Before, With and Against

There is this theme repeating throughout Ewick and Sibley’s account of the common place if law, which I have used as a partial title to this entry, that I find rather interesting. Before, with, and against the law. While the authors do present law as existing on several different levels, consisting of many actors and players, they also tend to draw on some their interviewees opinions that law is this sort of abstract force that one best not cross. These three themes – before, with and after, truly seem to uphold that second idea of the law as a sort of supreme force.
The idea of the law in itself is almost too big to imagine. When I hear the word law, as do many of the interviewees in this account, my mind doesn’t necessary go to the many players who make up a part of the system. Instead, I do find myself thinking about this abstract force that is supposed to dispense justice and uphold the peace. Without law, chaos would ensue. Somehow, the system keeps us all in check, yet it is a confusing and mystifying establishment. Millie Simpson said that at the conclusion of her case, the judge delivered his judgment in such a way that she “didn’t even understand what he was saying” (p. 92). Bess Sherman too found herself mystified by the extent of the law she dealt with in order to find her Social Security check, and the power wielded by her doctors in influencing that decision.
A lot of this interviews resulted in accounts such as this, with a feelings of confusion, or apprehension or bewilderment at the idea of law as this intimidating force that runs our lives. I do find it interesting though, that in many cases the interviews do refer in some ways to the players that make up the system, while in much of the time it’s simply the system or idea of law that is recognized. Yes, we tend to see the law and justice as this sort of force or abstract ideology which we follow, but it is upheld, carried out and dispensed by a vast group of actors. Law is perpetuated by people. It is a social process in which people challenge each other, or companies, or work together.
In this respect, I find it amazing that the Law and Society movement still seems rather undeveloped and in its infancy. We have talked about natural law, but really there is no law in nature like the kind we have established here within our society. Law requires people; it requires some type of social interaction between many different people. It is not necessarily this isolated, abstract idea that governs our lives, as we often believe it is, but a process infiltrated with people. One does not necessarily stand before, with or against the law. Rather, he stands before a judge, with his lawyer and his accuser. The world is s stage, and we are all players, and no truer words could spoken when talking about the law.