Monday, June 4, 2012

Its absolutely necessary to interpret the Constitution. Being entirely in writing, there
are no options. But can the mode of interpretation be improved? Absolutely! We
can not let the Linguistic Turn and its many convolutions influence interpretive
practices. But, even without the direct influence of the Turn, political language is
already in a sad state. Language, in general, is not and cannot be as precise as
geometry or mathmatics.We all know there are differences in 'saying' and 'doing'.
However, a certain integrity becomes possible, if we keep the words and the
reality closer together. Interpretive practices must be kept separate from the
everyday use of political language. Interpretive practices must use a language that
links the abstract Top and the concrete Bottom. The "saying" can never be the
"doing", but they can be brought together a lot closer, than the previous example
I gave of a question and answer,i.e.  "why are we at war?", " we are bringing
them democracy". Everyone can see the hypocracy of such answers. Polititians
or statesmen may have a 'proper language' but please, its not the language of
advertising. In any case, politically responsible language, especially
Constitutional language, shouldn't follow party lines or be hypocrtical.
   A more precise use of language would be a 'geometric' or 'mathmatic' approach
to interpretation. The Constitution, within its four corners, literally constitutes us.
Of course, this approach to its underlying structure is not meant as a panacea, but
it adds a more precise diminsion to the continuous movement of a triadic
government. Heaven knows, we should have statesmen at the helm, not
advertising executives.         

    

No comments:

Post a Comment

Creative Commons License
Democracy For The Bottom by Gilbert Gonzalez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.