An age old question hit me on the head today and forced me down a path that I probably wouldn’t have wandered down if left to my own devices. The question I’ve been pondering deals with the issue of facts verses reality or in today’s more scientific jargon – which side of the brain is going to dominate. Now as a child, I remember my father railing on the subject of facts verses emotion, usually in the context that women were non-factual thinkers and men were. There definitely was the inference, if not the outright insinuation, that men were somehow superior because their minds were fact-based. That was then and this is now. I realize that I have both capacities. I can do fact and I can do emotion.
Today, the question of fact verses emotion is usually couched in a discussion of which side of the brain controls. There are those who maintain that a successful propaganda program hits the emotional side of the brain while rational thought hits the other side. It could be true. I don’t know. However, I do recognize that trial lawyers use this phenomenon, perhaps without conscious thought. The prosecutor uses an approach which goes to more toward factual analysis while the defense counsel is more prone to emotive arguments.
The whole question of fact verses emotion snuck up on me today by way of a stupid Facebook cartoon. It was one of those insipid lawyer jokes that makes its way around the internet, gets rediscovered and makes its way around again. Picture this. A trial is going full force. The judge is looking very judgmental wrapped in his black robe of power. A lawyer is at the podium making lawyerlike arguments. The other lawyer is seated at counsel’s table taking copious notes. The court reporter is feverishly getting it all down to preserve appeal rights. The twist is that instead of writing down the actual testimony, the court reporter is writing it down as a novel. She records the proceedings thusly:
“The defendant appeared belligerent under the prosecutor’s merciless hammering. His hands shake uncontrollably under the intense probing. Beads of sweat break on his brow. He feels the perspiration drip off his nose. He is uncomfortable in his suit and tie, something he never wore while free but something that his attorney insisted that he wear for his testimony. He squirms in his chair and takes a gulp of water. His rage swells from within. He is losing it; a meltdown is erupting into a murderous rage. He lunges at the prosecutor. ‘I did it! Yes, I did it and I’m glad,’ he screams as he dives onto the prosecutor and starts punching him with angry blows.”
Of course, this isn’t the exact wording used in the joke. I had to adlib a bit here because I like a good story, and well the joke just didn’t cut for me, but, you get the idea. The type of descriptive narrative that a storyteller must engage in is very different from the world that I have inhabited for over forty years. My world is of the old Dragnet variety – you know, “just the facts, ma’am” type of reality that doesn’t like embellishment. Like a mathematical formula, facts lead to a predictable and of course, right conclusion. This has been hard for me to learn because I’ve always liked a good story and somehow, ‘just the facts’ doesn’t make very interesting reading. As I slip from the world of careful lawyering to storytelling, I realize you can take twists and turns along the way.
Too, bad this has taken me so long to figure out. You can have all the drama – all the intensity of court without the drudgery of facts. Sorry dad. You lose on this one. Like I said, I can do either fact or emotion. They both have their place.
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