Getting to where? On Peace Making and Law Teaching at Harvard Law School: (or, Some Private Hope and Public Irony)

Abstract

The paper offers a critical reading of the intellectual conditions and educational message offered at Harvard Law School. It is argued that despite the apparent opposition of critical and practical forms of the curriculum, both positions are founded upon versions of pragmatism. On the one hand stands the ironic detached intellectual, who, in Pierre Schlag’s words has “nowhere to go.” Against (or beside) him/her, stands the practical peacemaker-businessman, who offers utopically friendly, “popular” ideas about ‘Getting to Yes’ and ‘win-win.’ While the “intellectual” character operates in a diverse and politicized domain of discourse, the negotiation scholar inhabits a unitary and a-historical discourse. The opposing genres of discourse they produce is critically analysed through a reading of texts by Ronald Dworkin, the writer of the mythical script of the jurist intellectual, Roger Fisher and Robert Mnookin, current negotiation prophets. The pragmatics of this couple is posited as capturing the educational message of the school, also as a cultural icon.