Osler's Razor

On Friday, I was enmeshed in everything that goes with putting on an academic symposium.  I did the introductions for all the speakers, opened and closed the morning session, and then had a lunchtime debate with Margaret Colgate Love, sponsored by UST's Murphy Institute. It all went pretty well, I think.

There were a lot of great presenters-- Amy Baron-Evans, P.S. Ruckman, Adam Stevenson, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Nekema Levy-Pounds, and Margy Love.  It was the last one that made the biggest impact on me, though.

Steven Chanenson is a professor at Villanova and the chair of the Pennsylvania Sentencing Commission. Like me, he was mentored by Dan Freed, and Steve's writing has influenced my own thinking for a long time.  His presentation on Friday was titled "The Clemency Curmudgeon."

In the talk, he described a hypothetical discussion on a park bench with the Clemency Curmudgeon, who asked all the right questions about the pardon power as it is being used right now.  This curmudgeon, it seems, isn't buying the euphoria about President Obama's actions-- and isn't sure it would be right to use clemency in the way Obama has hinted he might.  This Curmudgeon even questioned the use of the phrase "Mass Incarceration" to describe the present situation.  After all, what other kind of incarceration is there?

While my own work was part of this Curmudgeon's critique, it was hard to dismiss his points.  I'll be thinking about it for a long time-- especially the parts that were dead-on-- and I can't wait to see the printed version in the Law Journal. Steve's was perhaps the most important talk of all.

That's one of the great things about the academy: We make room for intelligent curmudgeons (even fictional ones). Asking hard questions is a part of the process, and should be.

It occurs to me that perhaps we too rarely make room for Christian Curmudgeons within our own discussions of faith. We would have things to learn from that guy on the bench.