I just started Law School (yesterday!) and one of the major focuses of the first classes in each course was this question. We were asked to define the law in our own words. What is the purpose of law? This question received answers like “civilizing of society”, “justice” (which was further defined as incorporating concepts like mercy, order, peace, punishment, equality, and truth), and “serving the public”. I found that I was always answering “protection of the weak.”
When I read the link I gave you in today’s Spark, I wept. Not just for the position this woman was in, and not just for the position so many of my fellow Americans, fellow humans, are in, but for her loss of faith in “the process”.
If you vote, you acknowledge that you believe in the system. And to believe in the system when you’re at the very bottom, […] is fucking painful. You either say the system works and you’ve earned your place, or you concede that there is something wrong and there might not be any way to fix it.
This is why I’m in law school. Because I believe in the system. And because I know it fails.
1 response so far ↓
1 wren // Aug 26, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Law is a method of applying organized punishment to those who don’t play nice.
Thinking about what law is reminds me of a story I heard on NPR quite some time ago about European towns removing signs, sidewalks, curbs, etc from streets and their accident rate going down. An example of one such story is here. I think it’s interesting because it shows in a way, that laws can make us lazy.
I think laws have a place. I wonder how much they impact on the front end as far as a deterrent. I see their effectiveness is on the backend - retribution - and it is necessary because when punishment hurts, it can become the front end deterrent.
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