“For the Contrary View”: Reconsidering the Early Anti-Zoning Decisions”

When the 1926 Euclid v. Ambler decision found municipal zoning valid under the U.S. Constitution, previous state cases opposing the practice were overruled and subsequently almost forgotten. This investigation analyzes those early State Supreme Court cases to determine systematically the basis of these rejections. After constructing a contextual background of the legal arguments that could have been used by the judges, I assess cases to determine which were used, and find a dominance of concern regarding land use segregation justified by municipalities through an “aesthetics” defense. I conclude by considering links between these cases and current controversies.

Tools for public health policy: nudges and boosts as active support of the law in special situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic

In recent years, “nudging” has become a standard behavioral intervention at the individual level and for the design of social policies. Although nudges are effective, such interventions seem to be limited to a given space and time, and there is only scant evidence to support the contrary view. On the other hand, choice architects may utilize another type of intervention called “boosting,” which shows the promise of generalized and lasting behavioral change. A government can use these tools to shape public policy. Behavioral interventions such as policy-making tools have their boundaries, as does the law. We argue that nudging and boosting may serve as active local or global aids in support of the legal system under certain circumstances. Nudging and boosting can also support the legal system, especially in relation to emerging social issues or events that are unprecedented, such as the recent global COVID-19 pandemic, where certain behavioral patterns are expected, but it would be difficult or impossible to enforce them through the law alone.

Visual Culture

The chapter first reviews an old assumption that the ‘realism’ of Dante must have responded to the ‘naturalism’ of Giotto and other contemporary artists. Taken simply, this assumption is naïve and valueless. The chapter proceeds to consider the contrary view, now more prevalent, that in the Commedia Dante’s visionary mind detached itself from material images, rendering these irrelevant. This attitude is also problematized, in the light of Dante’s persistent use of visual imagery in ways which complicate the assumed distinction between words and images. Selected fourteenth-century paintings are cited to demonstrate how certain painters, like Dante in his poetry, were capable of working simultaneously in more than one register, with deliberate intent to bring the audience first into lively engagement with a naturalistically realized scene, and then to disturb that recognition, prompting awareness of a truth which lies beyond the surface. Both Dante and these artists engaged the same challenge, and deployed equivalent means.

A (Lay) Catholic Voice Against a National Consensus

In both a canon law student’s essay and in oral remarks to the 2017 Onclin Chair conference at KU Leuven, the author critiques his own country’s closed border consensus excluding admission of boat people. He argues this political consensus in Australia is at odds with the celebrated national identity of Australians. Moreover, the author identifies that the closed border consensus is contrary to the Gospel, because it does not welcome the stranger and because it betrays the universality of the love of neighbour which the Gospel demands. The author argues that the voice of the Catholic lay person is not to remain silent, but is to speak out against the injustice of the policy because the Gospel, the magisterium of the Second Vatican Council in its decree on the Apostolate of the laity, the Canon law, Catholic moral theology and the dictates of conscience all demand the articulation of a contrary view.

The Grammar of Social Power: Power-to, Power-with, Power-despite and Power-over

There are two rival conceptions of power in modern sociopolitical thought. According to one, all social power reduces to power-over-others. According to another, the core notion is power-to-effect-outcomes, to which even power-over reduces. This article defends seven theses. First, agential social power consists in a relation between agent and outcomes (power-to). Second, not all social power reduces to power-over and, third, the contrary view stems from conflating power-over with a distinct notion: power-despite-resistance. Fourth, the widespread assumption that social power presupposes the capacity to overcome resistance is false: social power includes the capacity to effect outcomes with others’ assistance. Fifth, power-with can be exercised via joint intentional action, strategic coordination and non-strategic coordination. Sixth, agential social power is best analysed as a capacity to effect outcomes, with the assistance of others, despite the resistance of yet others. Seventh, power-over and power-with are not mutually exclusive: each can ground the other.

Tools for Public Health Policy: Nudges and Boosts as Active Support of the Law in Special Situations such as the COVID-19 Pandemic

In recent years, “nudging” has become a standard behavioral intervention at the individual level and for thedesign of social policies. Although nudges are effective, such interventions seem to be limited to a given spaceand time, and there is only scant evidence to support the contrary view. On the other hand, choice architects mayutilize another type of intervention called “boosting,” which shows the promise of generalized and lastingbehavioral change. The government can use these tools to shape public policy. Behavioral interventions such aspolicy-making tools have their boundaries, as does the law. We argue that nudging and boosting may serve asactive aids in support of the legal system under certain circumstances. Nudging and boosting can also supportthe legal system especially in relation to emerging social issues or events that are unprecedented, such as therecent COVID-19 pandemic, where certain behavioral patterns are expected, but it would be hard or impossibleto enforce them through the law alone.

The Pre-Modern Period of Competition Law

The precursors to NZ’s modern competition law were the Monopoly Prevention Act 1908 and the Commercial Trusts Act 1910, but a solid body of antitrust doctrine never materialized. The Privy Council did its best (or so it seemed) in a landmark appeal in 1927 to take a contrary view from the New Zealand judges. In future decades reliance was placed upon the cumbersome British bureaucratic-style restrictive trade practices law as a model for our legislation. Yet the paramount reason for the moribund state of competition law was a strong policy preference by successive governments for direct regulation of the economy based on the unstated, but rock-solid, premise of social stability. Large-scale intervention in the economy was the norm. It took a revolution in economic philosophy to occur and that came in 1984 under the Lange Labour government. The Commerce Act 1986 is seen as a key part in the newly deregulated economy. The Act was not a natural, incremental step in the evolutionary process but a leap (saltation) forward into the “modern” era.

Speaking With Trunks, Dancing With the “Pink Elephants”

This chapter takes a contrary view of the “meta” aspect of meta-communication (where meta is defined as “behind” or “beneath”) in the online multicultural teacher education classroom, arguing that such communication inhibits learning about (content) and through (pedagogy) sociopolitically-located multicultural teacher education by enabling e-racism, e-classism, and e-sexism to operate in largely covert manners in the distance education context. Accordingly, this chapter contends that digital meta-communication on issues of race/ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and sex/gender needs to be “de-meta-ed” or made explicit in order for the kind of liberatory reflective conversation on these topics to occur that is foundational to the adequate preparation of PK-12 teachers to effectively educate all students.

Speaking Truth to Power

A recurrent feature in the last two decades of Seamus Heaney’s literary career was his immersion in classical, particularly Hellenic culture, which in itself sprang from a longstanding interest in literary translation and translating. Until recently relatively little critical attention was paid to Heaney’s role as a translator, due in part to the erroneous assumption that such activity was somehow peripheral to his literary project, rather than a significant element within it. Taking its cue from a contrary view first voiced by Alan Peacock, this essay offers a detailed analysis of The Burial at Thebes, the second of two of Sophocles’ plays adapted by Heaney, evaluating the quality of its poetry, tracing connections between it and Heaney’s other writings, identifying the contexts which helped shape its creation, and citing those crucial instances or clinamen where Heaney diverges from previous translators to forge ‘something new’.