THE LOST ART OF DRAWING THE LINE: How Fairness Went Too Far

Howard offers a powerful though myopic look at our litigious society. When the common interest is undermined by the fear of being sued, as in America today, Howard claims, we have a social dysfunction rooted in the embrace of individual rights. Understanding justice as the right to champion individual interests and judicial fairness as neutrality between claimants provides no standard for what is good or even reasonable: "Justice today is purposeless" and has become "a kind of sporting contest." Instead of protecting society, law has become a vehicle for the pursuit of individual entitlement, while judges shy away from making value judgments. What's missing, says Howard, is authority, a recognizable source of values and leadership that asserts a hierarchy of goods in place of the undifferentiated arena of individual rights. Far from threatening individual freedom and democracy, Howard argues, authority is indispensable if we want to overcome the "structural flaw" of individual rights, with its unintentional transfer of "power for common decisions to self-interested individuals." While this argument is sensible and persuasive as far as it goes, it suffers from an oddly truncated view of the world. It's as if society consists only of individuals and government, with interests limited to individuals and the public as a whole, without corporations, interest groups and other organizations anywhere in sight. With the exception of teacher's unions, Howard strips his analysis of much of the sources of power and interest in American society, leaving his otherwise thoughtful efforts seriously incomplete. (Apr.)

Forecast: Howard's last book, The Death of Common Sense, earned him a reputation as a cultural pundit, so his 10-city tour should garner him media attention if not respectable sales.