Omnipotence and the Law: A Psychoanalytically Oriented Analysis

Abstract

This article seeks to illuminate the effect of unconscious infantile omnipotence fantasies upon the law and some of its major officials. First, psychoanalytic discoveries about the omnipotence ideas of infants and young children are detailed, and an attempt is made to relate these ideas to the current overestimation of the status and effectiveness of international law. Then the possible relationship between such infantile notions and today's incredible litigiousness is discussed. Considered next in the light of infantile omnipotence beliefs is a series of landmark Supreme Court decisions since 1793—including the disastrous Dred Scott decision that helped to precipitate the Civil War. One of the possibilities raised is that the acceptance of the antimajoritarian concept of “judicial review” reflects the displacement of unconscious omnipotence fantasies from parents onto judges. Discussed next is the implicit logic of currently popular (but clearly unsound) Critical Legal Studies doctrines that, in effect, assign “omnipotence” both to judges and to the law they are presumably free to manipulate in the service of political goals. Finally, an attempt is made to understand why the public tends to ascribe “omnipotence” to judges and prosecutors and why the unconscious omnipotence notions of judges, prosecutors, and policemen are likely to affect their own official behavior.