Farewell Post V: The Shark’s Farewell (Move or Die)
As editor of this blog, I would often tell contributors that a blog is a shark: it has to move or it dies. That’s why it is important to post often. But it’s also why it is good for us to change the guard from time to time. After a while, one’s posts tend to re-tread familiar ground, and it is time for me to get out of the way and let new voices come forward.
I am happy to see that some new contributing editors are already posting on the blog. I wish them and the continuing editors happy blogging. But their arrival suggests it is time for me to sign off.
I am moving to new hunting grounds. Readers interested in my post-blog scholarship (deemed “interesting and recommended” by the Legal Theory Blog) can have a look at SSRN, where my newest piece just appeared. Here’s the abstract:
Originalism in constitutional interpretation continues to grow in its reach, its sophistication, its practical applicability and its popular support. Although originalism first developed in the 1960s as a doctrine of judicial modesty, originalist judges are now far more confident in their ability to discern the Constitution’s original meaning and thus are willing to strike down legislative enactments inconsistent with that meaning. Two aphorisms by the leading practitioners of originalism sum up originalism’s journey. Justice Scalia, writing in the 1980s, conceded that originalism was merely “the lesser evil” and consoled himself with the Chestertonian dictum that “a thing worth doing is worth doing badly.” Justice Thomas places fewer limitations on his own belief in originalist method and adopts as his motto “any job worth doing is worth doing right.” The challenge for contemporary originalism is that it is not the sort of thing that G.K. Chesterton thought was worth doing badly, but it also may be the sort of thing that is very difficult to do right.
Anyone interested in my full farewells can find links to the other posts in this series below. Thanks once again to Frank Snyder for inviting me to join this blog, to Paul Caron for creating the blog network of which this blog is a part, and to my fellow bloggers, past and present. I have made a number of connections through this blog, and I hope that they will continue, as I continue to be interested in the subjects I have helped the blog cover over the past decade.