deucedeuce

Module 5 blog

MODULE 5

Reading Content

Much of the Module 5 reading was relevant to the essay question posed by Dr. Mentor, regarding whether the courts and law (in general) are an effective tool for social change. Based solely on the reading, a constructive argument could be made for a "yes" OR "no" reply because the reading presented the reader with sufficient information and explanations to support both sides.

The first reading, presented by Walker, talks about administrative law pertaining to police departments' policies and procedures and their effectiveness in controlling the behavior of police. He also talks about how pressures by the public and police department administrators pressure police officers to "get the job done" and make arrests, obtain evidence and secure confessions. This pressure to produce, in turn, causes officers to bend and even break the rules of law in order to get an arrest. Specifically, Walker talks about restrictions and limitation of discretion which have been put on police officers in order to avoid rule breaking and possible overturned convictions and law suits. References to Supreme Court cases such as Garner, Mapp, and Miranda are made to support his claims.

Lee and Visano, in "Official Deviance in the Legal System," define official deviance as "deviant actions taken by officials which violate the law and/or the formal rules of the organization, but which are clearly oriented toward the needs and goals of the organization, as perceived by the official, and thus fulfill certain informal rules of the organization." In stating this, they remove the focus on the individual official who misuses their office for personal gain and shift it toward the official who violates the law solely for the sake of his/her organization. They talk about "dirty tricks," which they define as "illegal break-ins and wiretappings, kidnapping, theft of documents, faking of documents, and even arson," and how these actions are practically expected of officials in agencies such as the CIA and FBI, stemming from pressures to produce. Viscano and Lee also mention that if an official is caught violating the law in the process of producing, and the violation becomes public, pressure by the public for the agency to "fix" the problem usually results in damning and ridding of the single official, ultimately "fixing" nothing.

Lee and Viscano also present their view on how lawyers are also participants of official deviance, but are not under the same scrutiny as law enforcement officials. They talk about how lawyers, in a sense, illegally misuse plea bargaining instead of serving their client, in order to keep up production norms of the court system and quickly "legitimate all the prior steps of arrest, detention, and interrogation."

Judges are also guilty of deviance, according to Lee and Viscano. They mention that the structural condition most relevant to judges is "the production and norms of the court system," and process cases as quickly as possible, in an effort to control the escalating number of caseloads. One of the things judges are said to do is make comments to juries about the case in question, in order to influence and hopefully speed up their decision. Judges are also said to be particularly cooperative with police deviance in obtaining evidence.

Finally, Lee and Viscano also talk about how they believe due process is a myth. They say that due process is not available "on a rational and egalitarian bases, but according to power, resources, social norms and values such as bigotry." They say that "there can be no 'due process' when the kind of trial people get depends on the amount of money they have or upon their membership in a marginal or economically disadvantaged group."

The reading by Wald talks about the violence of law in the sometimes "unfair" punishments. This reading focuses primarily on the injustice caused by mandatory actions or sentencing guidelines (esp. when considering the death sentence) and inactions (such as failure to intervene in cases of family violence), and the added punishment convicts face while serving their sentence in our "inhumane" prison system. He argues for the "law's violence to be rationed fairly and not denied to some individuals who need its protection."

The reading of Black's "Social Litigation" shed new light for me about the different ways sociology may be used by lawyers and applied to measure the "strength" of a case. Sociology is useful in screening cases, determining the type of fees to charge, designing a case, pretrial decisions, case preparation, managing trials, and appeals. Specifically, sociology is used by determining social characteristics of all major players involved in court cases, including the lawyer, and manipulating these characteristics to "increase the odds of 'winning' the case."

The Vago reading (CH. 8a) explained how, through legislative or administrative responses to new social conditions and ideas, law (in general) is able to set the course for major social change. Some specific institutions law is able to change are "education, race relations, transportation, energy utilization, the protection of the environment, and crime prevention."

Vago explains two elements necessary for law to bring social change as being "institutionalization" and "internalization." He explains that, "institutionalization of a pattern of behavior refers to the establishment of a norm with provisions for its enforcement (such as desegregation of public schools), and internalization of a pattern of behavior means the incorporation of the value or values implicit in a law (for example, integrated public schools are 'good')." He also says that the law in question and its penalties for violation must be clearly known by those who it affects, and also enforced.

Vago (CH. 8b) talks about limitations of law in creating social change. One of the major limitations of law in which Vago talks about is the idea that very few people have a say in the formation of new laws and legislation. Vago states that this is because, "individuals with the control over ownership of material goods are generally favored by laws because economic interests are among the strongest factors influencing the creation of law." Another limitation that law has in creating social change lies in the difficulty of changing morals and values of mainstream society. This is especially true when trying to change morals and values which have been deeply rooted and accepted for extended periods of time. He also writes about a number social factors or forces that act like barriers to social change. Those social factors include "vested interest," in which those with power don’t want to give up any power, conflict of interest in social classes, "ideological resistance," and "organized opposition" through organizations. Also included as "resisters" of law and social change are obvious economic, moral development, and psychological factors such as habit, motivation level, ignorance, selective perception.

The reading by Thomas Stoddard discussed the idea of "rule shifting" and "culture shifting." Stoddard used an example of the expansion of gay rights in New Zealand and how even though gay's rights have "expanded" (rule shifting), they haven't necessarily been accepted and practiced (culture shifting). He also talked about the different factors influencing whether laws will bring a culture shift or merely a rule shifting. Most of the factors he describes have been discussed in the previous readings.

The last reading, by Cornel West, discusses the few avenues that the "less fortunate" have in influencing change in law. The two major ways discussed are "social chaos" and "organized participation" of groups. The reading also explains how lawyers play a crucial role in defending the rights of those with less political influence, money and power (resources).

So what?

Significant social change does not seem to stem directly from the laws, courts, administrative law, or those who enforce the law. "Social change" seems to be a product of a machine produced by the many branches of law which, only by working together, can be an effective TOOL for significant social change. Even so, the product (or law) that is produced from what is "fed" into this machine must be socially "digested" (discussed and recognized) and then accepted by mainstream society in order to bring significant social change. This entire process may take many years before any law attempting to bring significant change is realized, if it is ever realized at all.

module 4 blog

Module 4

Reading Content
I've got to say that module four was pretty lengthy but its content made it worth the reading. I'll begin with Friedrichs' chapter 4a, Jurisprudence and the Study of Law. In this reading, he talks about and briefly describes each of seven traditional schools of jurisprudence.

The first traditional school of jurisprudence is natural law. This is the oldest and most enduring school of jurisprudence, with origins among classical Greek and Roman philosophers. The key attribute of natural law is that the human law is rooted in a transcendent law of divine origin or as part of nature itself. In natural law thinking, there can be no separation between law and morality. On the whole, natural law is distrustful of social science, as opposed to theological or philosophical texts, as a basis for law. The second school is legal positivism. In contrast to natural law jurisprudence, it treats the legal and the moral as separate realms. The citizen's duty to obey the law is linked with the legitimacy of the source of the command rather than a moral evaluation of the command. Critics of this approach have noted that any such approach inevitably tends to endorse or legitimate the status quo and the authority of the power elite who create, interpret, or apply the law. Third is Utilitarianism. The core principal here is that utility should govern. More specifically, that which promotes the greatest happiness, or good, for the greatest number is what society should strive for. The next is cultural/historical jurisprudence. This school of jurisprudence strongly emphasized the interdependence of law and the social world. In this view, law can only be properly understood in a particular cultural and historical context. The fifth is sociological jurisprudence, which is law in relation to social reality or social engineering through law. Then comes legal realism. Legal realism challenged a traditional view that judges simply identify what the law is by "finding" what has been recognized as the law; it insisted on recognizing that judges make new law when they render their opinions. Last is process theory, which emphasizes procedural consistency in law.

The next section of Friedrichs talks about contemporary schools of jurisprudence, which typically take the form of modifications of extensions of a traditional school, as opposed to a whole new premise. (Here we go). Okay, the first contemporary school of jurisprudence is law and economics (1960s). This is an economic analysis of law, which stresses economic efficiency and wealth over "abstract" individual rights. The next is Interpretive jurisprudence (1970s). This type stresses fairness, ethics, and a scheme for the least advantaged. Then comes critical legal studies (1970s). This is law as politics, as hierarchy. Fourth is critical race theory (1980s). This is law as racist; integrating concerns and views of people of color into law. Fifth is feminist jurisprudence (1970s). This is law as patriarchal which integrates concerns and views of women into law. Sixth is nawative jurisprudence (1970s). This is law as storytelling; literature and law. Finally is postmodern jurisprudence (1990s). This is law in an emerging mostmodern world; challenging truth claims of law.

The next readings were by Vago, which were broken down into chapters 5a and 5b. The readings went over social control through laws through laws that are activated when other forms of control mechanisms are ineffective or unavailable. Vago explains two types of control mechanisms, informal and formal. External pressures include negative sanctions, which are penalties imposed on those who violate norms, and positive sanctions, such as a promotion, bonus, or encouragement, which are intended to award conformity. Vago states that the reason there is conformity to norms is because individuals have been socialized to believe that they should conform. Informal forms of control mechanisms include ridicule, gossip, praise, reprimands, criticism, ostracism, or verbal rationalizations and expressions of opinion. This type of control mechanism closely resembles that of social control by custom.

The two main types of formal social control mechanisms are those instituted by the state and authorized to use force, and those imposed by agencies other that the state, such as church, business and labor groups, universities, and clubs. These types of controls are administered by individuals who occupy positions in those institutions. Formal control mechanisms best resemble that of structure theory, in which there is somewhat of a hierarchy with those at the top using their power to keep people in their places.

Vago also talks about how agencies such as the CIA, FBI, and IRS are used by government as a means of social control of dissent. He mentions how agencies such as the IRS are allowed to bypass the Constitution and are granted the power to order - without warrant - banks, employers and others to provide data about a person. Vago also mentioned how the use of licensing, inspection, and threat of publicity are also utilized methods of social control.

David Matza and Patricia Morgan talk about the failure of "controlling" drug use through prohibition. They compare the failed prohibition of drugs to the early prohibition of alcohol. They make note of how rehabilitation has not been aided by enforced confinement and how drug traffic continues to flow in and out of prison in spite of its prohibition.

Toni Massaro analyzes whether the rebirth of public shaming tactics are one that American criminal court judges can, or should, exploit. After analyzing certain factors such as proportionality, equality, cruelty, and overall humanness, Massaro concludes that shaming sanctions are not the solution to failed punishment techniques. He believes that we cannot “wish away the absence of cultural conditions that might make shaming a meaningful cultural ritual.”

The reading by James C. Scott speaks of the quiet, unnoticed, “everyday” resistance intended to mitigate or deny claims made by higher classes, by the majority of peasants, which is not organized or coordinated by anyone, but is very effective. He talks about how direct confrontations of power nearly always favor the state whose coercive power can be more easily mobilized and focused. When quiet non-confrontational, non-centralized resistance occurs, the government does not know where to focus its coercive power because there is no organization to be banned, no conspiratorial leaders to round up or buy off, and no rioters to haul before the courts. Over a period of time, Scott says, the generalized noncompliance by thousands of individual peasants brings about true change to government.

So What?

The common traits of failed regulation of certain activities through the implementation of laws seem to be that, first, activities that are acted out by a large number of people, no matter what the "majority" thinks, will continue to occur (drug use and sales, prostitution, and gambling) especially if there is no perceived victim and the "actors" are committing the act as a consensual transaction or exchange. Second, if it is true that these types of activities will continue under such conditions, placing sanctions on these types of activities is a waste of money and time, and is only degrading the meaning and legitimacy of law. As mentioned in the reading, it starts to make sense, in where after a period of time the laws placed on these activities seem to be ineffective and maybe even amplify the problem, to all together just legalize the "morally unacceptable" behaviors in question.

module 3 blog

Module 3

Reading Content

Of all the readings, I think I got the most out of the Kidder readings. The Kidder material did set up the rest of the readings, however. Anyway, Kidder uses social theory in an attempt to explain and make sense of this "larger" hierarchal structure, and its relation to law and the structure of the justice system. He also explains ways in which those at the top of the hierarchal structure attempt to hide their intentions of keeping the hierarchy and their position of influence in it.

Critical or conflict theory views law as a device intentionally developed by powerful elites in society to establish and maintain their dominance over other classes. Law contains the language of universal justice, consensus- the notion that law is for everyone, because such language helps the ruling class expand its network of alliances against threats to its control. The Bill of Rights, which guarantees fundamental freedoms to individuals, is an example of "sacred" law used to deceive the general population into believing that law is neutral. As explained in chapter five of Kidder, "This approach is one of the cleverest deceptions of the system. By insisting that individual rights receive priority in laws and legal procedures, modern law strips away the authority of leaders within all those local groups whose separate autonomy once stood as a barrier to the consolidation of power in the hands of the new ruling class."

One example of hidden hierarchy is that current law allows the owners of industrial corporations to hide behind the myth of the "corporate person," making the corporation rather than the people who run it responsible for any damage it might do to society.
The power which an established legal system can give to those who control it is best explained by the argument of Turk in chapter five of Kidder. Turk breaks down power given to those in the highest level of hierarchy, in the form of law, into five types: First, he states that law takes from others the power to use physical force, or violence, to get their way. Second, it gives economic power to those who control it because it creates a system of rewards and punishments for economic activity. Third, the legal system gives political power, supporting certain political structures and their norms over others. Fourth, the legal system provides an ideological environment which helps promote compliance, because law becomes unquestioned. Fifth, the law provides diversionary power by getting people involved in one set of activities and concerns, such as lawsuits and legal reform, rather than in other activities which may better promote their interests.

The reading by Taub and Schneider talks about how law has kept women from moving up the social hierarchy ladder. One historical example in particular refers to the ratification of the 19th Amendment of 1920 which finally gave women the right to vote. Before this amendment and the period of women’s suffrage, there was no question that laws had kept men dominant in the public and private sphere. Inferior ideologies and treatment of women was, and arguably still is, masked by glorifying women’s separate role as “homemakers”. As noted in the reading, “Glorification of women’s destiny serves to soften any sense of unfairness in excluding women from the legal profession. Since this ‘paramount destiny and mission’ of women is mandated by ‘nature,’ ‘divine ordinance,’ and ‘the law of the Creator.’”

Heinz and Laumann's reading sheds some light on how the legal profession is structured as a hierarchy. I had never realized it, but there are many factors, twelve of which are mentioned in this reading, which influence a separation between the different particular fields of the legal profession. (A good scalogram analysis is shown of the hierarchal influence of the twelve factors amongst twenty-five fields of law.) The reading, however, focuses primarily on how this hierarchy is shaped by the different types of clients and their particular needs. The major factor is whether the client in question is a large corporation or an average Joe. The bottom line is that the client with the most money pays the most to be represented by "the best". This directly translated to corporate lawyers receiving a higher status than, say, a divorce lawyer.

The reading of Erlanger and Epp, honestly didn’t interest me much. This reading was a study which replicated, but added onto, a study done by Granfield and Sover which analyzed the forces from within a law school which influence changes in student's values and self-concepts in relation to the field of law the student seeks to obtain a career in. The study done by Erlanger and Epp adds to the study of Granfield and Sover by providing information about what type of job the student actually takes after graduation, not just what type of job the student thought they wanted.

Kennedy's reading was pretty interesting, extreme, but interesting. He talks about how the education of lawyers in the law school setting is somewhat of a preparation or training ground for conformity of the hierarchal structure that awaits them in the practice of law. Overwhelmingly white, male, middle class teachers are at the top of the law school hierarchy, with students, secretaries, maintenance workers and support staff below. Law schools act in ways to guarantee that their students will fit themselves into their “appropriate” positions in the existing system of practice. For example, students are bullied by the teachers into accepting particular case arguments as being valid. Kennedy notes that, "Teachers teach nonsense when they persuade students that legal reasoning is distinct, as a method for teaching correct results, from ethical and political discourse in general (i.e., from policy analysis)…Because students believe what they are told, explicitly and implicitly, about the world they are encountering, they behave in ways that fulfill the prophecies the system makes about them and about that world." Referring to the function of law in particular, most liberal law students believe that the practice of law can be reduced to guaranteeing people their rights and bringing about the triumph of human rights over mere property rights. As noted by Kennedy, the trouble with the legal system is that it fails to put the state behind the rights of the oppressed, or that the system fails to enforce the rights formally recognized. The discourse of rights puts constraints on those who use it that it makes it almost impossible for law to function effectively as a tool of radical transformation.

So What?
The fact seems to be that all people have at least comparable experiences of the oppressive reality of hierarchy, even those who seem most favored by the system. Kennedy best summed it up by saying that, the “collar feels the same when you get to the end of the rope, whether the rope is ten feet long or fifty.” Undeniably, it seems clear that hierarchy creates distances between people’s social “status” that may never be bridged.

Module 2 blog

MODULE 2

Chapter three of Kidder talks about the influence societies' customs have on the creation and acceptance of laws. Specifically, Kidder argues that law originates out of a societies' customs and states that, "law is a restatement of customs." Kidder also gives many examples of laws which were not compatible with its societies customs and ultimately failed to gain acceptance, ultimately leaving the law with no legitimacy in the public eye and making it nearly impossible to be enforced (Prohibition, Mormon polygamy, Bolshevik revolutionary attempt to modernize all Soviet society, and a failed attempt by the British to impose colonial law in the business sector of India.

Kidder explains how change in law may sometimes lag behind change in culture. He states that the reason for this is because "it takes extra time and effort among lawmakers to identify cultural changes, agree on their content and desirability, and then communicate those changes throughout the many branches of enforcement so that operations can be changed in an orderly way." To make up for this lapse in time, Kidder explains that law enforcement, in a sense, enforces the social change and not necessarily what is "on the books" at that specific time. He explains that, "the 'living law' is the rule actually being followed and enforced."

Kidder also talks about how different groups of people seem to avoid law. This avoidance of law may be for different reasons, but the commonality is that these groups of people do not believe it to be beneficial to resort to law to settle disputes.

Chapter four of Kidder strays from custom as an origin of law and takes a close look at social structure as an origin of law for large "complex" societies. Social structure, as defined by Kidder, is "society as a system with systematically structured needs for the preservation of organized activity." Structure as an origin of law and legal system is aimed at ensuring that a society produces (business), through the confines of contractual law, ensuring a certain "hierarchal" structure in which those people with wealth and power remain at the top.

So What?

I think that culture plays a big part in determining what laws are "successful." This is because, if mainstream society doesn’t adopt and accept the law as a living reality, then the law will have no foothold and, eventually, the law will be nullified. I say this because there are so many laws that are still on the books that are not enforced. If these laws are on the books but not enforced or accepted by society, than they are the "proof that the dinosaur existed." With that said, I also believe that those people who are in power want to stay in power and have the political and financial means to do so. However, I don't believe that those people high on the hierarchal ladder would be able to get away with "pulling a fast one" and get laws passed that would give them complete power over mainstream society. There are checks and balances that would help to deter this, not to mention the power of the "voice of numbers." To be most effective, those people not high on the hierarchal ladder must know of these proposed changes in law before they occur.

module 1 blog

Reading Content

I’ll begin by briefly going over my interpretations of the readings, Harrison Bergeron and Before the Law, which I must say were pretty fun parables to read. First, in Harrison Bergeron, I believe that the meaning or lesson of the reading comes back to its opening sentence: “The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal.” I’m not sure exactly when Harrison Bergeron was written (in the 1980’s some time), but I don’t believe that Vonnegut would agree with laws such as affirmative action. With that said, I interpreted Vonnegut as trying to get across that, if we continue to allow implementation of laws (such as affirmative action) which attempt to bring “equality” and “justice” for all, eventually, we as a society may end up with a sort of “handicap,” in which we are all looked at as being the same, wherein our individual talents no longer matter and are ultimately suppressed because were all the same.

The meaning of Kafka’s Before the Law was a little more difficult to interpret. I believe I read somewhere in the web related readings that Kafka’s intent in writing Before the Law was to illustrate a person’s inaccessibility of meaning of the law and “man’s” tenacious longing for it. Even more interesting than his readings, though, was Kafka’s biography. He seemed to be a very unhappy individual. He was a self proclaimed atheist who didn’t get along with his father and hated his job and any type of social constraints. In 1917, he was diagnosed as having tuberculosis and eventually passed away from it.

Friedrich’s introduction in the chapter one reading was just that, an introduction. I did learn a bit from it, though. One topic I learned from was the different models illustrating the relationship between law and society. Also interesting was the section entitled The Critique of Law which explains how law has been portrayed as an instrument of oppression and exploitation. The radical critique explains how law contributes to the maintenance of “order,” fulfilling the interests of the elite class. The conservative critique is the critical view of conservatives when law is used as an instrument for achieving a liberal agenda and an ultimate infringement of individual rights. The internal critique of law refers to the critique by legal professionals on how the law is used, or abused. I could go on about the reading in this chapter, but I’ll end it by saying that most of the reading was a history of law and how the law has been used, or misused.

The reading of Friedrich’s chapter three threw in new ideas and concepts into the mix. I was able to use this reading, more than any other, to assist me with answering the question posed in essay 1. Generally speaking, this reading talked about how law, justice, and moral order are all related to each other and how there is really no general consensus about what each means. This reading really made me think about how imperfect the legal system is and how unequal it can be in relation to the different levels of access available to different classes of people. After reading it, I began to think of how law can be seen as simply a mechanism for the adjudication of conflicts between competing interests, with no real emphasis on what the people of a society may believe or want law, justice, and moral order to be.

The reading by Galanter spoke of the idea of hyperlexis, or the concept of there being “too much law.” Galanter compares statistics from the past with the present to show how one may see an excessive growth of law. He talks about the “typical” evidence cited for the “litigation explosion,” such as the growth in filings in federal courts, the growth in size of the legal profession, accounts of monster cases (such as AT&T and IBM antitrust cases) and the vast amounts of resources consumed in such litigation, atrocity stories-citations of cases that seem petty, and war stories-accounts of personal experience by business and other managers about how litigation impinges on how they run their institutions. Ultimately, though, Galanter concludes that there is not enough evidence or recorded data to prove or conclusively support the hyperlexis syndrome.

Merry’s reading talks about the implications for informal community justice in America, namely, proposed citizen dispute settlement centers or ADR (alternative dispute resolution). She talks about how this community or citizen dispute settlement proved useful in small scale societies, but points out some problems when this system for settling disputes is used in large, complex, urban social systems. Upon reading this, I didn’t see how this type of dispute settlement could be truly effective without being able to lawfully enforce every settlement. Also, the main hazard I saw in utilizing these types of programs was the chance that citizens would, in effect, be having their guaranteed rights negotiated with. With this in mind, even if a dispute was negotiated “successfully,” I didn’t see how disputes could be settled fairly in respect to the legal process.

The readings by Hofrichter, Umbreit, Rifkin, and Nader were all generally related to the topic of citizen dispute settlement centers, each adding a certain twist to the topic. In short, Hofrichter spoke of how the courts and conflict resolution cannot fix the root of the problems brought to them by “litigants.” Umbreit, who started the victim-offender reconciliation program, talks about a victim-“offender” form of mediation which is more criminal than civil “justice” mediation. Rifkin talks about the idea in which mediation is seen as a feminist viewpoint. Laura Nader concludes by arguing that ADR makes no effort to address the problems, brought by disputing parties. Also noted is that there are no methods of prevention of future disputes. Most importantly, Nader states that with ADR, citizens in effect trade in “justice for harmony.”

Internet Content

Admittedly, I was not able to read all the web content. Mostly, I read what I felt I really needed to know. Off the top of my head, I remember reading a few biographies on Kafka (which, as I mentioned earlier, helped me to get a better understanding of where he was coming from when reading his parable), the sections on humanist and positivist views, and the writing by Brian Davis, entitled, What is Justice?

In the web content about humanism, or the study of human nature, on one hand, I learned that humanism is a point-of-view which believes that man should be studied as a definite entity underlying the various manifestations of man as they appear in various cultures. A humanist also believes that the scientific study of man should also include religious and philosophical tradition, and consider mental and psychological differences. The humanist is willing to acknowledge that “we don’t know.”

According to the web site, positivists, on the other hand, are in search of non-biased, fact-based, truth. In the social sciences, positivism has been associated with three related principals: the tenet of phenomenalism according to which knowledge can be founded on experience alone, the methodological tenet of the unity of the scientific method which proclaims that the procedures of natural science are directly applicable to the social world with the goal of establishing invariant laws or law-like generalizations about social phenomena, and the tenet of neutrality which refuses to grant normative statements about the status of knowledge and maintains a rigid separation between facts and values. Over-all, goal of the positivist is to remain objective at all times.

The writing done by Davis was provided with the first essay question. This reading was especially helpful in attaining a view of what justice is or can be at the global level. Although I didn’t particularly agree with his philosophy, it was good to be able to think about and consider a new point of view on how peace, or in this case, justice, can be achieved internationally.

So What?

As I mentioned before, much of what I have learned thus far in this class, especially in relation to the “meaning” of law, justice, and moral order, has opened my eyes and forced me to realize just how abstract law is in relation to social control. This is especially true when considering the diverse forms of government (and how each functions), cultures, time, and the different points of view and personal experiences that shape the lives of every single person or group of people, which must all be considered in the pursuit of a balance between law and social order. Further complicating any search for the meaning of law, justice, and moral order, is how all these factors come into play when considering that they all, in relation to every country, must interact at the global level.

Other than becoming confusder, I think that this class has opened the door to what may prove to be a never ending application of thought and questioning of, what is or isn’t and what should or shouldn’t be, law. I look forward to learning new theories and ideas, and attempting to apply them to what I already know (or think I know) about law and society.