On October 1st, the professors of the Co-ordinated Arts Program Law and Society had a joint lecture presenting their different points of view on how Law and Society relate. We had a chance to group up and ask some questions and one of the questions my group found intriguing was
Does society affect the law more or does the law affect the society more?
We had a brief but interesting discussion with a divide in opinions and when we got our chance to ask the question our Political Science professor stated he believed that both law and society affect each other equally. He used the example that the relationship between the two is like an ongoing conversation in which each argument or move makes the other adapt and change to respond. I personally believe that Law affects the society slightly more due to the authority it holds over the society.
When a child is born and growing up the law is an absolute authority in which the child does not question. To some extent a child is shaped by the laws of his or her country. A child grows with ideas and thoughts, which are significantly impacted on what the law states. Children know things such as don’t steal, lie, fight etcetera, all of these are basic understandings of what the law states. So during this time or phase in a person’s life the law affects the society more.
As a person becomes a young adult and finally an adult they begin to develop their own ideas and thoughts that may not correspond directly with a current law. At this point the conversation begins, people begin to ask questions, change opinions and so the law adapts with what the people of its country wants. Governments listen to the voices of the people and create laws, which answer people’s questions and satisfy their new ideas and may even replace old laws. As life changes and the world progresses the law is forced to adapt to the modern world. Laws that existed in the 1800 don’t necessarily have any significance now as the world and the ideas within the world have changed. Political parties are constantly evolving their platforms to make their policies relevant to current events and current issues in order to appeal to more voters across the country. In this case both the law and the society equally affect each other as they adapt to each other.
However, as the law adapts to what the people want it does not have to. If people decide to fight for a change to a law and it is not changed the people still need to abide by that law if they wish to avoid repercussions. In extreme cases in which the government is corrupted and the people choose to replace or over throw the government the society will have the larger authority however only in extreme cases does this occur. In most cases the people continue to debate until a decision is made by the government as they make the final decision on what they believe is best for the people. So while the law and society are constantly adapting to each other the law has a slightly larger affect on society due to it’s larger authority overall.