“Civilized” people like to look down on “primitives”. Among our other virtues, we live by rational “laws” while they have only childish “taboos” to guide actions and keep society working .
Laws are wonderful things, and a “rule of law” assures that we are all treated as fairly as possible. Our lawyers tell us so, and the authorities enforce their opinion. What a laugh it would be, they claim, to try to run a modern city with nothing but arbitrary taboos and foggy customs .
And yet . . . laws are rarely applied in personal life. There are few laws in a healthy family or friendship. There are still only “foggy” customs and basic taboos holding our relationships together. That is human. Even more formal organizations use mostly flexible “rules” and “guidelines” .
Laws try to be logical but are often too rigid to fit circumstance and must be “interpreted”. Lawyers love it. I am well aware you cannot at this moment run a modern society without law, but basing some future utopia on the perfection of its laws is madness .
“Rule of law” is of itself neither good nor evil. Like taboo, it all depends not only on the wording, but also on the application. We are all kind of primitive still .
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 