An Overview Of Critical Legal Studies

An Overview Of Critical Legal Studies The given quotation in question is by Robert Gordon, in Law Ideology as featured in Lloyds Introduction to Jurisprudence by MDA Freeman where he has touched upon critical legal studies. For our purposes, my answer will provide a short explanation of what the critical legal studies is about, then it will feature how law maintains inequality according to critical legal scholars, and what techniques are adopted in response to the inequalities and finally how effective these techniques are. Critical legal studies (hereinafter referred to as the CLS) grew out of a dissatisfaction with current legal scholarship.  [2]  As Raymond Wacks  [3]  put it the most important feature of CLS is its rejection of what is taken to be the natural order of things, be it free market or meta-narratives, or the conception of race. Law based on reason is what attract the scholars of CLS the most. For the scholars of CLS it is to doubt the prospect of uncovering a universal foundation of law based on reason. The myth of determinacy is a significant element of the critical assault on law.  [4]  To the scholars of CLS, law is far from being a determinate, coherent body of rules and doctrine, the law is portrayed as uncertain, ambiguous and unstable.  [5]   If American legal realism was jazz jurisprudence, Critical Legal Studies may be its rock successor.  [6]  Ronald Dworkin found the CLS resembling the older movement of American realism, and for him it was too early to decide whether the CLS is more than an anachronistic attempt to make the then dated movement reflower.  [7]  Professor Hilaire McCourbey and Dr. Nigel D. White  [8]  finds the ultimate target for scholars of CLS is to destroy the notion that there is one single truth, and that by disclosing the all-pervasive power structures and hierarchies in the law and legal system, a multitude of other possibilities will be revealed which are all equally valid. LAW, ITS INEQUALITY AND OTHER ISSUES SURROUNDING LAW The scholars of CLS find it very disturbing how the law maintain inequalities in society. According to the scholars of CLS, legal doctrine is limited and imperfect. Legal doctrines can only offer a narrow view of the world. Robert Gordon finds the legal doctrine to comprise of abstract and impoverished categories. These crude, artificial categories e.g., found in criminal law, laws of contract and family, which will illustrated below, are based on complex human relationships although they in no way reflect or naturally represent with what is occurring. With regard to criminal law, M Kelmen  [9]  uses the example of a wife who, having been battered by her husband, kills the husband. Then she pleads the defence of provocation. Question arises whether the judge is to adopt a narrow time frame  [10]  or that of a broad one  [11]  . No one can say it for sure which law is to be applied here for certain. There may be circumstance where the alleged offender is considered in a narrow time frame basis and another in a broad one. This line of approach is making individuals fall into the contradiction in law faced in criminal law. The law of contract where the principle enshrined in the maxim caveat emptor a maxim devised to protect capitalist interest against the interests of the powerless consumer stands against the principle that it is the function of the state to intervene to protect the weaker party against exploitation is a clear reflection of inequality in law.  [12]  This kind of contradiction in law has always put the judges in confusion as to which principle a judge needs to follow in a given case. It is argued by the scholars of CLS that law is fundamentally political. For D. Kennedy  [13]  there is no line between private and public law. It is a myth.  [14]  There is nothing natural or neutral about contract law as much as administrative law, property law as much as environmental law.  [15]   The law of co-habitation opens range of options to a judge which makes it hardly possible to come to a decision which ultimately causes conflicting outcomes from the courts of law. Where a woman who seeks to enforce a co-habitation agreement against a male partner the question that comes before the court is to choose between (1) common law principle that such agreements are not legally enforceable because of the presumption that such agreements lack the necessary element of an intention to create legal relations and (2) the principle, arising from public policy that it is the duty of the courts to give effect to the intention of the parties. This has always put judges in a difficult position as said earlier. For Peter Gabel,  [16]  one is never, or almost never, a person; instead, one is successively a husband, a bus passenger, a small businessman, a consumer and so on, in contemporary capitalist society. To Mark Kelman,  [17]  liberalism in the eyes of Crits is a system of thought that is simultaneously beset by internal contradiction and by systematic repression of the presence of these contradictions. Liberalism focuses upon individualism and self-interest at the cost of others. The scholars of CLS are against such notion. Such preference is evinced in the laws creation and maintenance of division between the public and private matters. Mills liberty is the perfect example. Mills liberty is the principle that an individual can be compelled where his actions harm others, but must be free where his actions affect himself. The courts always find it difficult to prevent oppression in the private realm because of the legal division between public matters, in which the state or its laws can intervene, and private matters, in which they cannot. The Crits of CLS termed this division as false and a mere illusion. Robert Gordon very clearly mentions that for the Crits, law is inherently neither a ruling-class game plan nor a repository of noble with perverted principles. To Gordon, it is a plastic medium of discourse that subtly conditions how we experience social life.  [18]   Robert Gordon refers to some basic points that the Critics want to make about legal discourse. He refers to discourses of power. Law cannot be a toy for the powerful to play with. However, in reality to avail legal services or matters in conjunction to it one has to be able to wield legal discourses with facility and authority or to pay others, such as lawyers, legislators, lobbyists, etc., to wield them on your behalf is what matters and that is what is takes to posses power in society. For this reason legal discourses tend to reflect the interests and the perspectives of the powerful people who make most use of them.  [19]  This may be regarded as another example of how law maintains inequality in the eyes of the scholars of CLS. However, whether actually being used by the powerful or the powerless, legal discourses are saturated with other non-legal discourses that for the most part rationalise and justify in subtle ways the existing social order as natural necessary and just.   [20]   It is a common phenomenon to make laws to spur economic competitions and thus assisting the elite class in their search for power and wealth. Duncan Kennedy  [21]  mentions that the primary targets in Legal Education are the unhealthy hierarchies at various levels like those existing between lecturers and the students they teach; those between the faculty members and the administrative support and he terms them all as false and unnecessary hierarchy which gets into the mind of law students and thus creates a continual chain of hierarchies. TECHNIQUES APPLIED TO LEGAL DISCOURSES Trashing or Debunking As McCourbey and White put it trashing is mainly aimed at revealing the illegitimate hierarchies that exist within the law and society in general.  [22]  The scholars of CLS are essentially engaged in revealing those hierarchies and undermine them. In Marxism the hierarchy of power exist in terms of classes but he we have seen the hierarchy to exist even in universities where there is a power relationship between lecturer and student.  [23]  It is much more complex than the marxists view.  [24]  Trashing involves seeking to question and challenge the mainstream liberal legal regime. Mark Kelmans scepticism towards mainstream or orthodox views of law led to defend trashing against mainstream academic critics and stated that the discrediting of accepted legal argument is good. The following extract from Kelman explains the purpose of trashing or debunking:  [25]   We are also engaged in an active, transformative anarcho-syndicalist political project At the workplace level, debunking is one part of an explicit effort to level, to reintegrate the communities we live in along explicitly egalitarian lines rather than along the rationalised hierarchical lines that currently integrate them. We are saying: Heres what your teacher did (at you, to you) in contracts or torts. Heres what it was really about. Stripped of the mumbo-jumbo, heres a set of problems we all face, as equals in dealing with work, with politics, and with the world.  [26]   The above quotation reveals the tension of exposing hierarchies at work place, specifically it goes on to mention within the law school and expressly between the teachers and students as discussed earlier. Kelman further mentions that one main objective of trashing is to de-stabilising view of the theoretical world that is trapped in liberal legalism. Trashing helps us to see the underlying complacencies and assumed premises in liberal legalism as imperfect and opposes the belief that the world is running smoothly. Robert Gordon, in his Law Ideology, states that trashing techniques are used sometimes simply to attack the discourses on their own terms to show their premises to be contradictory or incoherent and their conclusions to be arbitrary or based on dubious assumptions or hidden rhetorical tricks.  [27]  He claims that this would reveal the hidden truth of obscure realities. Dereification Dereification is aimed at exposing what the scholars of CLS see as one of the most important functions of law in a liberal society.  [28]  Mostly everyone is in a trapped situation that is to say an implicit hierarchy is established in society. The term employee is attached to people who agree to work for another in return for payment and the term employer is used to refer to the person or body who hires them. The use of employer and/or employee is attached with a range of consequences and expectations for both parties. For this reason the parties are led to behave in a particular way that is to say on the basis of their formalised relation under the heads of employer and employee. In this sense reification has occurred. Peter Gabel has characterised law by reification, which involves a gradual process whereby abstractions, originally tied to concrete situations, are then themselves used and operated instead of the concrete. Dereification involves the scholars of CLS to see it th e other way round. Dereification is basically the recognition and exposure of such fallacies to reveal the law as it really is. Delegitimation To delegitimate law the scholars of the CLS attempt to strip away the veneer of legitimacy to reveal the ideological underpinnings of the legal system.  [29]  McCourbey and White states that delegitimation is aimed at exposing what the scholars see as one of the most important functions of law in a liberal society, namely the legitimation of the socio-economic system of that society. This brings the important insights into the law. Genealogy Robert Gordon considers genealogy as another technique to highlight the awareness of the transitory, problematic and manipulable ways legal discourses divide the world which is by writing their history.  [30]   CONCLUSION CLS is considered as radical by many jurists today. It is submitted that CLS and its technique is to filter the process of thinking of mankind. Most of the general public finds anything more acceptable which brings in more explanation for things going around us in our day to day life. CLS and its technique reveal an attempt to bring equality and more thinking into law. Trashing, genealogy, dereification etc. are all well convincing methods of looking into things surrounding our day to day life to find the right reason and hence bring equality in to law. However, it needs to be mentioned as well that too much critical thinking in to anything may not bring the right or convincing result. Therefore, a balance between critical thinking and a liberal approach is a must for a better philosophy. Words Counted:2061

Nutrition and Nutrient Content Labels Essay

1. What was the purpose of testing distilled water with each indicator? The purpose of testing distilled water was to have a standard for the other samples. 2. Given what you know about diabetes, explain why diabetics have to pay attention to the types of foods they ingest? Diabetics have to pay attention to the types of foods they eat because their bodies cannot break down and use glucose correctly. So, if they have too much glucose, they could go into diabetic shock. 3. List any of the food samples that tested positive for more than one type of molecule. Explain why it is an advantage for us to eat foods that contain more than one type of molecule. Peanuts tested positive for more than one type of molecule. The advantage of eating foods with more than one type of molecule is that the body can get the proper amount of the molecule they need more efficiently. 4. In the United States, processed food must be labeled showing information about the nutrient content. It has been argued that requiring nutritional information on these foods is too costly for consumers, because the cost to test the foods is added to the price of the food item. What is your position on this issue? In the space below, write a five to eight sentence paragraph giving at least three reasons in support of your position. Write a paragraph either in support of the current laws that require nutritional labeling, or in favor of making nutrient content labels optional. Support your position with logical, well thought out arguments. I feel that they should continue making nutrient content labels mandatory.

Definitions of Good Nonfiction Essay Topics

Definitions of Good Nonfiction Essay Topics Some vapes are designed to permit vapers choose if they want a mild or robust throat hit or are considering blowing enormous amounts of vapor. There are a lot of things to consider and most importantly, is the dependability of the service you decide to use. When it has to do with writing an argumentative essay, the most significant issue to do is to select a topic and an argument you could really get behind. The very first thing you ought to do is identify the sort of compare and contrast essay which you are handling. You don't need to find super technical with legal argumentative essays, but make certain to do your homework on what the recent laws about your preferred topic actually say. On the flip side, in the event that you made a very good choice, focus on what influenced you to make that decision and the way it has changed you. If you're still having problems making a determination, then you always have the option to request assistance from our professional essay writers who can help you get the best topic. Information technology thesis statement of the issue. Your writing ought to have a circulation. Writing quality essays is the principal purpose of our services. Creative non-fiction is often personal in tone, and due to that it can be tough to start. Writing design is one of the key aspects in writing. If you're likely to be writing such an essay over and over again, you will need to know how to compose a good one. This informative article puts more focus on subjects and topic for these varieties of essays since without a great subject, you may wind up getting stuck and need to start over and over again. Be mindful of the size it must be and get started writing the narrative essay outline. Each piece can only be as long because you can write within the duration of the song. 1 hint is to be sure you're just take the most acceptable test, while it's academic or basic instruction, and commence practicing as early as feasible. It's possible for you to restate your thesis statement and point out a number of the arguments used over the full essay that backs it up. Each suggestion was intended to highlight a particular field of inspiration. You always intuitively understand as soon as an intriguing essay idea is in fact the very best idea for you. Argumentative essay topics are so important since they are debatableand it's critical to at all times be critically considering the world around us. It is all about putting into beautiful words, our thoughts and ideas. Application essays about challenges reveal how you respond to difficulty to individuals who are quite interested in how you'll deal with the subsequent four years all on your own. You're able to interest books, movies or articles which are discussing exactly the same topic you're likely to approach in your essay. Come back to these and see whether you can't locate a way to write about them from your own private experience or to do more research and turn the subject into a guide or book undertaking. This list of topics may supply a concept that you could get excited about. Pull a notion from this info. Thus, to compose a great essay you've got to brainstorm all thoughts concerning your life experiences. Revisit an instant in your life which you feel you won't ever have the ability to forget. The absolute most difficult task you've accomplished in your life. Narrate precisely the same from your life. Essays enable a writer to come up with and increase his writing skills. Textbooks are obsolete and must be replaced by iPads. Colleges can tell whenever your essay is only a form essay. Write a vital review of your favourite book. Child molesters ought to be put to death. Parents should speak to their children about drugs at a youthful age. They must be responsible for providing a healthy diet. Prospective parents ought to be asked to take parenting classes.

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