One Planet, Same Oxygen
Harry T. Cook


By Harry T. Cook
10/2/15
 
 
For some years since his appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Stephen Breyer has written in cogent and appealing prose his concurrences and dissents. Both are marked by tempered argument and exquisite reason.
 
Beyond that, which is proper to his office, he has written important books. The two I have read -- Active Liberty and Making Our Democracy Work -- illuminate what America's possibilities have ever been about. Of late, though, the realization of those possibilities has been hampered by a tiresome, partisan standoff that has reduced Congress to a state of collective idiocy.
 
Among the intractable issues just now dividing the Right from the Left is the idea that American jurisprudence could be enriched by considering and respecting the laws of other nations. Mr. Justice Breyer has suggested more than once that what some call foreign law could be of help in the interpretation of American law.
 
For that, Mr. Justice Breyer has been lambasted in the best style of the ideological Luddites of the Republican Party. The bare mention of foreign law brings forth from that asylum uninformed puffery about "American exceptionalism" cast in the language of raw nativism.
 
Consider the terms "foreign" and "foreigner." They are at best relative terms. To the Afghan, Americans are foreigners and their law foreign. To the German, Americans are foreign. Even to the Canadians. Try a border crossing these days, but not if you're in a hurry.
 
A piece of liturgical poetry that can be dated anywhere from 400 to 200 BCE and known as Psalm 24 offers a far different view than the nationalism of any country's chauvinists can provide:
 
The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and all they that dwelt therein.
 
Forgiving the deity-centered philosophy of two and a half millennia ago, one can see in that telling line the idea that humanity inhabits a common planet, breathes the same oxygen, feels the pelting of the same rain and otherwise shares tenancy, not ownership, of the planet.
 
Homo sapiens is a species that for some thousands of years has been the predominant mammal on Earth. From the manufacture of primitive tools and weapons, to enabling the agricultural revolution, to the erection of modern civilizations, Homo sapiens has emerged from the evolutionary process as Charles Darwin famously figured out.
 
Depending on what continent and what part of which continent the evolutionary process has taken place, Homo sapiens has appeared with different skin colorings, facial features and developed languages that differ in some cases widely from one another. But once known of, anyone from anywhere with above-average intelligence can, with patience and hard work, learn what we call a "foreign language." But it is neither foreign to the people who speak it nor would it be to the ancestors of such people.
 
The Homo sapiens native to the habitable parts of the Arctic has the same genome as the native of a forgotten jungle on a remote Pacific island or as one who is part of the man swarm on the streets of Manhattan, London, Beijing or Mumbai.
 
We all have in common what another liturgical document calls "this fragile Earth, our island home."* That commonality leads by logic to the idea of community, thence to cooperation. It means that one nation or several nations have not the right to behave in ways that disadvantage other nations.
 
For example, the unabated burning of fossil fuels by the industries and automobiles of First World nations -- which directly affects rising sea levels in other parts of Earth, which in turn impairs agriculture causing food insecurity for millions of people and which also salinizes drinking water and otherwise enables the spread of mortal sickness and disease -- amounts to criminal behavior.
 
Is that why Mr. Justice Breyer's enlightened commentary on "foreign law" so alarms some number of American politicians and officeholders? It is bad enough, they would say, that any U.S. military person should be tried for war crimes by another nation, but for them to concede that America in general may be culpable for the suffering of human beings far away would be completely unacceptable. They believe in the theology of "might makes right."
 
Meanwhile, if the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its partners in the nation's George Babbitt luncheon clubs are afraid of foreign law now, they should only read Mr. Justice Breyer's newest book -- The Court and the World: American Law and New Global Realities.
 
In the current iteration of America's eternal, everlasting campaign, it has been left to Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton occasionally to remind the American electorate that the nation and the world face several ecological emergencies. Republican presidential aspirants dare not mention such things because the big money each would need to cross the finish line first on November 8, 2016, would be denied them.
 
The abuse of this fragile Earth, our island home therefore can be of no account where they're concerned. They are firm in their insistence that no "foreign law" shall be allowed to interfere with America's self-centered pillaging of what are not endless resources. As a well-known bully in my hometown was wont to say, "Him that's firstest gets the mostest." That bully died young of overeating.
 
*Book of Common Prayer 1979. New York, NY. The Seabury Press. 370
 
Footnote: To the critical eye, the essay above would seem to contradict the sentiment of its predecessor by a week in which I wrote that I was pretty much done with the current political scene. Pretty much. Blame today's offering on the brilliance of Mr. Justice Breyer and on Volkswagen's deliberate technological trickery that, for profit and market renown, allowed its automobiles to spew poison into the air my grandchildren breathe.


Copyright 2015 Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.
 


Readers Write
Re essay of 9/25/15 Reading for the Pleasure of the Language
 
 
Bertha Hudson, Lexington, Kentucky:
I was once a librarian and also a Marquand lover. If one needs a refuge, reading great writing is the thing to do. That's how I keep sane here. Thanks for the endorsement.
 
Martha O'Kennon, Albion, Michigan:
I first read Maugham while on a summer vacation traveling through China on a break from teaching there.  It seemed that each town approved for tourist visitation had a book and gift shop, and many of them had novels or collections of short stories by Maugham.  Many of them were about ex-pats living in various countries.  Maugham had a wonderful ability to tell a story, sometimes with a surprising ending, and the ability to see human characters to the bone and still write lovingly about them.  Often when meeting with a fellow traveler, I would see one of Maugham's characters persisting in trying to make a country with its own virtues into America - and vow to NOT do THAT.  Many times I've recommended Maugham to a person going through a difficult time.  I'm glad you love him, too.

Judy Orbach, Beverly Hills, Michigan:
I was astonished to read your praise of Trollope as I'm nearly finished with his 800-page book, THE WAY WE LIVE NOW, and am enjoying it immensely!  I also read BARCHESTER TOWERS recently.  You are absolutely right: in his books, you encounter people you know, and wonderful dialogue.  Why did it take me so many years to discover Trollope?
 
Delores Nelson, Urbana, Illinois:
As a young woman (and that's a LONG time ago) I was an assistant librarian at a university. For a time I ran the reference room and came into contact with students who seemed to be at sea about the names and significance of great writers. Even then. Ask a college freshman today if he or she has heard of Anthony Trollope, you would be sure to get a "huh" for your trouble. Keep the tapers lighted!
 
Don Worrell, Troy, Michigan:
Beautiful essay. I'm reminded of Wordsworth's "The world is too much with us..."
 
Arthur Bridgman, Tucson, Arizona:
People ask why I go the library so much. I go there because I am surrounded by books I cannot afford to buy for my own meager collection. I check out a book and sit in the library to read it. I feel as if I am in great company. I shall take your suggestion and get acquainted with John P. Marquand of whom I had never heard until your essay of this morning. I knew about you when you wrote that column for the Detroit paper.
 
Alon Marie, Metamora, Michigan:
Good call! I'm sure that the real journalist, Walter Cronkite, is smiling down on you.
 
Clayton Russell, Knoxville, Tennessee:
I'll bet you do not own or use a Kindle. I think you like your books around you in plain sight, smiling down at you.

What do you think?
I'd like to hear from you. E-mail your comments to me at [email protected].