{"id":7439,"date":"2009-10-13T09:22:41","date_gmt":"2009-10-13T14:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=7439"},"modified":"2009-10-13T12:01:45","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T17:01:45","slug":"in-defense-of-negative-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/10\/in-defense-of-negative-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"In Defense of Negative Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ABT--OffsideBBC\"Ed Fallone’s post<\/a> last week on finding negative space in the Constitution got me to thinking about the uses – and dangers – of metaphors in legal thinking. What does it mean for there to be “negative space” in the Constitution. We could think of it, as Ed does, like the open areas in a soccer match (or, for that matter, a football game). Creating negative space opens possibilities. Drawing a defender away creates opportunities.<\/p>\n

Ed’s post plays off the fact that the United States Constitution, unlike the Wisconsin Constitution, creates a government of enumerated – and not plenary – powers. (This is one of the reasons that the state constitution looks rather different than the federal charter.) Ed sees the negative spaces as areas of opporunity, but emphasizes filling those “empty spaces” where the Constitution has not created federal authority with … federal authority. The negative space is for government – at least where exigency is thought to be served by the expansion of state authority.<\/p>\n

It will surprise precisely no one that I see it differently. In fact, to continue our soccer metaphor, improperly invading them (as the image at the top of this post illustrates) leaves us offside.<\/p>\n

I love Escher prints and one of the reasons is that show us how what artists refer to as “negative space” – the interstices between displayed objects (or what seem to be interstices) – can be put to use; can be turned into something.<\/p>\n

But isn’t it usually something else? Birds rather than fish. The opportunity presented by negative spaces is that they allow the creation of something else. In constitutional terms, they prevent breathing room for the creativity of the states and civil society. That is why textualism – seen as an attempt to remain faithful to the original solution in a contemporary context – is hardly as discredited as Ed suggests.<\/p>\n

But if the Catholic notion of subsidiarity tells us something (and I hope it does since I have two papers in progress on the idea), it is that the “negative spaces” left for\u00a0(more properly belonging to<\/em>) individuals and mediating institutions are not open areas waiting to be occupied. They are places for the exercise of and respect for human subjectivity.<\/p>\n

Of course, exigencies\u00a0will always create pressure for action, notwithstanding the old constitutional debate about whether emergency can create power. Dissastification with the Contitution as an obstacle to power – expressed in different ways by the left and the right – has a long history. Woodrow Wilson was an advocate of a living Constitution, writing that “”Government is not a machine, but a living thing. It falls, not under the theory of the universe, but under the theory of organic life. It is accountable to Darwin.” The Constitution could, he believed, mean “one thing in one age, another in another.”<\/p>\n

This is where textualism and subsidiarity prove to be something other than two sides of the same federalist coin. Textualism seeks legal sanction. What have we agreed the law is? If the constitution is to mean something else for a new age, there must be political assent to that new meaning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Subsidiarity makes a claim about the nature of human beings and the proper form of social organization. What should the law be? Limited government does not reflect an archaic social understanding but an enduring truth about human beings.<\/p>\n

Both suggest that negative spaces are, as Ed’s soccer and jazz metaphors suggest, places of creativity. But, as in an Escher print, that creativity is not served by filling them in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Fallone’s post last week on finding negative space in the Constitution got me to thinking about the uses – and dangers – of metaphors in legal thinking. What does it mean for there to be “negative space” in the Constitution. We could think of it, as Ed does, like the open areas in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-constitutional-interpretation","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}