Abstract
Human beings often see coherence and planned design when neither exists. This is so in movies, literature, history, economics, and psychoanalysis – and constitutional law. Contrary to the repeated claims of George Lucas, its principal author, the Star Wars series was hardly planned in advance; it involved a great deal of improvisation and surprise, even to Lucas himself. Serendipity and happenstance, sometimes in the forms of eruptions of new thinking, play a pervasive and overlooked role in the creative imagination, certainly in single-authored works, and even more in multi-authored ones extending over time. Serendipity imposes serious demands on the search for coherence in art, literature, history, and law. That search leads many people (including Lucas) to misdescribe the nature of their own creativity and authorship. The misdescription appears to respond to a serious human need for sense-making and pattern-finding, but it is a significant obstacle to understanding and critical reflection. Whether Jedi or Sith, many authors of constitutional law are a lot like the author of Star Wars, disguising the essential nature of their own creative processes.
Highlights
Human beings often see coherence and planned design when neither exists
Contrary to the repeated claims of George Lucas, its principal author, the Star Wars series was hardly planned in advance; it involved a great deal of improvisation and surprise, even to Lucas himself
Serendipity and happenstance, sometimes in the forms of eruptions of new thinking, play a pervasive and overlooked role in the creative imagination, certainly in singleauthored works, and even more in multi-authored ones extending over time
Summary
Do narratives cohere? In literature? In history? In law? In individual lives? Human beings think so. He knew that Obi-Wan Kenobi was responsible for the horrific injuries that put Darth Vader in a kind of mechanical armor He knew that Luke Skywalker, Vader’s son, would redeem his father by turning him from the dark side. As Chris Taylor shows in his dazzling, fun, and fact-filled book, the Star Wars series was hardly planned in advance; it involved a great deal of rethinking, improvisation, and surprise (even to Lucas). (To those who are interested in network externalities, coordination problems, solidarity goods,[5] informational cascades, and reputational cascades,[6] there is a treasure trove of material here.7) But as we shall see, the composition of the Star Wars series, and its multiple twists and turns, tell us a great deal about the nature of the production of narratives in general, including those that have many authors, such as constitutional law.
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