There is a tradition in the US Supreme Court for justices in the minority to write a “dissent.”
I used to wonder why these mattered until I read Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s note on dissents – “Dissents speak to a future age. It’s not simply to say, ‘My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.’ But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view.”
It is a beautiful articulation of why dissents matter.
It is also a useful reminder about playing the long game on disagreements that matter to us.
