NYTimes Sunday Article - A Harvard Law Professor Goes ‘Star Wars’ Crazy

For the lawyers. Too bad none of us are famous, we'd have a book deal out of our posts!

A Harvard Professor Goes ‘Star Wars’ Crazy

The occasion was the publication of “The World According to Star Wars” (Dey Street Books), by Cass R. Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former Obama administration official. It brings together themes from the “Star Wars” saga and the story of how it came to be, using that as a lens to look at the world. It’s “Freakonomics” meets the Death Star, if you will, with meditations on the bonds of fathers and sons.

snufkin wrote:For the lawyers. Too bad none of us are famous, we'd have a book deal out of our posts!

A Harvard Professor Goes ‘Star Wars’ Crazy

The occasion was the publication of “The World According to Star Wars” (Dey Street Books), by Cass R. Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former Obama administration official. It brings together themes from the “Star Wars” saga and the story of how it came to be, using that as a lens to look at the world. It’s “Freakonomics” meets the Death Star, if you will, with meditations on the bonds of fathers and sons.

@snufkin

This is awesome! I might have to buy that book. Cass Sunstein was the author of my Constitutional Law books in law school. @slade, were you taught by a Cass Sunstein law book? Who knows maybe he was even your professor?

I like how such a big gun is making things safe for deep geek analysis. :-)

From the Onion's AV Club

Cass Sunstein explains why Star Wars is like America

AVC: You use the word “fanatics” at one point in the book, just to illuminate how belief can propel ordinary people to do extraordinary things. The word has negative connotations, but as you point out, from one point of view, the rebellion is made up of fanatics.

CS: Yeah. So, the abolitionists could be understood as fanatics. They were completely focused on slavery and its horrors. That was good.

AVC: And there’s a correlation there to what Lucas says to Lawrence Kasdan about the idea of killing someone in Return Of The Jedi, which Kasdan wanted to do, and Lucas overruled him. Lucas said, “I don’t like that, and I don’t believe that.” Isn’t that sort of a succinct evocation of precisely the types of hardline political or philosophical differences that exist between us?

CS: Absolutely. What I like best about the “I don’t like that, I don’t believe that” is his clarity that the idea—that someone you love dies—if that can be prevented in art, let’s prevent it in art. I love that. I think that’s a moment when George Lucas defeats, through argument, one of the great screenwriters in American history, Lawrence Kasdan.

But you’re onto something which is deeper, which is your motivation often determines your beliefs. So, I’ve done a lot of work on this outside of Star Wars, on issues like climate change and same-sex marriage, where if you’re motivated to think something, chances are you’re going to think it even if the weight of the evidence isn’t quite there. And so it’s no surprise that people who object to the death penalty on pure moral grounds also think it has no deterrent effect, and people who like the death penalty on grounds of retribution tend to think it has deterrent effects. They like that, and they believe that. I think with climate change we’re seeing very much the same thing where those who deny climate change, they don’t like that, and they don’t believe it. Those who believe in climate change, as I do, I think it’s also fair to say that they are more receptive to confirming evidence than disconfirming evidence. They happen to be right, but their motivations are in play also.

SoloSideCousin wrote:

snufkin wrote:For the lawyers. Too bad none of us are famous, we'd have a book deal out of our posts!

A Harvard Professor Goes ‘Star Wars’ Crazy

The occasion was the publication of “The World According to Star Wars” (Dey Street Books), by Cass R. Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former Obama administration official. It brings together themes from the “Star Wars” saga and the story of how it came to be, using that as a lens to look at the world. It’s “Freakonomics” meets the Death Star, if you will, with meditations on the bonds of fathers and sons.

@snufkin

This is awesome! I might have to buy that book. Cass Sunstein was the author of my Constitutional Law books in law school. @slade, were you taught by a Cass Sunstein law book? Who knows maybe he was even your professor?

I like how such a big gun is making things safe for deep geek analysis. :-)

@SoloSideCousin

No, we didn't use any of his books and I didn't go to Harvard Law.

Guess I shouldn't be surprised that a lot of you who post on here are lawyers, there's a whole subgenre of blogs/podcasts for lawyers to discuss pop culture, including Star Wars

http://thelegalgeeks.com/category/starwars/