The end of the U.S. Supreme Court may happen within my lifetime. While it persists, it is an institution which will only do harm. Yes, it can be argued that the Supreme Court has made rulings which have made American society and business less oppressive to those vulnerable but this must be coupled with the many Supreme Court decisions which have upheld such abuses and sometimes even extended them. Further, the fact that Supreme Court rulings can exist as a kind of pseudo-law allow it to be a release valve for social tension. Via the Court, popular desires can be made reality without needing elected officials to tie their reputations to it. While in some systems regressive politicians would be defeated in elections in order to make such desires happen, the Court allows fragile social advancements to coexist with politicians who seek to undermine them. Now that the American constituent class (e.g. the 1%) has decided to get rid of these protections, the Supreme Court reveals how flimsy they always were.
I would describe Sonia Sotomayor as the minority leader of the Supreme Court; whatever progressive coalition exists among the justices, her voice is the most influential. It can be said that her presence on the Court has helped to blunt or avert some of the worst abuses under consideration. It is true that many important cases remain obscure and her attention in these matters is probably valuable. Despite all this, Sotomayor’s major contribution to the Supreme Court is not her specific legal expertise but her presence. By staying on the Court, she makes many liberals feel that the Court, regardless of recent decisions, remains a fundamentally good and necessary part of our society. It is not. It is one of several institutions whose purpose is to thwart popular demands in favor of the ruling class. Nothing that Sotomayor could accomplish by staying would do more for the American people than would her leaving and denouncing of the Court.
I am going to use esoteric magical language throughout this essay. This is necessary because I don’t believe we have a strong conception of the relations I will talk about outside of magic. These are concepts that we know of but that we specifically push away because we cannot prove connections empirically. What this adherence to empiricism accomplishes is a limiting of induction and deduction by forcing one to discard theories that do not have empirical evidence based on the fact of that lack itself. In most situations, this approach is very productive because things that occur in our physical realm will always leave evidence. As it concerns personality and social matters, empiricism will rarely be a sufficient lens by which to explain them. This is seen in the observation that the same or similar experience undergone by different people can result in widely varied reactions.
Marxist materialism explains evens and attitudes through a mass perspective. This is a necessary perspective and one which I draw a great deal of inspiration from. I am aiming not at explaining the mass perspective but at explaining particular perspectives considered as a group. Marxist analysis is interested in circumstance and condition; I want to analyze motivation and rationalization. This focus will necessarily take me away from empiricism and towards a different thoguht-world, around which orbits philosophy, literary criticism, marketing, art of all kinds, rhetoric, theology, and other similarly non-empirical pursuits. Truths which can be empirically verified are still important but not decisively so, while the necessity of acknowledging the effect of one’s own perspective means we must go without the security of objective fact.
The concepts of “charisma” and “spellwork” are important to understanding why Sotomayor’s presence on the Supreme Court is such a significant question. We can understand the Supreme Court as an agent with overwhelming charisma which works spells (called rulings) with widespread effects. I describe these decrees as spells so that they can be understood in a more general sense, while its “stature” is called charisma so that it is known in a particular way.
A spell is any act which, without apparent physical impetus, creates an effect in a being. In a slightly narrower sense, a spell is such an act being performed intentionally by one who we can call the spellcaster. A command as a spell is fairly straightforward to understand, but this understanding can be expanded to all types of communication. Even though sounds have a physical component and thought occurs in the biological brain, communication is not just about the manipulation of waves and chemicals but about concepts; these remain, somewhat frustratingly, much easier to access through speculation than by any physical research.
Most spells known about in explicitly occult work — such as the Solomonic tradition, Kabbalah, chaos magic, etc. — purport to create an effect in others, but this is somewhat of a misrepresentation. Almost all performed magic in history has in fact been self-magic. The reason seems obvious to me and I believe it has also been obvious to other magical theorists because a number of responses to it have been posed; these include the theory of stellar rays, the theory of correspondences, the Astral Light (or Great Magical Agent), and even the Field which I draw upon. I reject these concepts as true answers, though, and call most acts “self-magic” for this reason: there must be some communication between the caster and the object in order for a spell to have effect on them. A “love” spell cast alone with no sign given simply cannot have an effect upon someone who isn’t a witness; instead, a spell of “make her love me” really acts as “make me into someone she cannot help but want to be with”.
In my definition of a spell I said that it had to be without physical impetus; this means direct effort, such as getting someone to move forward by pushing them that way. Though communication does rely on physical qualities such as sound, sight, etc., its impetus comes from its metaphysical qualities. I apologize in advance as I’m introducing a problem that I haven’t yet solved but even the external version of this concept provides important context. To state it in a pseudo-mathematical way: the impetus of a spell is equal to the combined apparent strength of the conceptual references made, modulated by the caster’s charisma. I cannot yet tell you how the potential of such references can be determined, so we’ll leave that aspect aside for the moment. What I can tell you more about is the nature of charisma nad how the content of concepts is determined.
In this context, charisma has a specific definition: it is the quality of being particularly (or uniquely or individually) worthy of respect at least and of deference at most. Charisma is not the same thing as popularity, reliability, or even utility. It is also not self-generation. Charisma develops by interaction with the metaphysical network which I call the Field. As before, this Field has no motive force. Keeping this in mind, the Field does provide a framework for understanding metaphysical connections.
Charisma is not generated, it is conferred by those connected to the actor. By way of example, at many points in human history it was acceptable that one’s head could be cut off and publicly displayed for this or that reason; at many other points, this would have been seen as its own crime no matter the justification. The same act builds charisma in one community and possibly destroys it in another. The reason for this variance are beyond this essay but it should be understood that the variance exists. Charisma is related to acts one has done but the effect of these actions upon charisma is determine by how witnesses perceive the actor.
Two broad attributes can be used to define a particular charisma: magnitude (measured in number or size) and flavor (described as a quality or kind). I’ll speak in general terms because I cannot yet answer the problem of multiple perspectives. Magnitude of charisma is straightforward: higher magnitude means a more intense charisma and vice versa. Flavor is difficult to specify but easy to understand: it’s the content of charisma, its specific character. LeBron James and the late Elizabeth II would both rate highly on the magnitude of charisma, perhaps even equally, but their charismas have very different flavors. The Catholic Pope Francis can help further illustrate: again, the magnitudes of these figures is relatively similar, but the Pope’s charismatic flavor (while distinct) is closer to the late Queen’s than to that of King James. James is an athlete with worldwide popularity while the Queen and the Pope sit atop two of the most ancient and powerful political forces in the world. The difference in their flavors is so great that comparing James to the Queen is ridiculous outside of when the point of the comparison is to illustrate that ridiculousness.
Flavor is important when attempting to reckon the effect of charisma on any given object because the apparent magnitude of a charisma is its starting (or base) magnitude modified by the effects of flavor resonance. Charismatic flavors in the caster, the object, incidentals, and so forth can affect this resonance. A complete theory of resonance would highlight the specific mechanisms of each aspect involved but that is currently beyond my research. For instance, it is clear to me that the charisma of each being is multiple or at least multi-faceted, but this needs more study. For the moment, let’s assume that we are considering charisma at a specific point in time: the moment of spellcasting.
Rulings of the Supreme Court fall into the category of public magic. Like self-magic, public magic usually involves interactions with metaphysical concepts. Unlike it, public magic has a clear difference between caster and object. We should therefore understand public magic to be remote conceptual magic. Again, to deal with either caster or object in aggregate necessarily paves over contradictions and complexities but treating each as one being will provide a starting point for thought. The strength of concepts referenced is what gives many spells their compelling force. These rulings, however, are not aimed at beings; they are aimed at the concepts themselves. By the virtue of their position, they change the content of a concept; from here, other actors can reference the concept in this new understanding, turning ploughshares back into swords.
Concepts are structurally similar to spells but not similar in purpose or result. As spells are a communication between caster and object, concepts find meaning in the communication between their executor and their indicator. The difference is in how their qualities are measured. In spells, the flavor is entirely composed by the caster; its appropriateness in any situation is determined by observing its resonance effects. By contrast, the content of a concept is described specifically as being what the indicator understands of what the executor composed. In the case of Supreme Court rulings, the Court is the executor and the public is the indicator. The exact nature of the Court’s ruling (any caveats or alternative) is likely to be washed out as the general understanding, which is to say the indicator’s understanding, which evolves out of the “headline”, so to speak; the version of the ruling which matters is the one which has been commonly digested.
None of this gives the indicator power per se, it merely acknowledges that it is the indicator’s understanding which should be used when determining a concept’s utility. The executor still has the guiding hand; the detail may be missed but the main thrust still comes from them. The executor can alter a concept by casting a spell upon it, with the indicator standing for the spell’s object. The indicator, or some element thereof, can also cast spells upon the concept, but each indicator spell will be dwarfed in force by the executor’s magic. If it was otherwise, the roles would (most likely) be reversed.
There are two primary differences between entity called the executor and that which is called the indicator: first is number (executor being few, the indicator being many) and charismatic magnitude (executor’s being great, indicator’s being lesser). Actually, the difference in number also increases the charisma of the executor, so there is really only one primary. To become the executor, a person or group needs to achieve the highest apparent charisma of any connected entity relative to the concept in consideration. The major component of apparent charisma is not its magnitude but its resonances. Beyoncé is undoubtedly more famous than Neil Gorsuch but Beyoncé’s opinions about American law have much less weight than Gorsuch’s because Gorsuch is both a lawyer and a Supreme Court justice; these facts resonate much more strongly with legal concepts than Grammy wins and platinum records do. Even though charisma can be described using magnitude, it is important to remember that charisma is granted by others, it is not an inner attitude such as confidence. High magnitude is not directly reflective of self-esteem etc. either; one doesn’t have high charisma because they feel good about themselves, they have it because other people feel good about them.
The towering charisma of the Supreme Court was developed over more than two centuries and this development continues till this day. The primary element in its charismatic flavor was granted to it by the state which itself gains its charisma from its constituents. The matter of how the state’s charisma is composed gones beyond the scope of this essay, but I hope that you will find it self-evident that an institution created by the state has, by that fact alone, a certain weight or import. We can assume that this charisma started at a relatively high level because the Court is the technology by which one of the state’s two fundamental responsibilities managed. Forgoing a defense for the moment, I’ll simply state these responsibilities: first, the state represents the interests of its constituents to external elements; and second (where the Court has jurisdiction), the state mediates disputes between constituents.
My first thought was that it was the formal function of the Supreme Court that was the main support of its charisma. It seemed to follow that since it was able to sit in judgment over the executive and the legislature, the Court would naturally be seen as important (importance being a flavor of charisma). However, I see that this view was misguided. Institutions do not fail because they lack jurisdiction but because they lack charisma. When two groups have overlapping jurisdictions, they are usually quickly differentiated with one being seen as more important and/or more popular. If there is no rival, a group may simply fail because people no longer respect it enough to comply with its demands. In either case, jurisdiction is a component of institutional charisma and not a free-standing mark of authority.
The reason that it is important to understand the origin of the Court’s charisma is that charisma is an observable indication of the Court’s role on any issue. If each concept or concern has both executors and indicators, with the executors having outsized influence over its content, it is useful to know who the executors might be. A general rule is that the executors will be those with the highest apparent charisma in a situation, or (in other words) the highest charisma relative to the matter at hand. From this, we can infer that the executors of a concept are not fixed. Becoming a concept’s executor is a process of raising apparent charisma above the concept’s current executor. Again, this is a general rule rather than a comprehensive one. With this in mind, the natural question given our current matter is: how has the Supreme Court’s charisma been built?
The most obvious process is that of state charter. This is when the state invests a part of its own charisma into another being in order that the state doesn’t have to be directly concerned with an issue that the chartered being has charge of. Chartering does not require a sacrifice of the state’s charisma. It is instead a kind of linked emanation: though the charter’s charisma is separate from the state’s, it did grow out of the state’s charisma and the state & charter remain reflective (though not determinative) of one another. The Supreme Court of the United States was chartered by Article Three of the United States Constitution. The question of where the state gets is charisma is, like I said, beyond the scope of this piece, but let us assume that state charisma exists and is one of the primary fonts of charisma for the society at large.
For many state-run institutions and agencies, the charter represents the majority of their charismas. The Supreme Court is an exception. Its charisma is primarily built on two factors: the lack of challenges to judicial review and the reluctance of the legislature to codify Supreme Court rulings. While there are processes which could limit the Court, they are mostly not exercised. The result is that the Court effectively sits above Congress and the presidency, able to strike down so long as a case can be brought before them. On the second point, the fact that Court decisions can be treated as established law which legislatures do not need to regularize means that the Court also gains the charismatic flavor of being a lawmaking body. Rather than viewing Court opinions as if they were simply perspectives and justifications, the content of these works serve as unimpeachable prescriptions. Ultimate authority and all-acknowledged legitimacy are two arch-sources of charisma, both of which are possessed by the Court.
A concept current in American thinking is “representation”. In media and public life, we insist that many groups have some kind of representation in order to demonstrate belief in the benefit of a non-prejudiced society. The effect of this is that people who share that belief are more likely to be favorable to a particular media article, event, company, etc. Representation has also been criticized for this outcome, and with good reason. It means that “diversity” requirements can easily be filled by the most corrupt members of the represented group, helping to dupe people into lending support for ideas which are well-disguised attacks on pluralism, and so forth. This goes not only for “protected classes” but also for any group that is represented in another medium. Let’s say, for example, a group of 100 is headed by a board that is made up of 5 group members. If, when referring to a potato, 95 people say “potato” but all 5 board members say “tater”, outsiders are more likely to think that the group prefers to say “tater”. If, with the same group, the board was made up of 4 potato-sayers and 1 tater-sayer, outsiders will think 1 out of every 5 members is a tater-sayer. In both cases, the presence of tater-sayers is highly exaggerated. In many contexts, the effect of this representation is more constructive than destructive, but in some — such as with lawmaking bodies — it can become iniquitous.
Many government decisions are made with reference to public opinion, so government agencies prefer to be well-regarded by people who will be subject to those decisions. In a society with many significant divisions, representation is a ready tool for gaining acceptance from these different groups. In the case of being part of a pluralistic agency, this type of representation can give the impression that those being represented have a more meaningful part of deliberation and decision than they really do. If a Court of nine potato-sayers convict a tater-sayer, the community of tater-sayers will likely believe that the decision was based on prejudice. If instead the Court is five potato-sayers and four tater-sayers, the tater-sayer community is much more likely to view the decision as fair. This has little to do with the personal character of those on the Court, especially if that character is kept at a distance from their role. This is almost impossible for politicians who have to campaign for office but it is the norm for civil servants who are appointed; this latter group includes the justices.
To be brief and specific, Sotomayor’s presence on the Court serves primarily to alter the Court’s flavor to make its decisions more palatable to groups (such as Latinos and other people of color) without necessarily making material concessions. This is not to say that Sotomayor brings nothing, more that her contributions are brought to nothing. The fiction of neutral legalism has been collapsing these past decades, revealing that the value of so-called apolitical legal scholarship is very limited in the face of actors who are willing to run roughshod over existing legal principals in order to reach political goals. The issuing of a dissenting opinion is not an exercise of authority or of influence. It is a dead letter.
The Supreme Court has authority; but, in order to use that authority, it’s not enough to be on the Court: one has to win votes. The progressive faction is incapable of winning any case brought before the Court. Sotomayor cannot (as far as I can tell) create a majority on the Court concerning issues of government overreach and predation. She is not merely likely to lose such cases, her loss has been predicted so far in advance that the conservative faction has already announced their effectively legislative agenda for the next session. The civil rights under attack have been considered settled law for decades, including in public statements by most of the sitting justices conservative or progressive, yet it is these same justices who are upending law they were meant to uphold. Dissenting opinions cannot mobilize opinion; verdicts can. There is nothing Sotomayor can do from her position to help Americans and people across the world who are having the screws turned tighter by the covetous rich. More than this, her presence on the Court allows people who respond to progressive flavors the leave to remain faithful to the Court.
This is the damning part of Sotomayor’s continuing presence on the Court. At the very least, her leaving the Court due to the engineered impotence of her position would convince some people that the Court was losing its legitimacy. Instead she remains, refusing to take one step in search of justice, protecting the Court when it is by this point abundantly clear that true progress will begin with the Court’s complete and total abolition.
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