identity and decisions

I'm not normally a big news-junkie, but I'm fascinated lately with the whole Supreme Court confirmation process. Partly, yes, because the nominee is a woman. Partly because I am tremendously relieved that the previous President didn't get to nominate additional candidates, given that he and I agreed politically on, you know, NOTHING.

But mostly because of this whole debate about identity and decision-making. Apparently, Justice Roberts claimed during his confirmation hearings that a justice ought to be like an umpire, simply calling balls and strikes without any personal subjectivity whatsoever. At which point, someone on the liberal side of the aisle claimed that such an image left no room for the humanity of a judge, so that we might as well have a computer making the decisions for us. And then this whole concept collided with Sotomayor's compelling personal story and her (I believe) off-handed remark, once upon a time, that a 'wise Latina' might make better decisions as a judge.

First off, I have no doubt that not a single one of us - congresspersons included - would make it through a process this invasive without running into some dumb, thoughtless, or otherwise ripped-out-of-context remark thrown in our faces. It's a wonder to me that anyone survives to make it into a government position at all.

And yes, I understand that a judge's personal story, biases, and experiences should not be the primary factor in making decisions from the bench. That has obvious problems.

But the insistence coming from legislators that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should your personal history have ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANY DECISION - this is ridiculous. And, to my mind, utterly naive.

Hey, congress; let me tell you what any reasonable adult ought to know: there is no such thing as objectivity. We are all captive to our own stories, at one point or another. Every single one of us is subjective all day long, and if you ever think you are being otherwise, then all you have done is to find yourself in a situation which aligns itself with your own biases. The only way to deal with this is to admit it, and do the best you can to hear all the stories involved - yours included. Any judicial candidate who claims that he or she can, in fact, act without any subjectivity is a candidate you should run from. Fast. And far. Because that's either a lie, or a huge, huge blind spot.

I know that the Justice Statue Lady has a blindfold and everything, but that's a lie too. Justice is not blind. Justice is not about being, or trying to be, blind to all the biases claiming space in front of you. Justice is about seeing all of them and trying to hold them in balance.

And yes, I think this has something to do with God. There is an image out there of an Umpire God, a completely impassive force who decides for you or against you based on evidence alone, who acts without passion, whose job it is to try and make life as 'fair' as possible.

That's an image of God out there, but for my money, it sure isn't a Christian one. The Christian image of God is Jesus, incarnate in all his biased, subjective flesh, who took that enfleshed experience into God's very heart. God is not objective. God is very, very, unapologetically biased in favor of all creation.

And, hey - if God can't even pull off objectivity, I don't know how Sotomayor is supposed to do it. Or any other justice. Or me. Or you, for that matter. And I don't think we are even supposed to try.

(On the very off-chance that I am ever nominated for a government position, this blog post is totally coming back to haunt me.)