An exact parallel to the case of married life, is to be found in the
common case of hospitality. You go into a handsome, well-appointed
house, full of well-behaved people. You observe that one of the company
exerts himself in every possible way to promote the enjoyment and to
provide for the amusement or occupation of the rest, and that he in all
cases studiously though unostentatiously takes, in a certain sense, the
lowest place. You are told that this man has an undoubted legal right to
order all the rest out of his house at a moment's notice--say in a storm
in the middle of the night--to forbid them to touch an article of
furniture, to open a book, or to eat a crumb of bread: and this appears
harsh; yet if he were deprived of that right, if the presence of his
guests rendered its existence doubtful for a moment in any particular,
not one of them would cross his doors; matters go well, not because the
master of the house has no powers, but because no one questions them,
and he wishes to use them for the general comfort of the society.
Now that I think about it, this is relevant to the Bloomington Faculty Council's
revision of the Student Code, on which I post below. Most of the procedures for student
to change grades or to be disciplined seem based on the idea that unless professors and
administrators are rigidly constrained, they will be tyrannical and unjust, out to
oppress the students and forbid them even the most reasonable opportunity to present
their side of the case. As with so many university, procedures, I bet that (a) this
attitude was not inspired by any actual cases, just by possibilities, and (b) the result
is not any extra protection, because the procedures are so obscure and complicated that
they are largely ignored.
[in full at 04.02.20b.htm . Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]
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