Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South View Post
Humane is not anymore concrete than impartial. People are simply more willing to admit their biases rather than their lack (or differing view) of humanity. Why would we even discuss Rand? She's an irrelevant thought exercise for privileged adolescents.
If there is partiality, but no impartiality, and humaneness is a form of partiality, then you could say it's concrete whereas impartiality isn't. The problem is different manifestations. If your worldview holds that goodness and growth come from suffering, struggle, and conflict, then mercy and kindness could be inhumane. It's the problem you note above, in that if you want "better" judges, or jurors, or legislators, what you're really asking for is "better people", which is practically untheorizable in a meaningful way.

I don't think so. The marches and ideas themselves were very unpopular. What tipped the balance was laws that the NAACP fought for and the distaste for outright violence that began to happen in the 50s and 60s. Scratch that, violence was always happening, there was a tipping point then though. Till, 16th street, Mississippi burning all moved white America while the protests hardened them.
I'm not so sure; the popularity of the protests is a separate matter anyway, from their efficacy. And like I was saying, it probably isn't helpful to think of the relationship between judicial and social as a chicken-egg problem, the two processes interact with one another. Also, of course, there's the third process you are forgetting, one that was clearly influenced by grassroots activism and protest: legislation at the state and federal levels.

The most forceful argument for the efficacy of bottom-up social change is probably in the gay marriage example; SCOTUS justices are people exposed to the same trends, so it's understandable if these affect their attitudes and assumptions over time. A judge's very understanding of a question is changed, beyond recognizing 'which way the wind is blowing'. I would add the gun rights issue as another case of a judicial framework on the shoulders of long-term social change, although the social change there was more top-down from advocacy groups...