Narrative Jurisprudence: The Remystification of the Law
Over the years, law has been denned variously as a "brooding omnipresence in the sky," the decree of a sovereign, the mores of human experience, the practical realization of truth and justice, what operates when there is peace and order. From a societal perspective, all of these have a rin...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1989
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| In: |
Journal of law and religion
Year: 1989, Volume: 7, Issue: 1, Pages: 105-129 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Over the years, law has been denned variously as a "brooding omnipresence in the sky," the decree of a sovereign, the mores of human experience, the practical realization of truth and justice, what operates when there is peace and order. From a societal perspective, all of these have a ring of truth. When one does not think in terms of "me" but in terms of "we," then law as social order makes sense. But the individual does not comprehend the law so abstractly. Law is a world of violence, death, pain, and suffering imposed on those who are loved, hated, respected, feared, scorned, and pitied. For those who are forced to bend to the coercion of the law, law is not so vague a concept as ‘truth’, ‘justice’, ‘tradition’, ‘conventional morality’, ‘mores’. Law is pain. It is profound to the extent violence and death are profound. It is abstract to the extent pain is an abstraction. It is neutral as coercion and suffering strike us as neutral. Law, for those who make it and for those who are subject to it, is as objective and impartial an enterprise as law's violence allows. As violence is world destroying, law is deobjectified. It remains impersonal only for those who are removed from it. But for those who live it and are therefore touched by its coercion, the meaning of otherwise abstract impersonal principles is colored by the experience of law's violence. |
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| ISSN: | 2163-3088 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of law and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/1051194 |