The Paradox Of Community Essay -- essays research papers

The Paradox of CommunityOne can see that insiders argon caught in the paradox of partnership Thesame cultural vocabulary that undermines community is simultaneously thatcommunitys idiom of self-affirmation (Greenhouse, et al. 175). In practice of law andCommunity, David M. Engel explores how ordinary people in a small, rural,Illinois town perceive the law, courts, litigants, and community. By analyzingthe legal practices and relations in drum sander County, it is evident that law andthe courts play a central mapping in the processes of making and unmakingcommunities. Furthermore, this study illustrates how such manifestations,reflections of the insiders ideology, fail to live up to the promises for law in our society.In the 1970s, Sander County was undergoing great social and sparingchanges. Agriculture, a central part of life for most residents, became more fit out and a few large manufacturing plants opened, bringing in quite anumber of a certain element Sander County had nev er had sooner (29). Long-time residents, worried about change, express what they believe to be the impertinentrole of laws and the courts in the local and national society (1).Though item-by-itemised injury litigation rates argon lower in Sander County thanother major types of litigation, a norm of aversion towards this legal intercourseis evident throughout the majority of the community. Those who enforce individualizedinjury claims be viewed by fellow residents as greedy, selfish, and quick tosue. Litigation is portrayed as weakening the collective values personified inthe law as a means of turning the law against the community to make an easy infract (144). Even highly respected members of the community are criticized formaking own(prenominal) injury claims. For example, a minister filed a suit after slip and falling at a school. A local observer commented by saying thereare a lot of people who are resentful for it, because...he chose to sue (28).The long-time residents o f Sander County were experiencing a general sense ofa collapse in the conventional dependencies and exchanges that had typified lifein Sander County. Understandings of personal injury claims are largely shapedby these societal transformations as the local populace encounters them and alsoby the notion that traditional relati... ...ty (Carter 11).The derision lies in the fact that the power of the insiders as a whole disempowersthe individual, whether the individual is an insider or an outsider. Everymember of Sander County is rather powerless onward the law the efforts to keepthe town safe from change paradoxically caused a lack of trustfulness in the legalprocess. This lack of trust contributes to the cuckoos nest of community that alreadyexisted in Sander County.Law is a verbiage by which we constantly reconstruct our communities(Carter viii). Instead of constructing community through just now legal discourse,Sander County destructed what it had left of a community in a des perate act ofwarding of that which it did not understand (or did not want to understand).Law in practice, in Sander County, does not produce justice it producesdifference. This prevalent inequality, or difference, is a justification oflitigation by insiders in confession of their community (Greenhouse, et al. 175).They fail to see that their myth of community is challenging community.Disempowerment and inequality will not generate trust. Furthermore, of what use,or longevity, is a community without trust?