Today in Supreme Court History: August 11, 1942

8/11/1942: General John DeWitt, Commander of Western Defense Command, issues exclusion order. The Supreme Court held this order was constitutional in Korematsu v. United States.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Fowler v. Adams, 400 U.S. 1205 (decided August 11, 1970): Black allows Florida candidate for U.S. House to be on ballot even though he refused to pay the $2,125 statutory fee on the grounds that a state cannot set qualifications for federal office; not enough time for the Court to weigh in before the election, and if the fee is upheld Florida can get the $ from him later (I don’t think this issue was ever resolved)

Brennan v. U.S. Postal Service, 439 U.S. 1345 (decided August 11, 1978): Marshall refuses to stay conviction based on violation of Private Express Statutes; does not believe that the Court would agree with applicants (who operated a private letter delivery service) that the Postal Service was an illegal monopoly

[Dilan Esper]

Again, I suspect given US Term Limits v. Thornton, that Black's position in Fowler was correct.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I agree.

[Dan Schiavetta]

today's movie review: A Clockwork Orange, 1971

My first review of a movie I didn't like. I saw it when it came out, in 11th grade with some classmates, well against our parents' wishes (at least mine). We had just read the book in English class. Afterward our teacher asked if they noticed my eyes getting wider as the movie progressed. I was from a conservative family and he assumed I was the same way.

In fact my eyes did get very wide at the first scene, where a gang strips a girl with a Playmate-of-the-Year body and is about to rape her when they're interrupted by the protagonist and his gang. She runs out in only her sandals. What did she do then, naked and out in the street? I was 16 and it was the first time I'd seen a naked girl on film. I can be forgiven for feeling more titillated than horrified.

But the rest of the movie was indeed horrifying. Like the book, it celebrates rather than condemns Alex's violence, which is depicted very graphically along with his sadistic glee, with no showing of the suffering of his victims who might as well be crash test dummies. The bad guys are the government, which subjects him to behavior modification to create an aversion to violence (and also to his love of Beethoven -- you can see the deck being stacked here). At the end the movie wants you to join in with him as he shakes off the therapy and joyfully goes back to being a thug and a rapist. The triumph of the individual!

Well -- I'm not on board with that. The book wasn't much better (though later I learned that the final chapter, where he regrets his past and becomes a responsible adult, was omitted from our American edition -- why???). The book and movie created my own aversion to the author Anthony Burgess, and his supercilious "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine (though when William Safire replaced him, he made Burgess look good -- at least Burgess didn't claim to have insights into black culture).

Two false narratives underlay the whole enterprise. The first was that the Communists are taking over. The book (1962) and the movie are set in 1979 Britain, which has become totally socialist and where teenage gang culture uses a lot of Russian words. Conservatives on the one hand kept telling us that Communism was an inefficient and unworkable system, while on the other hand warning us of the power of the Communist world, not only culturally but even militarily.

The other is the condemnation of behavior modification. In my psych major years there were three ideologies: psychanalysis pioneered by Freud, humanistic psychology pioneered by Carl Rogers, and behaviorism with B.F. Skinner. It occurred to me that the depiction of behavior modification as evil was actually based on the fact that, unlike the other two therapies, it works. If something doesn't work, you don't worry about it being misused. (Imagine a Bond movie with a villain who plans to take over the world with a weapon that doesn't work -- well o.k. then, go ahead Blofeld, knock yourself out.) Psychoanalysis and "client-centered therapy" don't work if the client is resistant. Beh mod works whether the person is resistant or not. As Skinner pointed out, our behavior is always being modified. We can either take it upon ourselves to do it, or sit back and let society or the media do it, and we see how badly that often turns out. In fact now that we have developed a "technology of behavior" we owe it to ourselves and our children to use it. If we don't, someone else will.

[Krayt]

I didn’t feel a need to feel joy at him being “freed” from the behavior modification at the end. It seemed sacrastic on the self-congratulatory feel good nature of stopping a “mean” procedure. The dopes in the movie express as much. Alex plays along with it in a very superficial, parody way, and they lap it up because that’s what they want to see.

Remember this was a time where violence was basically 2x what it is today, and politicians were desperate to do something about it.

Now that I think about it, the Freakonomics guy estimated the huge drop in violence in recent decades was about 1/3 increased policing, 1/3 longer sentences, and 1/3 abortions. The last was a controversial suggestion, but poor women use abortion a lot more than the average, and there were a million fewer kids growing up poor, with attendent increased chance of crime.

But look at the other two reasons: longer sentences, more police. Either of those been in the news lately as a bad thing? We are seeing the exact thing the movie knocked, hand wringing over tough stances which work in some sense, being obliviated because of feel good politics bouncing around.

Disclaimer: This observation is about 10 minutes old, and may be half-baked.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Freakanomics was following the media narrative. In fact 1) violent crime increased into the 1980s after the era of tougher sentences began, 2) abortions were mostly by affluent women and not by women from the underclass where unsupervised single parent families were a root cause, and 3) violence fell even in cities with no change in policing.

We don’t hear much about the real reasons for the decrease starting about 1991 because no politician can take credit for it and no one can make ideological hay out of it. Largely it was because the crack epidemic burned itself out. Children no longer looked up to older kids getting high and shooting each other.

“Community” (not tougher) policing might have had an effect. One example was in New York City where it was put in place by the Dinkins Administration, but crime was already falling by then as part of a nationwide trend.

[David Nieporent]

The crack epidemic burning itself out seems more like an effect than a cause.

Kevin Drum will tell you that it's all about environmental lead.

[Jerry B.]

I never thought that there were supposed to be any good guys in A Clockwork Orange. There were only takers, soulless bureaucrats, and victims.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Maybe! I saw it 50 years ago, with a limited life experience and in a different time and place. My reaction might be different now (though I have no desire to see it again).

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The biggest problem with behaviorism, for me, is that it completely rejects the human, and frankly, some of the work around the theory can't be described as anything but cruel. e.g. the wire mother and cloth mother experiments.

That being said, your remark about kids I think, undersells the problem we're facing. The Attention Economy and techniques like operant conditioning and other behavior manipulations, I believe, are causing real harm to our society and especially to children whose brains are still developing.

I don't allow my children to play any mobile games and very few non-mobile games. If they have microtransactions, achievements, or randomized rewards (operant conditioning), they are poison to a developing child. Mobile games are notorious for these things. I also don't allow my children to use mobile devices or any social media since those are both being engineered now to increase screen time, often to the user's detriment.

On top of that, we've become so much more sophisticated and better at these things that the techniques are so much more effective and often unnoticeable. You mix a little Skinner with a dash of Susstein and some sociopathic corporate greed or statist authoritarianism and you end up with real harm being caused.

Like processed foods, many tech platforms and modern devices are engineered for addiction and overconsumption. They don't care about the long-term harm caused so long as you're consuming and subscribing.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Sounds like you’re taking steps to modify your children’s behavior which is what any responsible parent should do.

Findings of experimental scientists like Skinner might be helpful. For example reward is more effective than punishment. This can be in the form of positive reinforcement (adding something they like) or negative reinforcement (removing something they don’t like).

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I'm not taking a behaviorist approach at all. I don't see my children as pigeons or monkeys.

My approach to parenting has been heavily influenced after reading books by Alfie Kohn, John Medina, and Carol Dweck. There are others, but those I feel had the greatest impact on my beliefs about parenting.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Call it what you like. You're still modifying their behavior.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Absolutely. That's what parents are supposed to do: guide, train, teach, discipline, and disciple.

I just don't do those things with my children the same way I would with a dog.

I also protect and provide. One of the things I protect them from is behaviorial manipulations by outside actors who don't have their best interests in mind like I do.

[Dan Schiavetta]

"Guide, train, teach, discipline, disciple" can be translated into behavioristic terms. (For example, "guide" = "shape".) However I don't see any synonym for reinforcement, just for punishment ("discipline").

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You can discipline your children without punishment. Those aren’t synonyms.

Discipline can be teaching right from wrong, teaching respect, teaching emotional intelligence and regulation, and it could be giving clear boundaries and rules.

You don’t see punishment and rewards in my descriptions because I don’t use those tools in my children.

There are better models for humans, then generalizing what works for pigeons and dogs. In my opinion.

Do behaviorists use punishment and reward structures on their spouses? Why or why not?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Rewards:
kind words
hugs
listening carefully
encouraging (for example, giving resources as to something the child is interested in)

Punishments:
harsh words
"time outs"
not tolerating bullsh*t
cutting off their cell phone time

You can either be conscious of what you're doing and how it's affecting your child, or not.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Is that what you do with your kids?

Give the parental love as some sort of doled out treat that they have to earn?

Or withdraw parental love as a punishment because you disapprove of their behavior?

That’s cruel.

I love my children unconditionally and I don’t dole out love as a carrot or withhold it as a stick.

You’re so rigid you can’t even imagine a different paradigm. That’s kind of sad.

[Dan Schiavetta]

“Love” is bullshit if you don’t show it.

As behaviorists put it, “You are what you do.”

Or maybe more expansively, “‘God’ is a verb.”

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You can show love without it being conditioned on some required behavior.

Maybe you're conflating "rewarding" with "reward". Expressions of love surely are rewarding. But it can be expressed unconditionally.

How would a behaviorist predict the adult behavior of a child who was only shown parental love when they were good, and that had parental love withheld when they were bad?

How would that child behave as an adult? Like a good, healthy whole adult?

[Dan Schiavetta]

In the first instance the child senses what it feels from the parent. No behaviorist denies that we have a genetic endowment and there are inborn behaviors necessary for the survival of the species — for example, taking care of the physical and mental needs of the baby. It’s what happens as the child develops that we have conscious control over and which is the subject matter of psychology and the focus of behavioral analysis (and treatment if things go wrong).

This might sound cold to you but I give it more credence than soft headed bullshit divorced from what is possible to do to or say to a child.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What sounds cold & cruel to me is using parental love as a tool to manipulate the behavior of a child.

Behaviorists:

Good boy! Now here's some love from Daddy so you be a Good Boy again!
Bad boy! Daddy doesn't love you when you're bad! Daddy doesn't want you to be a Bad Boy again!

Humanists:

I love you unconditionally, no matter what. What matters isn't that you won or lost, what matters is that you never quit. And son, you never quit. That was amazing.

I love you unconditionally, no matter what. You're extremely upset, take a sharp inhale through your nose and a long slow exhale like you're blowing out a candle. Three times, now let's talk about it.

But hey, that's just crazy nonsense that the experts say doesn't work (even though it all comes from experts!)

[Dan Schiavetta]

You are a prisoner of a cartoon version of behaviorism.

What you are describing could be called the expression of ethics. Ethics are the result of the more remote consequences of behavior.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

My comment flowed in response to your comments. But maybe I've lost the plot. It seemed that you were trying to reframe my intentionly non-behaviorist approach as some sort of ignorant behaviorist-lite. And maybe I got overly defensive.

That being said, is this a true statement:

Behaviorists believe you should train children using the same methods that you use to train monkeys, dogs, and even pigeons.

Is that a true statement?

[Dan Schiavetta]

I appreciate you stopping this train before we both drive it off a cliff.

To quote Scrooge (from a few reviews ago), "An ant is what it is, and a grasshopper is what it is." Or a dog.

We don't know what goes through the mind of an ant, or a dog (though with dogs we have a better idea). It's a continuum with some animals sharing at least some of our abilities of reasoning. The picture most people have of behaviorists derives from laboratories and rats, or Pavlov's dog. It was in that era that the experimental analysis of behavior necessarily was developed and the question is to what extent it applies to ourselves. Obviously some of it does. Just as obviously the application is different, given our different genetic endowment (though when behaviorists -- uniquely among all therapists -- deal with the profoundly retarded and the nonfunctional autistic, they have no choice but to start with the do-this-trick-and-I-will-give-you-a-snickers-bar approach which makes the kids look like pigeons pecking at buttons).

We have inborn behaviors (for example, a baby clutching anything put in its hand), and learned behaviors. Emotions are obviously important to you, BCD, and convictions, but these are behaviors that were developed to help the human race survive and endure. One of these behaviors of course is raising kids who will behave in ways that are constructive and not destructive.

Apparently this viewpoint does not attract you. Well, that's o.k., but it doesn't change the basic analysis.

Years ago I was in a "stretching muscles" class. We were on our butts, legs spread, and the teacher told us to pretend there was a string coming down from the ceiling attached to our sternums and we were being pulled up by it. There was no string, of course, but imagining it was the only way we could make that motion.

[David Nieporent]

Kinda funny, because Kohn is incredibly socialist.

EDIT: I wasn't intending this as a dig or a gotcha. I'm just rather surprised that BCD would take positive ideas from Kohn.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I know his ideology, and while I wouldn’t take his advice on who to vote for doesn’t mean I will reject his opinions on parenting. His Punished By Rewards book resonated with me. It’s been a long time since I read it, but pretty sure the analogy I used of us raising our kids like we train our dogs came from him. It just made so much sense. Why would we act like our kids weren’t little humans but some soulless monkeys needing years of punishment and rewards that will then transmogrify them into healthy human adults?

[SRG]

The film of A Clockwork Orange is a very cynical and very black comedy, IMO. I liked both book and film, and of course soundtrack.

[Dilan Esper]

A Clockwork Orange is a stupid movie- an attempt to provoke and at a stylistic statement but with an empty core.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I agree.

This might be the weirdest movie from a weird guy (Kubrick).

[Magister]

All of Kubrick's films (at least the later ones, where he directed, wrote and produced) are visually amazing and largely devoid of humanity to the point of being really depressing. The Shining kind of deserves to be that way, and the ending of 2001 is unclear enough that any interpretation is possible. But I would not watch most of them again.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I agree, I always felt Kubrick was an overrated filmmaker. Interesting that Burgess himself defended the film on its own terms, but always said he didn't think much of his own novel. He was bothered by the fact that because of the film, his worst novel is remembered and his other, better stuff is forgotten.

[Magister]

The Shining was a good move from a Stephen King book; many such films are terrible, and the better ones usually had a well regarded director, who can match King's writing skill. If there were an unknown Kubrick film discovered, I am sure I would go see it and find it visually impressive, but I am almost as sure that I would not see it a second time, ever.

(King hated Kubrick's film, at least in part for the complaints we have about Kubrick.)

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

My nominee for greatest film adaptation of a novel would go to Martin Ritt's movie of John LeCarre's 'The Spy Who Came In From the Cold." Great novel, great movie, caught the mood of the novel perfectly.

[JoeSaysStuff]

Prof. Eric Segall on Dorf on Law praises Cliff Sloan’s forthcoming book “The Court at War.”

https://www.dorfonlaw.org/2023/08/the-supreme-court-world-war-ii-and.html

I thought The Great Decision: Jefferson, Adams, Marshall, and the Battle for the Supreme Court (which Sloan co-authored) was a good basic account of the events behind the Marbury case.