Court Addiction

Moved in discussion from ElectricityAddiction. Seems that many people really believe that written rules make them civilized.

Actually, it's living in cities that makes you civilized, if you take the term by the roots. It's having rules, written or no, that puts us at least a small step above savagery. Ignore the folks who strike matches on no-smoking signs.

"Would you cut a road through the law to get at the devil?"

Roper replied, "I'd cut down every law in England to do that."

A roused and excited More declared, "When the last law was leveled and the devil turned round on you, where would you hide? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's. If you cut them down--and you're just the man to do it--d'ya think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?

: -- Attributed to Thomas More in A Man for all Seasons.

Of course there are many things that we've come to rely on that are not a biological necessity. Sometimes these can be surprising and none are without some social cost. For example, courts - a contract has meaning because of them.

Do you mean that we could still have civilization without courts? In other words - without law? I don't think I'd want to live in a "civilization" without the rule of law. -- MikeSmith

Law in our world is in the hands of the strong to control the weak. There are too much OldRulesWithForgottenReasons. And rules one sees no reason to obey. I really hate "1984". On the other hand, I like deals - they give security. But I don't feel comfortable when I'm controlled by rules written on another situation by other people with different values. And it seems most law enforcers are rather stupid and have weak judgement. They are streaming for power. I believe this will change to non-vertical community regulating system. Or minority ruling over majority. (Also known as aristocracy, oligarchy, theocracy, democracy, last century's communism, feudalism, e.t.c.)

I would. I'd love to live in an informal society where justice was a social convention supported by psychologists and ordinary people alike. I hate the insecurity of living in a society where armed thugs walk around clubbing people over the head only so an old geezer can confine them to staring at the same four walls for the next 20 years in some cramped cell. And I hate that those thugs go around beating people at the people's expense. And I hate that those old geezers tell society what it can or can't do without so much as a by your leave from the same society that supports them.

Justice is AiComplete. It will never be possible to enshrine justice into formal law. I'd like to live in a society that recognizes that fact and cares more for justice than for law. I'd like to live in a society that doesn't try to dehumanize itself under the slogan of "the rule of law" because of some weird fetish with mechanization.

The State in "Smash the State!" refers to the thugs and geezers too. The State refers to the hierarchical, top-down, chain of command which extends down from government. And the standard anarchist response to a hierarchical structure is to invert it, so the people at the bottom decide everything at all times. This is a successful social design pattern. Without formal law, it would be impossible to maintain the glaring injustices which underlie our social order. -- RichardKulisz

Sounds more like mob rule, which is never pretty.

I've read that Zapatista villages work that way. The Ghandian "peace-courts" rely on a central technocrat but crucially depend on the people's cooperation. This puts hard limits on the injustice they can cause.

Who's to say that their system can't fail? Any road to power will be exploited by someone.

Who's to say there are any roads to power left in their system? In any case, you make it sound like all forms of power are equally onerous.

Here we see the paradigm clash between rule-based and concept-based justice. Maybe I'm serious. Maybe not. -- GarryHamilton

PleaseMoveThisToTheAdjunct