to be an inalienable given, independent of all material arrangements. One attempts to achieve benevolence through softheartedness; the other holds, with Kant, that this softheartedness 'should not occur at all among human beings.' The debate between the friends and enemies of pity is not a debate between partisans of reason and partisans of some mindless noncognitive force. It is a substantive debate about ethical value. Both sides agree that pity is judgment; they differ about whether the judgments are true.

CHORUS. How is a Greek chorus like a lawyer They’re both in the business of searching for a precedent Finding an analogy Locating a prior example So as to be able to say This terrible thing we’re witnessing now is Not unique you know it happened before Or something much like it We’re not at a loss how to think about this We’re not without guidance There is a pattern We can find an historically parallel case And file it away under ANTIGONE BURIED ALIVE FRIDAY AFTERNOON Compare case histories 7, 17, and 49 Now I could dig up those case histories Tell you about Danaos and Lykourgos and the sons of Phineas People locked up in a room or a cave or their own dark mind It wouldn’t help you It didn’t help me It’s Friday afternoon There goes Antigone to be buried alive Is there Any way We can say This is normal Rational Forgivable Or even in the widest definition just No not really

And race matters for reasons that really are only skin deep, that cannot be discussed in any other way, and that cannot be wished away. Race matters to a young man's view of society when he spends his teenage years watching others tense up as he passes, no matter the neighborhood where he grew up. Race matters to a young woman's sense of self when she states her hometown, and then is pressed, 'No, where are you REALLY from?', regardless of how many generations her family has been in the country. Race matters to a young person addressed by a stranger in a foreign language, which he does not understand because only English was spoken at home. Race matters because of the slights, the snickers, the silent judgments that reinforce the most crippling of thoughts: 'I do not belong here.' In my colleagues' view, examining the racial impact of legislation only perpetuates racial discrimination. This refusal to accept the stark reality that race matters is regrettable. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination. As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantees of equal protection, we ought not to sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society. It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race DOES matter.