{"id":2921,"date":"2019-12-05T11:42:34","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T16:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/?p=2921"},"modified":"2020-09-23T20:35:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T00:35:25","slug":"projection-subjection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/2019\/12\/05\/projection-subjection\/","title":{"rendered":"Projection\/Subjection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh<\/a><\/p>\n

Book the First. \u00a0Chapter the sixth. \u00a0Of the KING\u2019s DUTIES.<\/a> \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Blackstone Weekly is growing weary of these little bitty chapters. \u00a0This one\u00a0<\/a>is only about three pages long. Still, there\u2019s always something to chew on. \u00a0Here, in the very first sentence, Blackstone explains that \u201cin consideration of\u201d the king\u2019s constitutional duties, \u201chis dignity and prerogative are established by the laws of the land: it being a maxim of the law, that protection and subjection are reciprocal.\u201d \u00a0(p. 226). \u00a0Now, in legal arguments, \u201cmaxim\u201d is one of those words that\u2019s often code for \u201cI don\u2019t have any support for this proposition.\u201d \u00a0It\u2019s like when my Aunt Mary used to tell me that if I didn\u2019t know how to pronounce some word, I should be sure to say it extra loud. \u00a0So naturally I was suspicious.<\/p>\n

At first, it did seem pretty obvious that protection and subjection are reciprocal, that is, that by giving one, you get the other. \u00a0In fact, once I started looking for it, it seemed like \u00a0reciprocal\u00a0protection\/subjection was everywhere. \u00a0There were economists explaining that the global financial meltdown happened because of relaxed government regulation (i.e., not enough subjection equals not enough protection; tsk, tsk). \u00a0There were headlines like the NY Post\u2019s \u201cObama fires GM boss<\/a>\u201d (i.e., if I\u2019m going to protect you, I\u2019m damn well going to subject you). \u00a0There was the flaw in Congress\u2019s plan to retroactively tax AIG bonuses at 90% (the same constitution that protects Congress\u2019s legislative power subjects that power to certain limits, including a ban on legislation that aims to punish individuals by stripping them of their property without any legal process). \u00a0And there was the news that Alaska and South Carolina will forgo millions of stimulus dollars because the money comes with federal strings attached (as in, \u201cwe don\u2019t need your stinkin\u2019 \u2018protection\u2019, thank you very much\u201d!).<\/p>\n

So far, so good, but then I looked back at Blackstone\u2019s statement that started me off on this quest \u2014 that law establishes the king\u2019s prerogative in consideration for his duties, because protection and subjection are reciprocal \u2014 and I realized that I didn\u2019t really understand what he was talking about.<\/p>\n

He may have meant\u00a0\u201cbecause the king subjects \u00a0himself to the law, the law protects the king.\u201d \u00a0That would make sense as part of his ongoing argument about the virtues of legally limited monarchy. \u00a0But the discussion that follows seems to suggest a different meaning. \u00a0Blackstone keeps talking about a \u201ccontract\u201d between the king and the people. \u00a0Along with his assertion that the king\u2019s prerogative is established \u201cin consideration\u201d for his duties, that sounds more like \u201cI protect you [English people], and in exchange I get to subject you,\u201d with\u00a0the King as the protector and the people as the subjects.\u00a0This familiar\u00a0Lockean social contract theory<\/a>\u00a0also seems like a perfectly plausible point for Blackstone to be making in this context. \u00a0 So it does seem like there\u2019s a point to be made here that entails a reciprocal relation between protection and subjection. \u00a0But it\u2019s hard to see that point as the straightforward application of a maxim, when it could mean two completely different things. Even the parties it supposedly applies to are different: \u00a0in the first it\u2019s the law and the king and in the second it\u2019s the king and the people.<\/p>\n

Also notice that there\u2019s nothing other than the jargon (Blackstone\u2019s \u201cin consideration\u201d or my \u201cin exchange\u201d that makes the relation between the government\u2019s protection and the citizens\u2019 subjection look agreeable, or even consensual. \u00a0Lose the contract language, and we might be talking about coercion or even logical necessity. \u00a0 Does government get to subject people\u00a0in exchange for<\/em>\u00a0protecting them? \u00a0Or is it that government protects people\u00a0by<\/em>\u00a0subjecting them?\u00a0\u00a0In a darker view, is government subjection the price extracted for government protection, or is protection just subjection in disguise? \u00a0If it\u2019s the latter, the whole contractual aspect of Blackstone\u2019s point disappears. \u00a0We\u2019re no longer talking about a trade-off to which parties agree (okay, I\u2019ll let you subject me, just as long as you protect me). \u00a0We\u2019re not even really talking about a coerced quid pro quo. \u00a0Protection always entails subjection. \u00a0It follows as the day follows night. \u00a0 In fact, in this view, protection may actually be subjection; reciprocity has collapsed into identity.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the view from Alaska, I guess, and South Carolina. \u00a0And of course it\u2019s true \u2014 at least somewhat true. \u00a0In life as well as law, once you\u2019ve got protection, you\u2019ve got some amount of subjection, because protection implies superior power. \u00a0How protect if you\u2019re not in charge? \u00a0But that can\u2019t be the whole story. \u00a0Because lots of times the less powerful member of the pair or group is called upon to protect the more powerful ones. \u00a0Just take a look at who\u2019s in our armed forces. \u00a0Sometimes the subjected one is the one doing the protecting.<\/p>\n

On the flip side, \u00a0isn\u2019t it \u00a0true that sometimes a more powerful protector winds up subjected by the protection she extends to her subjects? So long as she remains a protector, the protector is subjected, too \u2014 by her very role or duty of providing protection. \u00a0\u00a0Think of parents and children. \u00a0Or, to go back to the geopolitical, how about the U.S. and Iraq?<\/p>\n

Ugh. \u00a0Now everywhere I look I see protection and subjection,\u00a0but they never seem to go together in the\u00a0same way. \u00a0So far, just in the discussion above, here are the different protection\/subjection relationships we\u2019ve got:<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0\u00a0Because I subject myself to you, you protect me.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0In exchange for\u00a0protecting you, I \u00a0get to subject you to my will.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0I subject you to my will, and, therefore, you (must) protect me (if I say so).<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0I protect you, and, as a result, am necessarily subjected to your will (at least to the extent that I am bound to keep on protecting you).<\/p>\n

In every one of these you give protection and get subjection or give subjection and get protection. \u00a0But there the similarity ends. \u00a0 Wait a minute, is the reciprocal relationship of protection and subjection a \u201cmeme\u201d? \u00a0Just the other day I was railing against the nonexistence of any actual referrents for this\u00a0trendy term<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 can it be that I\u2019ve finally stumbled across one? \u00a0Maybe. \u00a0In any case, I\u2019m left feeling that my instinctive distrust of the \u201cmaxim\u201d of reciprocity between protection and subjection has been vindicated. \u00a0True, staring hard at the protection\/subjection pair didn\u2019t uncouple them, or make the relationship seem false or meaningless. \u00a0Instead it multiplied its meanings. \u00a0In fact, there seem to be nearly endless different ways to give protection and get subjection or vice versa. \u00a0I guess the point is that if you can imagine all these different (reciprocal) relationships between these terms in all these different contexts, then it\u2019s not at all obvious that there is anything necessary about their connection in any particular set of circumstances. \u00a0Because you can always scramble the players and the terms and set them up another way. \u00a0So the maxim holds \u2014 but it doesn\u2019t really tell you anything about what follows \u2014 or should follow \u2014 from protection on the one hand, or subjection on the other. Now what?<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh Book the First. \u00a0Chapter the sixth. \u00a0Of the KING\u2019s DUTIES. \u00a0 Blackstone Weekly is growing weary of these little bitty chapters. \u00a0This one\u00a0is only about three...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[268,255,492],"tags":[132,200],"class_list":["post-2921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jurisprudence","category-law-and-philosophy","category-william-blackstone","tag-news","tag-william-blackstone"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pasVL2-L7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2921"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3016,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921\/revisions\/3016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}