Law in Contemporary Society

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TomaLivshizFirstPaper 7 - 17 Jun 2012 - Main.EbenMoglen
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How I Learned to Stop Worry and Accept that Law is a Weak Form of Social Control

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 That the proximate effects of law or legal decisions can sometimes be anticlimactic, should not discourage us. The statement “law is a weak force of social control” presents a hurdle and not a barrier. Taking heed of Cohen’s prescription for Judges in Transcendental Nonsense, lawyers can use this statement as an operating constraint when considering their inputs and designing their desired outputs. Like activists before us, we can look to legal landmarks for direction, but we should consider how to utilize all forms of social control in our pursuit of social change.
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You've improved this essay substantially. We might want to inquire whether every social force, everything that changes the structure or function of social organizations, is "social control." By spreading that concept a little too thin, you might be losing some analytic opportunities. Here you have clarified that you are writing about law in relation to social change, and change in settings where the attitudes, habits, and fears of the populace have become part of the defense of injustice. "Integration," which you call the physical force of judicial opinions, is a word that appears only once in the essay, but perhaps more attention should be given to it. First, to understand what it is in your analytic terms: Why is integration the approach chosen to supplement the direct force of the law in bringing about legal and civil equality? Why is Marshall working by stages towards the moment at which the legal system can be brought to find authoritatively that "separate is inherently unequal"? Second, to consolidate the ideas being worked out here in the context of Brown by comparison with other social contexts. You might think a bit about the connection between this essay and KhurramDaraFirstPaper, for example. The present comparatively rapid set of social changes surrounding the law of marriage might offer another useful comparand.

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Revision 7r7 - 17 Jun 2012 - 14:11:19 - EbenMoglen
Revision 6r6 - 30 May 2012 - 00:40:28 - TomaLivshiz
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