Law in Contemporary Society

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MichelleLuoFirstPaper 8 - 21 Apr 2012 - Main.RumbidzaiMaweni
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 I agree with you that the unconscious is a freaky place to dip in, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "[the unconscious] doesn't seem to leave us with much ground to stand on." The unconscious doesn't seem to me to be less abstract of a concept than logic. The difference is that we've been socialized to think logically, but we haven't trained ourselves to "harness" the unconscious. The unconscious is what moves us; people remember things emotionally. I think the challenge is training ourselves to be not only "deeply cognizant of just how limited, fragile, and incoherent legal logic is," as you say, but also to be cognizant of how the unconscious drives us. I am only beginning to grasp what this means for us on a personal level as lawyers, who happen to be humans. But I'm not quite sure how to apply these ideas to the institution of law, where bullshit seems to be a particularly strong force.

-- MichelleLuo - 21 Apr 2012 \ No newline at end of file

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I agree that logic is no less abstract than the unconscious, which is why I prefaced the quoted text with "there is a real sense that." Like you said, because we've been trained to think logically, this is the mode of thought that feels most concrete to us- that enables us to feel as though we are building upon firm foundation. But I can also understand why this may be more preferable to some, than an alternative, that feels- to many of us- far more elusive.

I like your idea of harnessing the unconscious on a personal level, though I'm a little ambivalent about and uncertain as to what it would even mean to apply this to "the institution of law." To try and depart from logical reasoning would seem to be a move away from the entire enterprise of being a legal practitioner; it's the tool we have to work with, and there are other disciplines that are far better equipped to deal with the utility of emotional memory than the legal profession. Then, again, if we believe that an institution is not a monolithic entity, but comprised of and informed by its constituent parts, I think allowing more than legal reasoning to inform the the way we, as individuals, personally think about our practice, and view our role as lawyers, would already go a long way towards making the profession one we're proud to be a part of. But anything beyond that just strikes me as, perhaps, unrealistic.

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Revision 8r8 - 21 Apr 2012 - 22:38:19 - RumbidzaiMaweni
Revision 7r7 - 21 Apr 2012 - 20:54:36 - MichelleLuo
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