why torts?

The new machines [of the Industrial Revolution] had a marvelous, unprecedented capacity for smashing the human body.

– Lawrence Friedman, 2005
A History of American Law

I simply love this quote. There's something spectacular about the words "marvelous, unprecedented capacity for smashing the human body" that really speaks to me.

AND, perhaps more importantly, they helped me to understand the purpose of the law of torts. In a complex society such as we now live in (thanks to the machinery made possible by the industrial revolution) unintended injuries are unavoidable. The costs of these injuries can either be left to lie where they fall, caught in a well-weaved social welfare net, or distributed in some other way.

Tort Law functions as the third option. Since Capitalist America won't be having any of that social welfare stuff, but we still hold dear to ideals such as equity, Tort Law serves to distribute the costs of injuries more evenly among the members of society. (Caveat: My understanding of all this may yet change; for instance, I can't yet speak to intentional torts; it is, after all, only the 2nd week of class.)

Regard Maxine Hammontree, who was working in her bicycle shop one sunny afternoon when a car comes crashing into the wall, injuring her and damaging her shop. The driver, Tom Jenner, suffered an epileptic seizure and lost control of his car. Maxine files a tort action to gain access to Tom's insurance, and in doing so seeks to distribute the costs of her injury where it can better be absorbed.

Nevermind the outcome of the case or the finer points of law I've been analyzing for a week. It was the first case in Torts for a reason: it perfectly illustrates the need for the Law of Torts. Folks get hurt all the time for reasons that were out of their control. They incur medical bills, and sometimes they can't go back to work. They need help, and often there's not any available unless an action can be brought based on the law of torts.

I used to think tort law was a flimsy mechanism by which greedy lazy folks leeched off of large corporations. Now I see that tort law exists for a genuinely good reason, which makes me much more interested in the subject matter of this class.

abortion in historical perspective

I wrote this a while back, but came across it recently and realized that it ought to be posted here:

Abortion has always been a women’s issue. It has not always been a medical issue, or a legal issue, but it has always been an issue of personal liberty and reproductive freedom for women.

As a historian-in-training, I’m convinced of the value of perspective. All too often people don’t stop to consider the larger picture, and so they fail to see the context surrounding our many “contemporary social problems.” I think that, just as with any number of other such problems, abortion can and should be analyzed and considered in historical context; not as some abhorrent aberration, but as the result of complex historical happenstance. By seeking to understand the history surrounding the current debate we can reach a more nuanced, profound comprehension of the issue.

This is by no means meant to be an exhaustive telling of the history of birth control; rather, it is intended as a sketch of the sexual politics and power that have held sway over women’s lives for so many millennia, which is being played out presently, in part, in the abortion debate.

Before the advent of a reliable oral contraceptive in the 1950s, women’s lives were controlled by birth. Prior to that, a woman could not exert much control over her sexual and reproductive functions – that was the province of her father, her husband, or her brother. There was no such thing as reproductive freedom; ordinary women’s very lives were at the mercy of their husband’s sex drives. Who can imagine the countless sorrowful women who died in childbirth or from pregnancy complications? And how many of those pregnancies were unintentional?

Abortion is a form of birth control. For as long as women have been sentient they have dealt with issues of birth control, including abortion and infanticide. Since the dawn of civilization The Powers That Be have legislated dictates proscribing when and how such acts are acceptable. These are not new issues.

Women have not historically been afforded the personal liberty to determine for themselves when they might reproduce. They have been beholden unto their husbands' desires, and not free to decide whether or when they wanted to be mothers. It was a given: women were, by their biological nature, wives and mothers.

Only in the modern world have women been granted the freedom and – through the birth control pill and other, newer contraceptive innovations – the license to exercise any significant influence over the sexual and reproductive aspects of their persons. The abortion debate is about how much reproductive freedom society is willing to allow women. It is not about the sanctity of human life; that is an issue in the debate, no doubt, but it is not the central issue. The central issue of the abortion debate is female autonomy, and it always has been.

Women have always sought to control their procreative function — be it via contraception or abortion or infanticide — as a way to exert some measure of influence over their lot in life, and they always will. And that is precisely why they continue do so today, and why ardent feminists will always be in favor of granting women access to safe abortions.

manufacturing the desire to consume

Thanks to Mark Bernhardt I've been able to recognize advertising as another socio-cultural innovation that wields great power in society. Unlike race, gender, and the rule of law, however, advertising is wholly of the modern age.

I'll have to gather my thoughts about this before I can write at length, but I wanted to pen blog the idea while it was still fresh.

At this point though it seems so obvious that advertising is indeed a socio-cultural innovation that I'm ashamed I didn't recognize it as such sooner.

Note to self: elaborating on how advertising is a socio-cultural innovation will help me in my quest for a working definition of socio-cultural technologies, i.e., stating the ways that it functions as such will help me identify the crucial criteria...

gender: a primordial socio-cultural innovation

Gender constructs constitute one of the most fundamental organizational mechanisms of human society. This has been almost universally true throughout time and space. The practical implications and the real consequences of this fact have profoundly impacted the course of human history. For this reason the phenomenon of gender, as opposed to the existence of two biological sexes, demands extensive inquiry. I could dedicate my life to pursuing myriad avenues of research into the varying application of gender constructs in human society and the resulting influences on world events.

As a bit of an aside:
Likewise, technology - from the plow to the cellular telephone - has profoundly influenced the course of human history. Technological innovations that allow for changes to human society deserve investigation, particularly those which directly and indirectly engage socio-cultural innovations.

technological dependence

It seems to me that even a cursory perusal and/or casually inquiring glimpse of the history of humanity indicates an intimate relationship between the domination of humankind over the rest of the planet and our technological innovations. Just think of how obsessively humanity has created tools and made the very best possible use of them throughout time. This begs the question: does the evidence really support humanity's seeming dependence on technology as the sole mechanism of progress?

thoughts on case studies to investigate

The most interesting cases of human technological advancements are those wherein socio-cultural and material technologies come together and create progress. Other areas of interest include those wherein socio-cultural and material technologies combine in ways that are more confrontational than harmonious.

{As a philosophical aside, one must wonder: what exactly is progress?}

Robert McElvaine noted the instance of gender roles and agriculture occurring close enough in time to influence and propel the furtherance of one another in a sort of symbiotic, mutually dependent relationship.

Indeed, other examples abound throughout the history of humanity, such as:

Religion as a socio-cultural technology that aided in the consolidation of power wielded by early city-state rulers;
Spoken language as a socio-cultural technology that led to the development of the material technology of a written language;
Racism as a socio-cultural innovation that made feasible the material technology of a slave-labor system in the United States;
the Rule of Law as a socio-cultural technology which led to the legitimization of socio-political power structures, state sovereignty, and the like;

and countless others...

There are any number of instances where socio-cultural and material technologies have interested and interacted to profoundly affect the course of human history, if only I train myself to consider the world in such a manner.

defining technology

It occurs to me that it will be necessary that I develop a working definition for 'technology' if I intend to write or think extensively about it, and especially if I intend to make the case that ethereal things like race and gender ought to be classified as technologies.

Back in 2006, in my very first semester as a university student, I took a class called The History of Science and Society. Somehow, although I was interested in the class, I didn't realize at the time how profoundly that very idea - science and society - would affect my future studies and the very course of my life's work.

One of my first assignments in that class was to submit a definition of technology. At that early stage, before I had done much thinking on the matter, I submitted the following:

Technology is the body of knowledge that members of a society apply to their physical environment to meet their survival needs.

-- from Renzetti, Claire M., and Daniel H. Curran. Living Sociology. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1998.

Truly this is was a fairly good starting point considering how little I knew two years ago. Nevertheless, here I find myself still struggling to come up with a good, solid definition that will allow me to apply the term 'technology' to both material and socio-cultural innovations.

So far, I think I can say this:
Technology is the implementation of a method to manipulate the natural world to the advantage of humanity or in such a way as to further 'progress.' (Defining progress, of course, would be the stuff of another discussion entirely.)

While this may be a good beginning in that it allows for the expansion of 'technology' to go beyond material technologies, it does not succinctly and specifically convey my meaning that the term ought not be so narrowly defined as to only refer to physical manipulation of the environment. Alas, it does not readily convey the idea that the manipulation of the social environment (which is, after all, a part of the natural world since humans evolved as social creatures) is a form of technological advancement as well.

I must work on this. A good place to start doing this would be to draw comparisions between material and socio-cultural examples of human ingenuity, and I've got an entire career ahead of me to figure all this out.

new semester's eve

Tomorrow marks the official beginning of my last semester as an undergraduate. Yay!

As for today, I had a conversation that resulted in some food for thought…

Husband and I were discussing computers and microchips and transistors. Before long the conversation had moved to digital vs. analog computing. The interesting conclusions reached were (1) I am an analog computer, and (2) digital technology represents one of those revolutions that will forever change the way humans exist.

Both of these ideas demand further consideration and investigation.

a few socio-cultural technologies

In keeping with my new theory, I’ve been noticing instances of socio-cultural technologies everywhere. Here’s my preliminary list:

• gender roles
• religious dogma
• eugenics
• race
• kinship systems
• nationalism

science, society, and my academic future

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since the semester has ended (and not enough reading of bound, properly published materials - although I’ve certainly been doing enough online, digital materials), and I believe that I want to pursue my graduate studies in the history of science and society.

It makes perfect sense! For what is agriculture, and the social changes that accompanied agriculture - which so facinate me! - but a case study in the ancient history of science and society? Research avenues would abound, and the field would give me room to study ancient technologies as well as more contemorary technological phenomena.

I have this idea to redefine technology to include not only material adaptations made by humanity, but also less tangible adaptations, specifically, socio-cultural technology. And I wonder, is this allowed? Hasn’t someone else thought of this before? And, if they have, can I find a unique perspective?

Obviously, socio-cultural technology and material technology are intimately connected to one another. These relationships are what I want to study, but I have to pick a single inquiry that I can realistically pursue within the context of a master’s thesis. . .

I think the next step is to arrange a metting with the professor who first introduced me to the history of science and society to ponder potential research topics. . .