That was a little scary for me to take in, because it means that law is not justly applied to every individual case. That was an ideal i had grown up believing in, and to have it shattered was a dumping-cold-water-on-my-head type of experience. I drew some similarities between the conflict of sociological jurisprudence and legal formalism and other aspects of life, and I thought I'd share those here.
The first one that sprang to my mind was how society values individual life. The example that gave me the thought was the case of Yeardley Love. For those of you who don't know, Yeardley was a UVA lacrosse player that was murdered by her boyfriend, another UVA lacrosse player. When I was watching the UVA/Maryland Lacrosse finals, they repeatedly mentioned Yeardley, and when I thought about it I realized how much press her death had received even a full year after her death. I don't mean to reduce the significance of her life or death, but I question why it's deemed so much more important then Tom Gilliam's.
Here I initially had a sort of formalistic approach: I had thought that all lives are truly valued equally. They are not. Your position within society determines how much people care whether you live or die. Tom was a first year at UVA and not a beautiful school athlete. Yeardley was a beautiful upperclassman (more deeply ingrained into the social fabric of the school), and a school athlete. So people cared more when Yeardley died. So the national news covered her death, while Tom was briefly mentioned in the local news.
They were both wonderful people in life, but that had nothing to do with how much the public at large cared. It's another ice-water-thrown-in-your-face moment, when my initial formalism was crushed by the sociological reality. If someone in the ruling elite from the center of society were to die, people care. If someone in a lower class dies, no one cares but those around them. This general concept also goes along with the Stalin quote, "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic".
Love and marriage is another area where these principles apply. Being older now I'm not so sure I really believe in this anymore, but I'm sure that many of us have grown up with the Disney-movie principle of people who fall in love get married and live happily ever after. Those who fall in love are not sure why they are, all they know is that there is some inexorable magnetic force that pulls them two together.
That's not really how it works. Sometimes it may, but the vast majority of the time is doesn't. The majority of us humans look for mates based on their social characteristics (sometimes unconsciously so). Social status is key, often demonstrated by what people wear from clothing to jewelry to what car you drive. Indicators of ability to provide for a family are also looked for; again sometimes shown in status symbols as well as financial well being and outlook. Physical appearance is also very important as an indicator of health and genetic viability. Theres a reason why some people are more attractive then others. Their genetics are generally stronger then unattractive people and are more likely to have evolutionarily more fit offspring. I should also note that attractiveness is also not always based on physical appearance. People like movie stars and musicians are said to be more attractive because they have high levels of social status and ability to provide not necessarily because of their physical characteristics.
There are other factors that contribute to this, but I haven't taken a class on it nor read up on it, so I wont pretend to be an expert. We as a culture seem to aspire towards formalism in our lives, but it's simply not reality. The discrepancy between the two can be shocking at times.
No comments:
Post a Comment