The Jury After Abolition Chakravarti, Sonali
Political theory,
02/2023, Letnik:
51, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory. The ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a retrospective but with a confabulation of futures. ...Contributors were asked: What will political theory look and sound like in the next century and beyond? What claims might political theorists or their descendants be making in ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they vindicate those claims in their future contexts? How will the consistent concerns of political theorists evolve into the questions critical for people decades or centuries from now? What new problems will engage the political theorists (or their rough equivalents) of the future? What forms might those take? What follows is one of the many confabulations published in response to these queries.
In 1972 Angela Davis stood trial on charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder before a White jury. A professor of philosophy, a Communist, and a member of the Black Panther Party, she had no ...reason to believe that any of the jurors were her peers. Yet, after three days of deliberation, they returned a Not Guilty verdict on each of the counts. Through an analysis of the case, this essay argues for a new approach to peerhood that defines it as a combination of (1) demographic similarities to the defendant and (2) a worldview orientation of contestation and anticorruption that emerges from the jury’s function in the trial. Greater clarity on how these factors are important for peerhood provides insights into how jurors can best fulfill their role and what remedies are necessary to achieve a jury of one’s peers.
While many have pointed to Tocqueville’s admiration of the jury system as a schoolhouse for civic participation, I argue that Tocqueville sets up, but forgoes, the opportunity to make jurors ...empowered enough to counter the ills of democracy that he enumerates, specifically the tyranny of the majority and soft despotism. The education of American women, Tocqueville remarks, prepares them to be independent, confident and astute observers of social conditions, but these characteristics are eclipsed by their domestic responsibilities as wives and mothers. Juxtaposing two sections of Democracy in America that are normally thought of separately (juries and women), I show that Tocqueville falters in his perception of the radical enfranchisement of jurors and women because of his fears about the instability of democracy (with its delusions of equality) just as he provides some of the best arguments for the importance of their political interventions.
While many have pointed to Tocqueville’s admiration of the jury system as a schoolhouse for civic participation, I argue that Tocqueville sets up, but forgoes, the opportunity to make jurors ...empowered enough to counter the ills of democracy that he enumerates, specifically the tyranny of the majority and soft despotism. The education of American women, Tocqueville remarks, prepares them to be independent, confident and astute observers of social conditions, but these characteristics are eclipsed by their domestic responsibilities as wives and mothers. Juxtaposing two sections of Democracy in America that are normally thought of separately (juries and women), I show that Tocqueville falters in his perception of the radical enfranchisement of jurors and women because of his fears about the instability of democracy (with its delusions of equality) just as he provides some of the best arguments for the importance of their political interventions.
This paper argues that in normalizing the language of the critique of law enforcement during voir dire in the 2021 trial of Derek Chauvin, three important changes occurred: the first was that Black ...jurors were less likely to be dismissed for opinions they have long voiced, but which had been seen as the basis for legitimate dismissal, the second was that it clarified what contextual impartiality should mean for the court given widespread scrutiny of the racial discrimination within and outside of the law. Lastly, the topics covered during voir dire served to highlight precisely the types of life experiences that may be valuable for the juror’s task of phronesis, Aristotle’s term for practical wisdom, necessary for deliberation and determining the verdict. The paper includes a close reading of the voir dire responses of several jurors in the Chauvin trial.
What is the relationship between anger and justice, especially when so much of our moral education has taught us to value the impartial spectator, the cold distance of reason? In Sing the Rage, ...Sonali Chakravarti wrestles with this question through a careful look at the emotionally charged South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which from 1996 to 1998 saw, day after day, individuals taking the stand to speak—to cry, scream, and wail—about the atrocities of apartheid. Uncomfortable and surprising, these public emotional displays, she argues, proved to be of immense value, vital to the success of transitional justice and future political possibilities.Chakravarti takes up the issue from Adam Smith and Hannah Arendt, who famously understood both the dangers of anger in politics and the costs of its exclusion. Building on their perspectives, she argues that the expression and reception of anger reveal truths otherwise unavailable to us about the emerging political order, the obstacles to full civic participation, and indeed the limits—the frontiers—of political life altogether. Most important, anger and the development of skills needed to truly listen to it foster trust among citizens and recognition of shared dignity and worth. An urgent work of political philosophy in an era of continued revolution, Sing the Rage offers a clear understanding of one of our most volatile—and important—political responses.
Within political theory, it is Jean-Jacques Rousseau who is often associated with the idea that humans have an intrinsic response to the pain of others. Yet, this article argues that he should also ...be understood as a theorist of the paralyzing effects of guilt and that it was his guilt, not sympathy, which marked the most intense interpersonal moments in his life. As a counterpoint to Rousseau’s assessment, the second part examines the guilt felt by Afrikaner journalist Antjie Krog in her memoir of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Country of My Skull. Her reflections on the guilt connected to apartheid and to the experience of an extra-marital affair reveal the dynamics of (1) pleasure and (2) paralysis through guilt that seem to animate Rousseau’s writing but that he fails to address directly. Moreover, Krog’s attention to the two variants of guilt and their relationships to the possibility of repair shed light on the gaps and silences in Rousseau’s writing.
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