Sunday, August 06, 2006
Category: Law, Nothing But A Human Institution
Well, well, well, oh well. John Lennon.
This topic is probably way too intense, volatile, provocative and controversial to sum up in a classic four paragraph derivative.
No, actually.
I can do it in one.
Law is like values, an expression of values in fact, like culture, law is the glue that binds. In the US, the glue is rotting and thus the framework is failing soon to disintegrate.
There are a couple of films that really impact this topic in an enlightening way, The Last Wave by Peter Weir and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? by the Cohen Brothers.
In the former there is a culture that believes laws are more important than man. In the latter we see the devil mocking and scoffing at the suggestion the law matters by dismissing it as “a human institutionâ€.
Both these are valid truthful displays of the subjective, of the fact that humans create their culture and sometimes enforce their culture.
Law is only as powerful as its enforcement.