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presumably better set of political concerns and values to replace
those previously dominant.
It is intriguing to note the similarities between a neoconser–
vative such as Glazer and self-professed radicals such as Kennedy
and Tushnet. Whatever their vast differences about desirable public
policy, both camps join in challenging the claim of judges to be
speaking merely as "impersonal messengers" - or peculiarly author–
itative interpreters - of textual materials. Both call on their readers
to reject the "imperial" claims of judges in favor of some other under–
standings of the law . Glazer, of course, might oppose the judges by
arguing that they have deviated from the "genuine" textual Constitu–
tion. Critical legal scholars, however, more influenced by the her–
meneutics of indeterminacy, cannot offer similar grounds for their
criticisms.
Both the neoconservative and radical critics of the claims made
in behalf of contemporary legal doctrines have, of course, been sub–
jected to intense criticism themselves. Owen Fiss of the Yale Law
School, for example, has vigorously labeled as "legal nihilism" the
views of persons like Tushnet and Kennedy. Indeed, the reader
should know that I have also been the brunt of Fiss's attack for an ar–
ticle in the March 1982
Texas Law Review
entitled "Law as Litera–
ture." Building on the views of Fish and Rorty, I concluded:
It would obviously be nice to believe that
my
Constitution is the
true one and therefore, that my opponents' versions are
fraudulent, but that is precisely the belief that becomes steadily
harder to maintain. They are simply
different
Constitutions.
There are as many plausible readings of the United States Con–
stitution as there are versions of
Hamlet,
even though each inter–
preter, like each director, might genuinely believe that he or she
has stumbled onto the one best answer to the conundrums of the
texts .
It is no surprise that Fiss views this "nihilism" as a force that "must be
combatted and can be, but perhaps only by affirming the truth of
that which is being denied - the idea that the Constitution embodies
a public morality and that a life founded on that morality can be rich
and inspiring." Fiss, very much like Dworkin, views the task of
judges as "articulat[ ing] and elaborat[ing] the true meaning" of those
values found in the constitutional text. Fiss indentifies what he sees
at stake in the debate: "[T]his nihilism calls into question the very
