
Why Do So Many Judges Cite Jane Austen in Legal Decisions? - pepys
https://electricliterature.com/why-do-so-many-judges-cite-jane-austen-in-legal-decisions-52e44f96fd81
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sixhobbits
"So Many" == "27 times in American legal decision"

And half of these 27 'don’t engage with her work beyond the first line of
Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man
in possession of good fortune must be in want of a wife."'

And from some of the examples given, the author includes cases that merely use
the phrase "It is a truth universally acknowledged..." followed by whatever
the judge is arguing.

So in fact very few judges have used a phrase that is now very much within
common usage in English, and which has obvious appeal in legal arguments.

The article then rambles on about Austen and gender and law with no apparent
point, argument, or goal.

Nice idea, but looks like the data didn't back up the point the author wanted
to make so they just dumped the words out anyway.

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jrq
You sewed it up! Excellent comment.

Statbait blogging is so irritating, and I see it all the time, where some
seemingly interesting observation is twisted by someone's pet data mining
project to support a crappy blog article.

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politician
> Since the first published citation to Emma in 1978, Jane Austen’s works have
> been invoked 27 times in American legal decisions, including references to
> Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and, of course, Pride and Prejudice.

Please add (<=27 judges) to the title.

The article was neat, but the headline is clickbait.

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fjsolwmv
Betteridge's Law for the new generation: If a headline asks "Why Do...?" The
answer is "They Don't."

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digi_owl
Or "if question mark, assume clickbait".

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Doxin
If the title is a question the answer is usually no. If the answer was yes
there'd be no need to formulate it as a question.

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raincom
Jane Austen shows up in many scholarly discussions about morality and ethics;
after all, legal discussions in many cases appeal to morality.

MacIntyre discusses about Jane Austen in his book "After Virtue"

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osteele
The works of the philosopher J. Austin, author of _How to Do Things With
Words_[1] (and the wonderfully titled _Sense and Sensibilia_[2]), seem
eminently more relevant to law, and I hope are cited as well.

Austin writes about “performative utterances”[3] such as “I promise I will
give you a dollar” and “I pronounce you man and wife”, which by their
utterance become true.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin#How_to_Do_Things_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin#How_to_Do_Things_with_Words)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_Sensibilia_(Austin)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_and_Sensibilia_\(Austin\))

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance)

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bshepard
This is from the section of Edward Said's "Culture and Imperialism and Jane
Austen, and feels, in some sense, like a helpful clue about the value of
Austen's work to recent US legal culture.

"As in Austen's other novels, the central group that finally emerges with
marriage and property "ordained" is not based exclusively upon blood. Her
novel enacts the disaffiliation (in the literal sense) of some members of a
family, and the affiliation between others and one or two chosen and tested
outsiders: in other words, blood relationships are not enough to a sure
continuity, hierarchy, authority, both and international."

The full section from the book is here: [http://oldemc.english.ucsb.edu/emc-
courses/JaneAusten-2011/A...](http://oldemc.english.ucsb.edu/emc-
courses/JaneAusten-2011/Articles/Said.Culture%20and%20Imperialism_Warner.pdf)

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greggyb
What is with the editorial meme of putting direct quotes of the article you're
reading in line with the text of the article?

I've seen this across media. It almost makes sense to me in print (e.g. a
magazine), because you can see the whole of the article at once, spread across
the pages.

These quotes are often spread out to, I guess, break the flow of
rendered/printed paragraphs.

In web content it seems a bit meaningless to me. This article is particularly
terrible, as the quotes immediately follow the article text they are quoting.

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celticninja
In print media this made sense because you saw the entire article and these
quotes would be picked out. Then upon reading the article you then read the
quotes in context. On the web they usually appear directly before or after the
sentence and make no sense to include. Especially when you take into account
mobile users where there is usually no space between these quotes appearing
and their use in the article.

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billfruit
I suppose Dickens especially his 'Bleak House', is frequently quoted by
Courts, atleast in most of the Commonwealth.

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walshemj
Far more Judges quote Cicero and other classical authors I bet

